ANDREA BETTINELLI
MATR. 874902
INTEGRATED PRODUCT DESIGN
A.A. 2018-2019
A new way
Index
0. Abstract
1.Introduction
1.1 Domestic environment
1.2 Smart home objects
2.Smart devices and the rise of IOT
2.1 Iot and his meaning
2.1.1 Origin of IOT
2.1.2 How objects enter the web
2.1.3 Internet over products
2.1.4 Smart products and IOT
2.2 Types of smart objects
2.3 From objects to services
2.4 The value of limited features
2.5 Towards an autonomous future?
2.6 The power of data
2.7 New interactions
2.7.1 Smart interactions
2.7.2 New archetypes
3. Technology and environment
3.1 The human footprint
3.2 IOT in a changing world
3.2.1 From companies to homes
3.3 Smart sustainability design
3.3.1 Smart for energy
3.3.2 Smart for resources
3.4 Human water footprint
3.4.1 Water use: the big picture
3.4.2 Water use: the smaller picture
3.4.3 Indoor use
4. The bathroom environment
4.1 Towards a smart bathroom
4.2 Inside the bathroom: resources and issues
4.2.1 Bathroom water
4.2.2 Bathroom air
4.2.3
Hygiene
5. AQWA project
5.1 AQWA wall
5.1.1
Structure
5.1.2
Interface
5.1.3
Installation
5.1.4
Purpose
5.1.5 Efficiency levels and LCA
5.2 AQWA connect
5.2.1
Components
5.2.2
Interface
5.2.3
Installation
5.2.4
Purpose
5.3 AQWA air
5.3.1
Component
5.3.2
Installation
5.3.3
Purpose
5.4 AQWA service
5.4.1 The customer
5.4.2 Business model
5.4.3
Stakeholders
5.4.4 Overall service
5.4.5 Visualize results: the app
5.5. Competitors
5.5.1 Dehumidifier competitors
5.5.2 Hygienizer competitors
5.5.3 Reduce water consumption competors
5.5.4 Toilet flush system
6. Conclusions
Bibliography
Sitography
Images
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Abstract
Inside the domestic environment, water consumption is one of the most important subjects regarding sustainability. Today we can see that the water consumption pro-capita on average has decreased compared to the past1 thanks to a new environmental awareness of
the citizen and also thanks to new technological advancements (i.e. water flow reduction of the running water, nebulized water faucet, but also advancements in all the process of water treatment and purifi-cation).
In this specific context, the bathroom is one of the home environmen-ts where water consumption thematic is clearly present. Inside this room the majority or water consumption is linked to personal cleaning (shower, water faucet), where water is consumed in large quantities though a short period of time (up to 60 liters of water in just 10 mi-nutes2).
Commonly, this amount of water (also heated, even more “expensive” for the environment) is usually wasted, or at least needs to be purified before even going back to the public water distribution system. In this scenario, AQWA project becomes an element that partially tries to solve the water consumption issue, using a simple yet effective method. Part of the water that is used in the shower has the tenden-cy to evaporate and condensate inside the bathroom. This moisture becomes and issue for the user. AQWA transforms this issue in an opportunity: the water that is suspended in the air is partially harve-sted (dehumidification system) but at the same time is not easy to use (dehumidified water cannot be drink).
Therefore, this water is used in the toilet flushing system. With this ap-proach, the water collected form shower humidity will reduce sensibly the amount of water used in the flushing toilet.
The placement of AQWA inside the bathroom, near the toilet, in the same place of the flushing plate, allows even another function: air hy-gienization of the airborne germs that are present near the toilet bowl. AQWA is a new system that thinks about the air in the bathroom, creating a better experience of this room.
1. 15% decrease only from 1999, Bennet, Bracciano, 2016. 2. Istat, 2018.
3. The three levels of the emotional design for Donald A. Norman. 4. Analysis from: Soldados, J. (2017) “IoT beyond sensors and passive devices – The rise of smart objects”.5. Smart home market has been rising 52% (from 2018 to 2019), engage.it
1. Introduction
1.1 Domestic environment
The home is the place where we live, it’s the central place of our life.
