Towards Smart Home Appliances

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Towards Smart Home Appliances

• A review on
• Notes on Fridge Surfaces
• By Laurel Swan and Alex S. Taylor
• CHI 2005 Late Breaking Results Posters
• Presented by Rukmal Fernando

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The background
"Hello, this is Acme Appliance Service. I'm here
to repair your refrigerator." "There must be some
mistake. I didn't call for service, and my
refrigerator is working fine." "No, your
refrigerator called us. The compressor is failing
and will likely break down next week. Its sensors
detected the problem and contacted the
manufacturer for warranty service."

• The self-monitoring and reporting fridge
• http//www.skidmore.edu/ldg/future/intelligent-ap
  pls.html, Leo D. Geoffrion, circa December 2001

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The background, continued

• Cool I/O a Fridge that tracks its contents by
  scanning Barcodes
• Joseph Kaye at MIT Media Lab, Summer 97
• We found that this user interface was entirely
  impractical, and massively inadequate for any
  consumer use. We expect that a fridge that knows
  what it contains will have to rely on an
  RFID-like tagging scheme.
• http//www.media.mit.edu/ci/papers/whitepaper/ci13
  .htm
• Reported by Boston.com in 1999 too -
  http//graphics.boston.com/technology/packages/cli
  ck/hometech/kitchen.shtml

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And today?

• Anyone seen any of these in consumer use?
• Froogle search for smart OR intelligent
  refrigerator brought up a few smart fridges
• But not the kind of smart that was envisioned 8
  to 10 years ago

Joseph Kaye We found that this user interface
was entirely impractical, and massively
inadequate for any consumer use.
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The paper

• The importance of refrigerators as a hub
• Shifting focus from a truly smart appliance to a
  central and shared surface
• Agrees with Fayes conclusion
• Disagrees on suppositions of role of an augmented
  fridge
• Highlights need to study fridge surfaces
• Conclusions applicable for other home-based
  interactive surfaces

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Whats special about a fridge?
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Example 1 - Aimee

• Weekly schedule placed on fridge door
• Most often used by the mother
• During breakfast
• Because of breakfast
• Unavoidable presentation of information

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Example 2 - Olivia
Letters, notes, lists, invitations, train
tickets, magnets
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Olivia Madness or method?

• Theoretical order of surfaces
• Top left for childrens schooling, family and
  household materials
• Children have reign over lower regions
• Dad has a little corner too

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Working Areas

• Surface or region used to support organization of
  activities
• Items can move through different regions to
  signify states
• E.g. Unaccepted invitation on Working area
  moves to Display area once accepted, serving as
  a reminder

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Working Areas

• Some information shared with other household
  information sources
• E.g. Confirmed invitation is noted on a
  household calendar or diary
• Invitation displayed on fridge
• Redundant or multiple ways of showing the same
  information?
• One weakness these relationships are not visible

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The positioning of the refrigerator

• Adjoining horizontal and vertical surfaces can be
  combined into something more than its sum
• Fridge door towards kitchen table

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Working vs. sentimental information
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Working vs. sentimental information

• The calligraphy that Nicola cannot put anywhere
  else
• Other such miscellaneous items discovered in
  other studies
• Items are added bit by bit over long time spans
• Some are discarded early (e.g. school trip
  notice) while others remain for years
• What we see is a snapshot
• Fridge surface is therefore an assemblage

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Why the fridge?

• Large, public surface on which practical,
  sentimental, historic, functional and playful
  material can be arranged in a number of ways
• Why not a wall, door or a bulletin board?
• Answer Magnets!
• Simplicity, informality, fluidity
• Fine balance of persistence and reconfiguration
• No damage to surface, very easy
• Compatibility with fridge surfaces

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Information placement as a social interaction

• Order of the surfaces / regions can be contested
• Items can move through regions over time
• Recap David attaches an event leaflet to the
  wrong region!
• Possibilities Child attaches note from school
  (!) to working area for parents to see and act
  on

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Lessons learnt

• Central location and frequent effortless use make
  a good display
• Support informal interactions
• Ease of adding or reorganizing information
  virtual magnets are required
• Providing of accountability to information
  Multiple views of shared information
• Anything else that I have missed? ?

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Personal Observations

• My parents fridge is bare!
• Where I am staying
• Reminders
• Important telephone numbers
• Pens and pencils in a small holder
• Vitamin chart
• Holder for letters to be attended to
• Etc

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Where I am staying
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The conclusion

• Fridges help us to learn a lot about how people
  interact with displays
• More lessons to learn from others like
• Apple iPhone
• Microsoft Surface (http//www.microsoft.com/surfac
  e)
• Location, ease of use, informality seem to be
  important

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Thank you!

• Comments?
• Questions?
• Rants?
• Demo of Microsoft Surface available ?