Casalendar: a temporal interface for automated homes

Abstract

Smart homes with advanced building technologies can react to sensor triggers in a variety of preconfigured ways. These rules are usually only visible within designated configuration interfaces. For this reason inhabitants who are not actively involved in the configuration process can be taken by surprise by the effects of such rules, such as for example the unexpected automated actions of lights or shades. To provide these inhabitants with better means to understand their home, as well as to increase their motivation to actively engage with its configuration, we propose Casalendar, a visualization that integrates the status of smart home technologies into the familiar interface of a calendar. We present our design and initial findings about the application of a temporal metaphor in smart home interfaces.