This is the space where we can find different elements that define to our daily life. Every day we interact with objects and environments that are familiar with us: in our home in the living room there is a tv that we learnt how to use, it’s ours space and our objects.
This kind of perception of the environment make us feel in control of our private space: we know what we have and what to expect from our objects. We are used to sounds and interactions that our daily objects have with us. Today we cannot talk anymore about objects that are simply fixed, without any other interaction other than the active user (a normal desk lamp works with the interaction of the user, that switches it on or off based on his desire). We are starting to see objects that go beyond the simple human interaction to exist and work: today “smart” desk lamps can be activated depending on the time of the day and presence of a person, changing and adapting light to suit the best conditions of surrounding environment).
“Smart” objects are becoming more and more widespread in our society. We can talk about a paradigm change: from passive objects to active objects. If we talk about a common product like a lamp, this one will be dependent on the direct use of the person that interacts with it. The product starts to “live” when the user switches it on,. We, as humans, are the active part of the interaction that happens inside everyday objects.
What becomes central in this interaction process is the emotional part that we can perceive (Norman, 2004). When we interact with an object we create a multi-layered understanding and relation with the object itself: this processing action can be divide in three parts or steps. The visceral one, more spontaneous reaction to an object; the behavioral one, based on the effectiveness of use of the product; and the reflective one, the most rational process, not immediate but understood through a period of time3.
Since we can perceive an emotional link with the objects in our daily life, this aspect becomes even more interesting when we talk about the change that is happening in our objects.
The transformation of the modern everyday objects from “passive” to inter”acti-ve” marks a very interesting passage from a world in which the user is the author of his daily routine to the user and the objects co-authors of the daily life. A clear example that can clarify this aspect is, without any doubt, the rise of smart cellphones in the modern society. They transformed from an object with which a person can talk to other people to a platform where conversation via talking is the least of the feature present: today a phone is our interconnected counterpart
that gives us information, suggestions, keeps us connected in a infrastructure built around the internet.
This change of perspective in our daily life and in our personal interaction with the objects has shaped a new way of interpreting the home. Today home auto-mation and IOT objects are considered5 a new frontier of the home revolution. The objects that are designed for our homes try to be integrated, connected, and always linked to the Internet.
Companies try to create a connected environment inside the house where the objects are talking not only to us but between themselves to achieve the least possible friction in the user experience journey.
The reality of smart homes is not completely positive: the reality of actual user and customer of these systems are very few.
smart objects are changing the paradigm of our daily life interaction with products (from a product that simply answer to an input to a product that engages in a “talkative interaction”)4
user / environent user / environent passive product active product
Today home automation is on of the most promising growing frontiers.
Apparently the market seems obsessed with smart interactive systems that control everything autonomously in our house. Integrated home automation has been around in fairs, commercial studies, presentations and many more, but still to-day we don’t have a real diffusion of smart integrated systems. This aspect can be due to many different elements: creating a smart home automation system is expensive and requires in many case working on the house wall structure and change many different elements; making this “fixed” changes can become very inconvenient both if the house is not ours (many people leave on loans) and also because making these systems fixed can have a negative impact on hardware update possibilities.
This last aspect is particularly important when we think about the continuous updated that the technology requires: new PCBs, new sensors, updated con-nections. This hardware world is always trying to keep up with software coun-terparts (usually achieved via updates) but inevitably the obsolescence of the hardware is going to make the older components useless in the long period. The first examples of smart home systems were completely integrated with the physical structure of the house (inside the walls, with very strict system compati-bility), and today this kind of smart solutions has not taken the world in a revo-lution.
Also customers they want technology to solve problems or have new experiences (Hanrahan, 2017) and unless they are early adopters of technological advance-ments, they will hardly buy entire complex systems.
