The Shifting Sands of Labour: Changes in Shared Care Work with a Smart Home Health System

Whilst the use of smart home systems has shown promise in recent years supporting older people's activities at home, there is more evidence needed to understand how these systems impact the type and the amount of shared care in the home. It is important to understand care recipients and caregivers' labour is changed with the introduction of a smart home system to efficiently and effectively support an increasingly aging population with technology. Five older households (8 participants) were interviewed before, immediately after and three months after receiving a Smart Home Health System (SHHS). We provide an identification and documentation of critical incidents and barriers that increased inter-household care work and prevented the SHHS from being successfully accepted within homes. Findings are framed within the growing body of work on smart homes for health and care, and we provide implications for designing future systems for shared home care needs.