Smart Homes

Matt Richard

1


1. The Smart Home Is Going To Be A Huge Boon To Accessibility

2. Summary
I recently stumbled across an article on techcrunch.com written by Steve OHear that I found
very interesting. In this article, OHear talks about the reality of Smart Homes, a house or
building filled with smart devices which are connected to the internet and controlled via a
smartphone (O'Hear). He describes a house where almost everything can be controlled by the
smartphone that is already in the palm of your hand. With this new technology, one can switch
their lights on or off, lock their doors, adjust the thermostat or even check to see if stove was left
on, while not even at the house. Imagine leaving for work and wondering if you left the
television on, instead of worrying if you are wasting electricity, now you can not only check to
see if it is on, but you can turn it off from your smartphone. Have you ever gone on vacation and
forgot if you locked your doors? No longer is that a problem, because as long as you are
connected to the internet, you can lock your doors from any location.
Now this technology is here, but it is still new. There are a couple kinks in the system.
Unless you want to spend a small fortune to buy a fully integrated smart house, you will have
purchase all of the smart devices that go into it. That is where we run into problems. Although
much cheaper, all of these smart devices run on different software from one another. The app
that can lock your doors cant turn off the lights, adjust the thermostat or start playing music
through your sound system. However, according to OHear, Apple has released an app that can
operate the smart devices from one app called HomeKit. OHear also states that both google
and Samsung are working on creating similar software, in order to integrate all of the smart
devices in your home.
3. Additional Internet Articles
1. How Smart Homes Work
Found using google search
http://home.howstuffworks.com/smart-home.htm
2. Controlling the Smart Home With Tablets and Smartphones
Found using yahoo search engine
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/28/technology/personaltech/controlling-the-smart-
home-with-tablets-and-smartphones.html?pagewanted%3Dall&_r=0
3. I found that google gave me more results relevant to my search. With Yahoo, on the
other hand, it was a bit harder to find relevant results with the same search words,
however, the results I found that I actually could use, seemed to be more relevant and
reliable.
Smart Homes
Matt Richard

2




4. Controlling the Smart Home With Tablets and Smartphones TRAAP
a) Published March 27, 2013. Does not seem to have been updated
b) This is very relevant to my topic. Both revolve around the benefits of smart
homes.
c) I think that the author, Nick Wingfield, is qualified to write about this topic. Most
of the articles he has written involve technology of some sort.
d) I am not sure if the article has been tested for accuracy, however I do believe it is
trustworthy because it was published in The New York Times.
e) The article seems to be objective, it also looks to be written to inform.

5. Additional scholarly journal articles
a) Design and evaluation of smart home user interface: effects of age, tasks and
intelligence level.
Was found using the keywords smart homes
http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?vid=73&sid=ae406697-6b90-493d-
8415-
18ec7a8b28f9%40sessionmgr114&hid=101&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU
mc2NvcGU9c2l0ZQ%3d%3d#db=buh&AN=37598295

b) Intelligent supervisory control system for home devices using a cyber physical
approach.
Found using the keywords intelligent homes
http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.ccbcmd.idm.oclc.org/eds/detail/detail?vid=4&sid=9426
d0be-030d-4690-8cff-
db8f3cd02189@sessionmgr4002&hid=4113&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU
mc2NvcGU9c2l0ZQ==#db=aph&AN=73791225

6. Comparing Articles
Both articles I found in the CCBC libraries are very well written. The first article,
Design and evaluation of smart house user interface: effects of age, tasks and
intelligence level was very easy to find and access. I presume it is accurate, as it looks
like a very scholarly article; however it was last updated in May of 2009 and even though
it is relevant to my topic, it branches off into a different idea. After changing my search
terms a little bit, I was able find the second article. This article Intelligent supervisory
Smart Homes
Matt Richard

3

control system for home device using a cyber physical approach is much better. First
off, this article looks a lot more trustworthy than the first. Secondly, it is put together
more efficiently; it is much easier to find the information you need. Along with being
more organized than the first, it is also much more recent, coming from January of 2012.
This article also is much more relevant to my topic than the first.
7.
Bibliography
Bin, Zhang, Pei-Luen Patrick Rau and Gavriel Salvendy. "Design and evalutation of smart home user
interface: effects of age, tasks and intelligence level." Behavior & Information Technology
(2009): 239-249. PDF.
Edmonds, Molly and Nathan Chandler. How Smart Homes Work. 25 March 2008. Internet. 21 September
2014.
Ko, Hoon, et al. "Intelligent sepervisory control system for home devices using a cyber physical
approach." Integrated Computer-Aided Engineering (2012): 67-79. PDF.
O'Hear, Steve. The Smart Home Is Going To Be A Huge Boon To Accessibility . 5 September 2014. 20
September 2014. <techcrunch.com/2014/09/05/smart-accessibilty/>.
Wingfield, Nick. Controlling the 'Smart Home' With Tablets and Smartphones. 27 March 2013. 21
September 2014.