In the smart home, the User Experience (UX) is everything. It MUST be simple and intuitive. The smart home is NOT about the technology but, what the technology can do for you. The technology must work for the people, not the other way around. Only then, do all the benefits of having a smart home get realised.
Before we install any new smart home technology in our home, we ask ourselves just one simple question: "Does it improve our quality of life?" If the answer is no, then we won't install it. The ONLY exception to this is when can't answer this question and want to test it, to see if it does improve our quality of life.
To provide a great user experience, the smart home must provide many user interfaces. This is because the best interface to your smart home is the one that is easiest to use for the person using it, the task at hand and their current situation. This means that it is a personal choice and your choice may change with a change in your circumstances.
A zero touch user experience is where services and features just work around you without any user interaction. The great thing about a zero touch user experience is that it can work equally well for everyone, regardless of age, mental ability, physical ability, etc. A zero touch user experience is only really achievable in a contextual smart home because it has the required information and context to act intelligently, something we call 'whole home context'. There are some simpler examples of automation where this is possible using the basic hardware alone though. For a great user experience, all the information and context needs to be readily available in real-time, for minimal latency.
