# Notes de lecture - Smart homes

[ToC]

## Towards Sustainability in Buildings: a Case Study on the Impacts of Smart Home Automation Systems

[à lire]

## Smart home technology—comparing householder expectations at the point of installation with experiences 1 year later

A ‘Smart Home’ utilises information and communication technologies either internal or external to the home to enable remote monitoring, automation, and control of appliances and services. An increasing number of householders are interested in the comfort, convenience, security, energy saving, and assisted living that a smart home can provide.

two of the prevailing barriers to adoption recognised as the lack of understanding of user needs and difficulties associated with retrofitting smart products and services into existing housing stock

Wilson et al., in a national survey, highlighted that prospective users perceived there to be a range of benefits from smart homes, including saving energy, time, and money, and reducing the effort associated with domestic life. However, they also showed that prospective users saw a range of potential risks with smart homes, including increasing dependence on technology, energy networks, and external ‘experts’. These findings are in line with those of Balta-Ozkan et al.

In particular, user experience is dynamic and changes over time; therefore, research in human-computer interaction should give more attention to the study of changes over longer periods of time

The project conducted a field study of 2
½ years total duration and deployed SHT in a sample of 20 dwellings. RWE Smarthome™ devices2 were fitted within each home to provide heating system management, allow zonal thermal control, and provide home security features. The devices included one central controller and several battery-operated remote units. A typical installation comprised nine radiator thermostats with temperature and air humidity sensor, three room thermostats to control radiators in a particular room or zone, six indoor and one outdoor motion detectors with integrated brightness sensor, door and window contact sensors to record opening and closing events, one smoke detector and alarm, two wall-mounted transmitters working as physical switches to trigger actions, and one remote control providing eight buttons which could be configured to control devices in the RWE system. Additional devices include Z-Wave Vera™ controllers3 linked to smart plugs to give remote and automated control over selected appliances and Current Cost units to monitor electricity consumption. British Gas Hive Active Heating system5 was also offered to provide advanced control of boilers, and it was subsequently installed in 15 homes that agreed to have this technology.

the final sample consisted of n = 14 households where at least one of the adults self-declared themselves as experienced and n = 6 inexperienced. In addition, the presence of children in the household has been shown to influence the dynamics of energy consumption

The results from this study show that many of the participants’expectations of benefits to be obtained from the SHT (pre-installation phase) were met after living with it for approximately a year. These benefits included improved comfort and convenience, in line with previous research

However, it was clear that the extent to which initial expectations regarding benefits were actually met was dependent on factors relating to lifestyle, household makeup, and house characteristics.

Families with varied routines in large houses had more variability in terms of their heating demand schedules and zones—individuals are in different areas of the house at different times of the day. This variability (whether predictable or unpredictable) presented an opportunity for savings using occupancy-sensitive SHT and enabled initial expectations to be fulfilled in terms of comfort, convenience, control, and remote management. By contrast, there was a greater disappointment in relation to initial expectations for occupants with fixed routines and regular schedules: they were relatively unsatisfied with the added value derived from the SHT

Similarly to literature that reports that users find heating systems too complex [28], difficult to operate [29], and prone
to user error [30], the difficulty managing the systems was voiced by the majority of households. However, some issues that were clear obstacles at the time of implementation were subsequently overcome

Results showed that approximately a year after installation, many of the initial expectations of the benefits were met, including thermal comfort, operational convenience, fine control of temperature in zones, remote control, and feedback on energy use. When expectations were not met, this was usually due to the effort required to set up and control systems, rather than the lack of functionality.

## Smart home technologies in Europe: A critical review of concepts, benefits, risks and policies

Smart home technologies refer to devices that provide some degree of digitally connected or enhanced services to occupants, and are often synonymous with “home automation systems

Market analysts Berg Insight estimate that at the end of 2017 there were 22.5 million smart homes in Europe alone, or 9.9% of European households. They forecast a growth of ~30% a year, or 84 million smart homes by 2022, with France, Germany, and the United Kingdom leading the European market.

We collected primary data from 31 formal semi-structured research interviews with experts across six types of institutions, as well as structured site visits to 37 retail smart home technology providers across Bristol, Brighton, the greater London area, and Manchester in the United Kingdom. We supplemented this with an interdisciplinary review of the recent academic and policy literature on smart homes.