For all these reasons today we cannot talk about a real revolution of home au-tomation (still present but more prerogative of elite homes) but more about a revolution in the single object that becomes “connected” and represents on his own a part of the home smart systems we have today. A simple example is the fact that today many companies (google for instance) rely on simple piece of te-chnology, usually single self-standing devices that exist also in an interconnected world and thanks to these connections the objects enhance their value and their user experience.
Those kind of products define a smart home made by smart devices: the integra-tion is not designed in its entirety, but each one of them communicate with the user in a different way.
Objects like speakers, TVs, lights have value on their own, are made to work in many ways but become more interesting for the user thanks to their ability to connect to the internet. With this added value, an object that works perfectly on his own becomes interconnected with others. This doesn’t require a specific infrastructure to work but relies on just a simple communication system: wi-fi and Bluetooth. Those are the two main lines of communication that make our modern home objects “smart”. The home automation system that is really taking space in our homes is no more a fixed and over-present infrastructure that goes from the kitchen to the curtains. It is clearly defined by appliances and objects produced by different companies that interact in different ways with the internet connections.
Home integrated is about control of the user over every aspect of his house: today the most commercially succesful aspect is security (credit: bticino)
1.2 Smart home objects
The objects that become connected become “smart” meaning that they can be controlled in remote and achieve a systemic user experience.
The point of view of different objects produced by companies is also interesting to analyze: Google tries to achieve a system control thanks to its abilities of voice recognition and info connection and tries to create a central hub to control all other devices that are connected to the home internet6.
Some other companies, producers of appliances (like the chinese Xiaomi小米) try to create a working ecosystem in which the central hub becomes the smar-tphone and the devices are interconnected via a mix of wi-fi and Bluetooth. The center of those different approaches is to connect and make the communication go through one object to another, creating a continuous link between one ele-ment and another, all connected through the same stream of virtual information. The clear pattern that we can see today in the rise of IOT objects7 (objects con-nected to the internet, or Internet of Things) is the fact the we want not only more from our experience with those devices, but we want less friction when using them. A Bluetooth speaker that activates from the distance avoiding the little inconvenient of approaching it and changing “manually” the song or turn it on is a different experience than manually change the different songs on a track list.
The world of today is defined by the need of creating less and less friction (Wea-ver, 2019) when we use those interactions. The overall idea of smart home turns around this very simple perception of men: if I can do a single activity in less time, without moving or even not moving at all, is better.
The presence of product with hardware and software that can make our daily life everyday easier and with less friction creates a new level of dependency from those infrastructure and systems. Some even argue the real plus of the fri-ction-less world. We are used to see in a good way the things that have simpler and friction-free experience of use, but this is not always the case. In terms of design, simpler user experience is the best achievement every project should aim for: a easy to use interface, an intuitive understanding from the user perspective (as Steve Jobs intended, no instruction manual should be needed in a product8,
but user should be intuitively able to understand how to use an object) and sim-pler interactions.
This is actually very important as the process can give the person less frustrating experiences and more immediate power over his actions.
On the other hand, as previously mentioned, friction-less not always associate with higher value perceived by the user. Inside the experience related with the product, there are some cases where friction becomes relevant. From a study of 2012 with a panel of scientists9, it came out that the process of IKEA of buil-ding your own product (against the idea of friction-less experience) gave to the product an additional value, compared with the same furniture product already built. Clearly here we are considering a context of non-smart product (furniture) but it is still interesting to take into consideration the right mix of friction and simplicity in the user experience.
IOT objects are defined by their connectivity with the internet. They communicate with wifi signal to what is basically the mirror of our world made by binary code.
product
A internet productB
user
objective
6. Turner, Turning your house into a smart home with the Google Assistant (2018) 7. Columbus, 10 Charts That Will Challenge Your Perspective Of IoT’s Growth (2018)
8. The real revolution of Apple has been making useless the instruction manual, as Ethan Wolf-Ann affirm in
“Apple’s real innovation is killing the instruction manual” 9. Journal of consumer psychology,“The IKEA effect: When labor leads to love”, (2013) as cited in “The Value of Inconvenient Design” by Jesse Weaver.
experience
smart products
common product
Despite being apparently better, simpler and friction-less experience can result less important to the eyes of the user.
