Making Smart Homes personal: Fabrication and Customisation of Home Interfaces

Abstract

In this position paper, we propose the use of personal fabrication and hyper-customisation of household physical interfaces as means to accommodate the current and future needs of inhabitants of smart homes. Allowing end-users to customise interactions to fit their needs ensures a strong personal connection between the smart home and the people who interact with it on a daily basis. Additionally, providing users the opportunity to fabricate low-cost hardware allows them to upgrade, modify, or redesign these interfaces as and when their needs evolve. We present the Design– Deploy–Dispose cycle as a model that allows end-users to design smart home interfaces according to their needs, and to revise them as these needs evolve.