Since the 1990s and 2000s, smart homes have again arisen as cor- nerstones of making homes both more efficient (and lower in terms of energy consumption or carbon emissions) as well as more pleasurable and enjoyable.

modern SHTs seem to possess at least three core attributes. They enable a greater degree of control or functionality via monitoring and sensor interfaces. They are networked or layered, connecting different technological features in a way to optimize service delivery and or performance. In other terms, they layer together energy systems, digital systems, in- formation systems, Internet of Things, data sharing, and even non-digital infrastructure. They finally can empower, enabling or facilitating users changing their behavior, or doing things they could not do before.

++6 levels of home smartness++:
A level 1 home has a few smart home devices, such as a television or baby monitor or a solar photovoltaic (PV) system, and perhaps basic levels of feedback, but occupants still decide in an analogue way how to engage, and the technologies are not interconnected and remain in silos.

A level 2 home starts to see technologies bundled together and integrated to better provide some household services, such as heat (perhaps a smart meter with in-home display plus heat pump and advanced thermometer) or entertainment (perhaps a smart TV coupled with an internet router, audio sound system, laptop, and mobile phone).

A level 3 home moves towards some degree of greater automation, with systems beginning to interconnect and even anticipate certain needs, such as turning lights or appliances on a few moments before an occupant returns home. A level 3 home can also be programmed to meet certain preferences across multiple devices, including different temperatures in different rooms.

A level 4 home sees systems begin to actually learn for themselves and adapt their provision of services to context, i.e. turning the lights on if a storm is coming, or turning them back off when the sun comes out. It is at this level where sensors and monitors can enable technology to know the conditions of the home, and feedback loops can facilitate some learning so it becomes more autonomous and can adapt to what it thinks you want.

A level 5 home becomes almost sentient, and can automatically meet and even anticipate all household needs. At this highest level, monitoring, feedback and learning coalesce across multiple integrated systems (heating, lighting, gardening, mobility) so that the house itself can seamlessly provide services. Homes at this level would most likely start talking to occupants, and also perhaps each other.

Some respondents discussed a possible sixth level, beyond that of a single home, of smart neighbourhoods, communities, and cities.

++13 smart home benefits discussed by experts++:
* Energy savings
* Convenience & controllability
* Financial benefits for grids, networks, operators
* Environmental benefits including carbon, pollution, waste
* Aethetics including style, design, feel, and fashion
* Health benefits and assisted living
* Social benefits including inclusion, networking, status
* Educational benefits and learning
* Entertainement incluing music, movies, streaming
* Safety and security
* Other enhanced experiences (e.g., shopping)
* Free services or promotional gifts

The most prominent benefit mentioned was the ability for smart home technologies to better manage energy services or reduce energy consumption.

Environmental benefits included displaced carbon, pollution, or waste, achieved through a mix of better monitoring, better energy management systems, and greater control over the sources of domestic carbon emissions. Energy savings are predicted as remotely accessible apps and displays raise household awareness of their energy consumption and allow them response from a distance, and allow for real-time notifications.

++17 smart home barriers discussed by experts++:
* Privacy, securiy, hacking
* Technical reliability, warranties and obsolescence
* Usability, user acceptance and learning
* Elitism, incumbency, barriers to market, erosion of democracy
* Uncertainty, lack of sharing, difficulty monetizing benefits
* Interoperability and resilience
* Energy rebounds and wasteful consumption
* Loss of personal control and autonomy
* Resource intensity, materiality and sustainability
* Lack of home ownership
* Cultural diffrences to global diffusion
* Poor connectivity, lack of standardization and supply chains
* Corporate longevity, accountability and consumer choice
* High cost
* Fear of new technology
* Social isolation and loneliness
* Health

Whether users will adopt and embrace this motley collection of de- vices, however, is uncertain, all the more so since adoption is a complex process that cuts across many of the dimensions we examined in this study.
* Concerns about privacy, security, and hacking must be addressed
* Smart home technology must operate reliability and intuitively, with strong warranties and built in longevity
* Users will not just magically absorb new technologies into their homes and lifestyles, instead learning and acceptance need to occur
* Efforts must be made to ensure markets for the technology remain open and transparent, and threats to democracy and surveillance capitalism identified and managed
* Interoperability needs assured across multiple levels, including between non-smart and smart devices, smart devices and each other, and smart devices and different systems across various suppliers and layered infrastructures (such as electricity, heat, internet, and so on)
* Energy rebounds and wasteful consumption must be reduced, perhaps through better standards, information to users, or even built in “scripts” that shut off devices that lead to excessive consumption or carbon emissions
* Similarly, material inputs and the backside of the digital economy need managed sustainably, especially flows of electronic waste and the energy needed for data centers and ICT
* Interventions need targeted to ensure a digital divide does not worsen and that poor, vulnerable, or otherwise excluded groups can benefit fully from emerging smart home options