2. Smart devices and the rise of IOT
In the contemporary product market we see a rapid increase in the world ofsmart products that take advantage of the Iot platform created by the internet. It is clear that the best solutions are the ones designed to be adaptable to diffe-rent scenarios.
A home integrated set of devices, as already mentioned before, creates lots of issues regarding physical managing of cables, connections, etc...On the other hand, self standing product take advantage of the wi-fi connection creating a lighter integration between the objects, with simpler systems.
To better understand the potential of those systems, I am going to explain more in detail the infrastructure that makes the objects interact and understand the world around them.
In the introduction chapter we have seen how the world of home technology is in continuous change, and in this context, it is difficult to give a correct and com-prehensive description the phenomenon that is still taking place today. In the IOT world, very popular these days, the things become connected, as we previously said, and communicate to the web or even between themselves.
The objective of those objects is to create a barrier-less world for humans, to ma-nage a smoother interaction but at the same time to implement more functions and giving the user a broader range of opportunities: a traditional lamp can be turned on or off, but today a modern “smart” (we are going to discuss this adjective in the following chapters) lamps that change color or intensity without even touching them,
The world of IOT is usually very difficult to describe since it is always changing and shaping every day. Meanwhile, we can try to come up with a good descrip-tion by understanding the technological and social aspects that two important elements that define the characteristics and the use of the new Internet of Things. Starting from internet of things, or IOT: we use this expression to indicate objects that communicate or interact between themselves or with human though some sort of connection. On a broader level, we can say that IOT is
The basic idea is that IOT is a field where is possible to achieve new meaning and new improved processes over the past, creating new potential solutions that integrate hardware (objects, spaces,…) and software (internet, APIs, con-nections,…).
Another interesting definition comes from McKinsey and appears more logic and practical:
As previously said, we need to consider both technology and society. We have on one side technology that is the core without which we could not have con-nections and sensors inside the objects.
On the other side, maybe less obvious but equally important, there is the social aspect, since the interaction and activity of those objects also defines a new change in the way we interact between us and between our surrounding world (made also by objects).
2.1 IOT and his meaning
“a […] development of the Internet in which objects have
network connectivity, allowing them to send and receive
data”
(Google, 2018)
“Sensors and actuators embedded in physical objects
are linked through wired and wireless networks, often
using the same Internet Protocol (IP) that connects the
Internet.“
(Lasse Lueth9, 2014)
10. Knud Lasse Lueth is the founder & CEO of IoT Analytics. IoT Analytics is the leading market insights company for the Internet of Things (IoT)
in put actuator sensor processing outp ut
source: Wikipedia, McKinsey, IOT Analytics
World of smart objects
2.1.1 Origins of IOT
The Internet of Things has a very particular origin. It is difficult to define a specific date or a specific beginning, but we can trace the origins of this modern field in the first part of the 19th century. The origins and evolution of the first IOT impro-vements are inevitably associated with the advancement of technology, advance-ment that has been the core central aspect to allow objects to “talk” and interact. As we have seen, IOT devices are designed around a level of information that is something that creates an invisible virtual layer of connections that is the link between a physical and a digital world.
The first advancement of those communications started from the invention of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification): that allowed for the first time to under-stand the physical objects from a virtual world made of signals and receptors. The first roots of modern IOT can be traced back to WWII. During the conflict, in Britain was being used a new system to detect enemy aircraft: the radar. The problem was that the radar was good at identifying an object, but it wasn’t clear if that object was allied or enemy’s aircraft.
The British started to develop a particular integrated structure in their radar an-tennas. This new invention relied on a “identify friend or foe” (IFF) system, where the radar signal was received by the British plane and another signal was send back from the plane identifying the flying object as an ally. This was the first time a new “virtual” communication was designed to recognize a specific object between many. The radar itself was an eye in the sky but the new IFF system was a new form of autonomous communication from an object. The same idea Is based for the RFID (Radio Frequency Identification).
