Detecting Intentions
The reason is there are very static (even if complex, still static) behaviors. Configured with certain scenarios in mind. And people at home are fairly dynamic. By dynamic I mean their behavior (and expectations) change. The simplest example is a party, that usually lasts long into an evening, and people are caught by the HVAC switching to the night mode and lights stopping to react to motion sensors (as they are programmed not to turn on when you turn in bed) and so on...
The other day I wanted to program my water heater timer to avoid it heating the water 24/7. I programmed the week-day hours (morning showers) and afternoon/evening cycles. Then it all failed when on another day I had to wake up early for a morning flight and went to the shower just to face cold water... and at that point it was already too late to start the heater. So I took a cold shower and reprogrammed the system to start heating much earlier. In the end (after similar late night experiences) I ended up with the water heater actually running 24/7 (which covers moving holidays too...).
It seems that really successful full-featured smart homes require a whole lot more of a context to figure out what to do. That means many sensors and also access to both private and public calendars. And probably the biggest challenge is having the users disciplined to keep their calendars organized and up to date. Not many have (or want to have) this discipline.
One could say it is all about understanding the context and detecting intentions. Unfortunately machines are still far away from being able to do this. Well, humans are far from perfect when it comes to detecting intentions of other humans. Sometimes they can get quite close, but that typically that involves a fairly long learning process with lots of emotional negative feedback :)
The bottom line is: smart homes today are like jetpacks and silver suites back in 1950's. I would nit bet on fully-featured smart homes anytime soon. Of course there are nice and practical applications, like video door bells that can be answered anywhere with a smartphone app. But these applications are just small islands. Full feature coverage is not anywhere near.
Same here. I've implemented many 'clever' scenes and ideas just to turn them off eventually. Even if I can follow my rules - three other family members don't want to do that. Or they just forget.
ReplyDeletethe fact that homes are shared spaces with fuzzy rules and power structures makes the challenge far harder. It is hard enough for one person to make their interactions with their tech smooth.
ReplyDeleteA company is easier because the corporation sets rules and if you violate them (don't check in, leave your ID card behind) you don't get paid, or even into the building and ultimately will be fired.
For this reason the sort of home automation that will work is one that makes everyone's life better.
The trash sorter is my dream device, you dump all your waste in the top, and it sorts it and sends it to the right sub bin to be compatible with the local collections system. In my house I guess it is still me who puts the bins out..
Not surprisingly, detecting intentions is a high value target in the context of autonomous vehicles. It is early but there is some research going on: https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/11/21/1820676116. There won't be autonomous driving and similarly autonomous homes until we are able to detect behaviors and intentions. The hardest part of it is capturing feedback.
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