Probing IoT-based consumer services: ‘insights’ from the connected shower

Abstract

This paper presents findings from the deployment of a technology probe-the connected shower-and implications for the development of 'living services' or autonomous context-aware consumer-oriented IoT services that exploit sensing to gain consumer 'insight' and drive personalised service innovation. It contributes to the literature on water sustainability and the potential role and barriers to the adoption of smart showers in domestic life. It also contributes to our understanding of context, which enables user activity to be discriminated and elaborated thereby furnishing the 'insight' living services require for their successful operation. Problematically, however, our study shows that context is not a property of sensor data. Rather than provide contextual insights into showering, the sensor data requires contextualisation to discriminate and elaborate user activity. Thus, in addition to examining the potential of the connected shower in everyday life, we consider how sensor data is contextualised through the doing of data work and the relevance of its interactional accomplishment and organisation to the design of living services.

The cardboard box study: understanding collaborative data management in the connected home

“…We then turned to the Internet to identify IoT devices and products for the home and the data they generate, including the Internet of Useless Things [38], the Internet of Shit [37] and Postscapes [56], which allowed us to identify a broad range of connected devices that would generate data about everyday activities across the home. We also took research that we knew of into account, such as the Predictive Shopping List [20], the Living Room of the Future [59] and the Connected Shower [15]. We categorised devices and data into different types, online, wearable, environmental, smart products and appliances, vehicles, etc., as a means of collating the results of our survey (we use the term loosely) and parsing the rather large collection of discrete data sources finding their way into the connected home.…”