## A systematic review of the smart energy conservation system: From smart homes to sustainable smart cities

According to Ford et al. [14], intro- ducing smart home products (e.g., smart appliances and load moni- toring) in traditional housing facilities results in energy savings of about 12%–20%.

this study reviews the level of the current technological development of smart energy conservation systems by conducting quantitative and qualitative reviews (refer to Fig. 1). First, research themes for energy conservation systems in domains of smart home and smart city were defined through systematic quantitative literature re- view using the strategic diagram. Second, through qualitative reviews of filtered research papers, we explore and present innovative solutions for the barriers that energy conservation systems of smart home must overcome to construct a sustainable smart city. Finally, various future research directions were proposed for the application of such technol- ogies to sustainable smart cities.

Based on the results of qualitative reviews, Fig. 5 shows the conceptual diagram for the following five technical and functional variables of smart energy conservation systems in smart homes: (i) microgrid; (ii) HEMS; (iii) demand response; (iv) consumer behavior; and (v) forecasting.

Three overarching barriers toward smart cities were as follows: (i) Interoperability, (ii) Flexibility, and (iii) Decentralization. To overcome these barriers of the progression of smart homes to sustainable smart cities, this study proposed innovative technical and regulatory solutions (i.e., construction of infrastructure for advanced energy conservation systems and new strategy for energy trading in distributed energy sys- tems) for the suitable application of the advanced energy conservation system in the sustainable smart city. Finally, future research challenges from using the bottom-up approach were proposed that considered the occupants’ behavior and energy in a sustainable smart city.

## A systematic review of the smart home literature: A user perspective

The benefit of energy efficiency has become possible through the implementation of four services: 1) monitoring the information on energy consumption, 2) controlling the consumption patterns through remote devices and direct control, 3) management of the service, aimed at achieving efficiency and optimi- sation, and 4) consultancy (Zhou et al., 2016; El-hawary, 2014).

Despite the on-going discussion about the role of smart home technology in ecological sustainability, a number of studies adopt a user's perspective by differentiating the perceived benefits from the potential ones (Balta-Ozkan et al., 2014; Balta-Ozkan et al., 2013a; Paetz et al., 2011; Paetz et al., 2012). A comparative study revealed that among users from different countries, rural and urban areas have dif- ferent attitudes towards the environmental benefit (Balta-Ozkan et al., 2014).

Technological barriers:
* Security
* Usability
* Privacy intrusion
* Reliability
* Complexity

Financial, ehical and legal barreirs:
* Price
* Cost of installation
* Cost of repair and maintenance
* Concern about misuse of private data
* Requirement for formal consent from patients
* Lack of legal conduct
* Uncertainty with regulation conflicts between smart homes service providers and users

Knowledge gap and psychological resistance
* Human barrier
* Resistance to using innovative technology
* Lack of prior knowledge or/and experience

## Are households ready to engage with smart home technology?

The present study contributes to understanding this area by developing and empirically testing a comprehensive model of consumer smart home adoption, drawing from major frameworks and concepts in the literature, namely: the technology readiness index (TRI) (Parasuraman, 2000; Parasuraman & Colby, 2015), to examine whether consumers wish to engage; consumer engagement (Brodie, Ilić, Jurić, & Hollebeek, 2013; Hollebeek, Glynn, & Brodie, 2014), to show how consumers see them- selves engaging; and trust and risk (Pavlou, 2003), to examine factors that may be motivating or demotivating for adoption and engagement.

The data were collected in January 2019 from Australian consumers. [...] Prior to filling out the survey, participants were provided a description of smart home technologies and examples of common products in the marketplace, such as Google Home and Amazon Echo. [...] The final sample consisted of data from 445 consumers who did not currently own smart home technology.

## Towards Sustainability in Buildings: a Case Study on the Impacts of Smart Home Automation Systems

Trop mauvais pour être pris en compte

## A comparison of consumer perceptions towards smart homes in the UK, Germany and Italy: reflections for policy and future research

Indeed, according to ITU (2010), a smart home can offer various services such as the granular control of smart appliances (such as heaters, air conditioners, washers, and other appliances), the ability to remotely manage electrical devices, the display of consumption data and associated costs, as well as communication between plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and their charging station and any on-site micro-generation (e.g. rooftop solar panels).

