Smarter Homes by Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino

Author:Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781484233634
Publisher: Apress

Human Computer Interactions

As home computers were becoming ubiquitous, a community of reseachers were exploring new ways in which the miniaturization of the computer might lead to a new breed of products to be developed. This community, although not initially focused on the home space, would end up creating tools that would take the computer into the very appliances and home products that had remained untouched since the late 1950s.

The idea of a smart home that was an all-encompassing change that one would make to a home—updating the wiring, introducing new cabling, living with a heavily predetermined set of automated behavior and relationships—was changed into a piecemeal experience, one appliance at a time. These appliances were developed not by the same researchers but by a new breed of entrepreneurs supported by new tools we will explore later in this chapter.

In the late 1990s, the field of what had been called “Human Computer Interaction” was concerned with the impact of “user-centered” experiences on how computer-based systems developed. Put another way, how computer systems should be designed to be used more easily. In 1996, Xerox Parc researcher Mark Weiser published a number of papers and articles on what he called “ubiquitous computing ” and “calm technology .” Describing the “smart house” in an article, 1 he talked of how we might interact not just with one computer but a series of embedded computers: Dwelling with computers, they become part of the informing environment, like weather, like street sounds. A house that is true to its house nature must have a certain quiet, even stolidness. Through a thousand subtle cues, computers will help turn our houses into homes.[...]

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