To provide a great user experience, the smart home must provide many user interfaces. This is because people take the path of least resistance. The best interface to the smart home is the one that is easiest to use, for each person using it, the task at hand and their current situation. This means the best interface may be different for each person, based on their understanding and abilities. It may also change as their circumstances change.
User interfaces need to be intuitive and simple to use. In many cases they also need to be obvious. For example, guests in your smart home may expect to see a light switch on the wall. When they use this light switch, they expect it to work in the same way that light switches normally do. They will also want to be sure that it controls the lighting they expecting.
In the contextual smart home, a zero-touch user experience is possible in many cases and this is always our preferred option. It requires whole home context and an Home Control System that can make intelligent decisions. A zero-touch user experience doesn't mean you have relinquished control. In our home, all of the zero-touch lighting can still be controlled using all of the user interfaces described below.
There are many buttons used around a modern home but few of them are connected. They are typically found on appliances, smart thermostats, etc. One obvious example of a (potentially connected) button is a front door bell.
We have developed connected buttons (both wired and wireless) that can be used for any purpose and also act as sensors, providing occupancy as part of the wider whole home context.
Sometimes buttons and switches merge into a single device and the Aeotec NanoMote Quad (using Z-Wave Plus) is a good example of this. We don't like that this is battery powered and a bit cheap and plastic looking but, devices like this enable you to test out use cases and scenarios before you commit to installing a more stylish and permanent solution.
Touchless buttons are buttons that use capacitive sensors or infra-red sensors to allow them to be operated without being physically touched. They are typically used in bathrooms and toilets but can have many applications. Touchless toilet flushes are a good example.
Amazon Dash Button is a Wi-Fi-connected device that reorders your favourite product with the press of a button. Each Dash Button is paired with a product of your choice, which is selected during the setup process. When you are running low, you simply press the Dash Button to re-order the chosen product.
They are not exactly attractive and have just one purpose in life. They can also be activated by anyone with physical access to them, which is undesirable. Amazon obviously created the concept because it helps Amazon sell products and enforces customer loyalty. The service encourages customers to re-order products without really thinking. This could mean that they are not really thinking about whether they really need the associated product or whether the price is still competitive.
Some people have hacked Amazon Dash Buttons to be repurposed for other things in the smart home.
Whilst many keyfobs interface directly to a specific device, they are much more powerful and useful when the smart Home Control System 'sees' them being used. This allows a much wider range of actions to be taken with whole home context. It also means the same buttons can be used to do different things depending on context.
Keypads provide a simple and easy way for people to interact with some smart home features. The unique ID code entered used can provide occupancy and presence information into the wider and be used to identify individuals and guests.
Many homes have light switches within them. Many are simple, single switches to turning a light on or off. It is quite easy to retain this functionality, whilst making them connected and adding a layer of automation. Things start to get more complicated when a single light is controlled via several switches. A central room with many doors may often have a switch next to each door.
Adding automation to dimmable lighting is also fairly easy if there is one dimmer switch controlling one light or many connected together. Multiple dimmer switches used with one set of lighting is harder to automate. The switch shown here enables both brightness control and colour selection and is used to control our dynamic lighting.
We have developed a solution to enable a much better user experience in a new build home, which also supports multiple switches connected to a single light fitting and also supports light switch control of normal bulbs and smart bulbs as well.
NFC and RFID provide a simple user interface to activate smart home devices and appliances, e.g. smart locks. The unique ID associated with the tags or smartphones used can provide occupancy and presence information into the wider whole home context.
There is more and more smart home functionality being built into Smartphones at the operating system level these days. Both Google and Apple are adding more and more smart home capabilities regularly.
We have spent a lot of time researching iOS shortcuts and can now deliver a personalised user experience to query and control any of the 400+ in our contextual smart home.
Tablets are basically big-screen smartphones. Perhaps the main difference between them as far as the smart home is concerned is that they rarely leave the home. Tablets usually have access control (fingerprint readers, etc.), so that they can provide an authenticated and personalised user experience, allowing roles and permissions to be enforced.
The larger screen can often be useful for some smart home features, such as viewing cameras. They also have the advantage of being a useful, general purpose device that can be used for many other things in the smart home (entertainment, etc.).
A lot of people like wall-mounted touchscreens but, we are not big fans of this type of user interface. It's in a fixed location, which is not always convenient. They are generally open for anybody to access and don't usually provide a personalised user experience.
The other big issue with these user interfaces is keeping them up to date, to reflect your latest smart home configuration.
Devices like the Amazon Echo Show perform a similar set of functions but also act as a speaker for playing music.
Many of the the smart home products on the market come with an app to set them up and use them. These are often used to deliver relevant notifications. The problem with this approach is that users end up with numerous apps to use all the devices and features installed in their smart home. These apps also have varying levels of support for multiple users, permissions and identity.
Realistically, there will never be one 'uber app' to unify all these apps either. They simply have too much functionality and bespoke APIs for any one developer to create such an app.
There are many smart TVs that expose smart home control features and many that can be used as display devices, to show live security camera feeds, etc.
Some people like to use wall mounted touch-screen displays or control panels in their smart home. It looks very dated and is usually used to expose technology. They rarely look attractive and need a permanent power source. This is 'old school' home automation, rather than smart home in our view and is usually done for the 'gadget factor'.
The main disadvantage with control panels are that they have a fixed location and have to be installed in the right place. Users have to then walk over to them to use them. Most of the examples we have seen expose many features to anyone with access (guests, children, etc.) and feature no access control or personalisation. This is a security risk.
They are also another device that will need regular updating as more devices and sensors are installed. Many have dependencies on 3rd party software and also require cloud services to operate.
I guess you could say we are not fans of this approach but, given the right evidence this could change.
There are some devices and services that allow gesture control of things, e.g. TV and entertainment systems. Many games consoles also support gesture control.
Singlecue is a good example of a gesture control device but it has limited smart home integration capability.
In recent years, voice control using 'voice assistants' has been made very popular. Initially by Amazon and its range of Echo devices but, many other devices are now available, including Smartphone based assistants. Many of these devices also incorporate a screen, to provide additional useful information and visual feedback.
We have developed our own AI capability with voice control to address many of the limitations in these consumer products and to allow this capability to work in parallel with all the other types of user interfaces described here.
Whilst developing our AI capability, we quickly realised that voice control isn't always suitable. To address this, we also enable text chat (IM, SMS, etc.) as well.
Our contextual smart home includes a local web server and responsive web-based user interfaces, to enable the dashboard and other web-based displays and 'control panels'.