[...] only via adopting a wider socio-technical framework one can appreciate the interdependencies between social, organisational, commercial, regulatory, financial, legal and political factors as well as technical ones. This implies that in identical markets, different types of smart services might emerge due to the rules on access to householder data (by whom, at what frequency and latency); the availability and cost of capital and investment in necessary grid and communica- tions infrastructures to support different smart services; the effectiveness of policy measures and incentives to drive up the deployment of low carbon and smart technologies; and development of new services and products in the market place.

Heinonen et al. (2013) claim that housing types, com- muting distances, availability of different goods and services, social contacts and emulation, and the alternatives for pastimes are embedded in behavioural patterns, time allocation and purchas- ing decisions.

Recognising the role of urban forms on energy demands and emissions, Heinonen et al. (2013) argue that lifestyles are ‘situated’. They distinguish between four types of urban forms: metropolitan, urban, semi-urban and rural.

The participatory research was conducted in a total of six workshops (two per country) across the UK, Germany and Italy. Each workshop took place on a different day, lasting 4–4.5 hours each (including breaks). There were 24–30 participants in each workshop.

Our study reveals a wide ranging variation in householder preferences and acceptance of smart home technology and services across these countries. It is clear that there is going to be more than one pathway to deliver smart home technologies in Europe and that policies should leave all path- ways open. On the other hand, expectations from the UK government to lead smart energy system transition points to the importance of long-term engagement processes and institutional reform (e.g. Whitmarsh et al. 2011) to explain householder as well as societal benefits of smart energy system delivery so that the efficacy of collective action (against individual action) becomes a social norm.

## Categories and functionality of smart home technology for energy management

One major benefit of smart products is the potential to support energy reductions and demand-side management (DSM). For users, this can help deliver cost savings on energy bills, particularly in regions where time of use tariffs are present and load shifting would allow users to take advantage of cheaper time-periods for running appliances [43,58]. Utilities and grid operators have the potential to leveraging two-way communication with customers, facilitating real-time data transmission, enabling data analytics, and delivering greater control over power flows in the electricity network [53,78]. In addition to energy monitoring and cost savings, smart home technologies have the potential to deliver benefits such as convenience, control, security and monitoring, environmental protection, and simply enjoyment from engaging with the tech- nology itself [27,28,50].

There has been a lack of demonstration of energy and other user benefits in naturalistic settings, and the ability to deliver flexibility to the grid through demand side management has yet to be proven at scale in the residential sector.

The aim of this paper was to explore the range of home energy management technologies on the market, and identify how their functionalities may support energy reductions and load shifting opportunities. Cataloguing and analysing individual the product landscape is a key step to understanding and leveraging their use for energy efficiency and demand response. The current analysis presented information on 308 HEM technologies across 11 product categories and coded them on 50 key attributes, thus significantly increasing our understanding on how HEM technologies can currently be leveraged for energy savings.

While it is clear that there are opportunities for products to help users manage home energy use, their full potential may be limited by a lack of information related to energy, conflicting value prop- ositions resulting in the increase in energy use in order to make homes more secure and comfortable, and minimal interactions with demand shifting programmes. The true potential for demand side flexibility will be driven by how users interact with these products. Future research should identify how home energy man- agement technologies are implemented in homes, and explore how the addition of prompts, incentives (e.g. through time-of-use tar- iffs), and easy to implement rules (e.g. automating appliances to reduce operation when time-of-use electricity prices are high) can help stimulate further benefits to both users and the grid.

## Culture, energy and climate sustainability, and smart home technologies: A mixed methods comparison of four countries

SHTs need to possess four of the following elements to be considered “smart”: 1- be digitally connected; 2- provide enhanced control to users; 3- allow auto- mated processes and; 4- have the capability to learn.

Sovacool and Furszyfer Del Rio [10] identified 13 categories of SHTs, namely: safety and security, household appliances, baby and pet monitors, home robots, gardening, energy and utilities, lighting, entertainment, health and wellness, clothes and ac- cessories, vehicles and drones, integrated solutions, and “others,” which are visualized in Fig. 1.

In total, we conducted 38 interviews from November 2018 to Au- gust 2020. Most of the participants were not known to the authors, and were selected based on their expertise rather than a snowballing methodology.

Taking a broader view of sustainability, the spectrum of ‘smart’ tech- nologies can be contested across all stages: from conception when soft- ware algorithms are trained [110] and resources are extracted for prod- ucts [111] to the electricity demanded from data centres [112–114]. Human exploitation [114] and the impacts of artificial intelligence (AI) on human rights [115] are also significant considerations not directly related to energy. All of these issues ultimately must be considered when reviewing the sustainability SHTs.

As noted by Sovacool and Griffiths [24], culture can reflect “local societal practices, beliefs and behavioral routines, as well as their socio-material or socio-technical manifestations”, which in turn, can influence different dimensions of sustainability.

An important benefit identified for SHTs was their ability to promote more sustainable behaviors. Indeed, SHTs could benefit users in myriad ways, but most notably, by shifting towards more sustainable lifestyles through personalized feedback and the social pressure of comparative information [93,94]. SHTs combined with smart meters are also central to the operation of smart electricity grids that leverage demand response to help balance intermittent renewable energy [189–190].

Contrary to sustainability, energy rebounds and wasteful consump- tion were raised as an issue in more than half of our interviews. This refers to the fact that many SHTs are not about saving energy or be- coming more sustainable, but prioritizing other issues such as comfort, luxury, or convenience.

A related concern with SHTs was their disposability and short prod- uct lifetimes. This is closely related to the lack of regulation of planned obsolesce. Improving product durability and reparability can save nat- ural resources and money for consumers [191]

*Voir figure 6 !*

## Smart home technologies in everyday life: do they address key energy challenges in households?

SHTs incorporate ICTs, sensors and networking capabil- ity to automatically and/or remotely control the operation of home appliances like lights, heating and air condition- ing systems. This is usually done via smartphone apps, some other kind of touchscreen panel or interface, or through digital voice assistants (e.g. Google Home and Amazon Alexa). Initially developed for luxury ‘smart homes’ [12], SHTs are now marketed more broadly as home electronics ‘accessories’ and devices, where they promise to ‘significantly enhance domestic comfort, con- venience, security and leisure whilst simultaneously reducing energy use through optimized home energy management’ [13]. They are also being sold and operated in tandem with cognate devices such as smart meters, in-home displays (IHD) that are expected to help households visualize data and gain knowledge on their own energy consumption patterns.

In a recent review by Darby [12] notes the scarcity of evaluations ‘of smart home initiatives in terms of end-use efficiency’ and the ‘striking contrast between the many research papers that estimate potential benefits from smart appliances/systems on the basis of simulations or trials in carefully controlled laboratory conditions and the handful that report on measured performance and accept- ability in real-life conditions’.

While SHTs may have the capability to reduce energy use through efficiency improvements and automation features, there is a range of additional services these technologies provide which can increase energy consumption, thus undermining climate change mitigation targets, and are not well suited for energy poverty alleviation ambitions.

## Optimization methods for power scheduling problems in smart home: T Survey

The power consumption of users can be optimized by scheduling their smart appliances operating time in their smart homes and shifting the load from peak to off-peak periods using the dynamic pricing scheme...

This optimization problem is called the power scheduling problem in a smart home (PSPSH). PSPSH is formulated as an optimization problem to find the best schedule for smart appliances from all feasible schedules.

In this survey, the methods used to address PSPSH are classified into two classes; (i) exact algorithms and (ii) metaheuristic algorithms. The latter is classified into local search-based, population-based, and hybrid metaheuristic algorithms...

Users can control and monitor smart home appliances remotely through the home energy management system (HEMS), which provides a remote monitoring system that uses telecommunication technology

HEMS comprises hardware and software that allows users to efficiently manage their power consumption by controlling smart home appliances operation time

This study provides a comprehensive overview of PSPSH. PSPSH is a problem in scheduling the operations of smart home appliances at ap- propriate periods in a predefined time horizon in accordance with a dynamic price scheme or another incentive method to reduce EB and PAR and improve the satisfaction level of users.

## Non-intrusive load monitoring through home energy management systems: A comprehensive review

Non-intrusive Load Monitoring (NILM) technology is the practice of disaggregating household total electrical load measured at a single point into individual appliances signals, using the combination of an electrical acquisition system and signal processing algorithms

this paper discusses major primary steps required for a successful NILM considering both technical and environmental concerns.

The promise of Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring (NILM) approach eases the effective cooperation among stakeholders in electrical energy industry in the context of Home Energy Management System (HEMS) and gives a new force to inevitable move toward Smart Home (SH) concept. Accordingly, in this paper we conducted a thorough study on major issues required to achieve an actual NILM.

the paper investigated the prerequisite necessities and final constructive expectations of the NILM system in order to realize an effective NILM