During 50s and 60s those systems where analyzed more deeply and implemen-ted for security systems (for example the anti-theft sensors inside shopping stores used today have the same principle).
Other systems where implemented with passive transponder that under a specific signal “wakes up” and emits an answering signal.
In 1990s IBM patented a Ultra High frequency rfid that could work for longer distances.
RFID systems where the first approach to a world of objects that could have an electronical communication and identification. As always happens for this kind of technology, it was firstly implemented for large companies’ structure: for detecting and organizing large amounts of objects (warehouse) or animals (breeding).11
RFID technologies are today omnipresent and define our daily life (credits: sinometrix)
11. The history of IOT is particularly complex and difficult to decipher, this particular overview of milestones is one of the most interesting drom a technical point of view, presented in report: “Towards a definition of the Internet of Things” from IEEE (an association for human-technology development)
The first time the actual expression “internet of Things” appeared was in 1999 in a presentation from a Procter and Gamble engineer that didn’t know how to put a title to a new presentation and decided that since internet was a rising that expression could be interesting. That use of three words at first passed unnoticed from most listeners and also the majority of public.
For 10 years that sentence was never seen again. In 2010 for the first time we have the use of IoT in a widespread rumor about Google detecting and analy-zing data about the private WIFI networks (basically create a second google maps, this time virtual of a diffused internet).
The term was later used in different conferences and became media diffused when in 2014 Google (again) bought Nest, a fast-growing startup of a “smart” home thermostat. In the same year the CES (consumer electronics show) of Las Vegas was held under the central them of IOT.
From this last date to today the term IOT has risen in social media, industry trends and mainstream knowledge. The result is that today we are not witnessing anymore a rise of IOT systems, but more a steady diffusion of more and more advancement in a market that already established and defined his potentialities. As Google definition actually states that IOT is a proposed development of the Internet, the reality is different: we cannot anymore say that we are in the deve-lopment phase, but we have already achieved the real diffusion of Internet of Things.
How the things that always surrounded us now can become IOT enabled? As previously seen, a single object starts to exist for us when we come into con-tact with it, being it through visual, sound or touch perception. When we consi-der another layer of reality, that is transmission and long distant communication, technology comes into help to create a link between a far place and another. This connection is practically virtual since it is based on something that we can-not perceive, other than with specific devices (we hear a phone call thanks to a phone, without it, we couldn’t perceive anything). In this way we have a virtual potential connection between two physical objects. The next step was to create an understandable way of detecting objects interacting with them in a virtual way. The RFID was the perfect solution, enabling to create a virtual “tag” for an individual object and, in this way, seeing it through virtual communication waves. RFID allows for cheap and easy tagging of objects and for the creation of a connected web of objects for the internet. Its use can be described as a glorified bar code in today’s market. All the objects with RFID are visible up to 7 meters (considering the last RFID long range technology). The important effect of RFID on logistics control has been the possibility to tag and then “see” the individual and specific object inside a large quantity. In this way it is drastically different from bar codes: for example, if we use bar codes in a supermarket, we are able to see for each code a line of products, but if we use an RFID tagging system we can see the specific product in the line.
The RFID tagging system was the first step (and the first defined structure on
whi-Probably one of the most recognizable products, Google Nest was one of the first (integrated smart product for a connected house (credits: LeFebvre)
ch to build possible solutions) of the process. In the late 80s the development of Internet defined another step: now we were starting to have a virtual counterpart of reality, a space of communication based on electrical impulses and binary dialogs. It didn’t take long to start to understand that the same logic used for Internet could be applied in the realm of physical objects. The first ever recorded object that could be considered IOT was in 1990 from John Romkey: a toaster that could be switched on or off via the internet12; it was just a demonstration for a fair but stated an important milestone for modern technology. The potential of a connection that can send information and command was crucial to develop in the first years of 2000s the first connected objects.
12. Internet of Things (IOT) history, 2018. 13. A. Giordano, G. Spezzano, A. Vinci, “Smart object e forme di cooperazione”, a specific description of product awereness over humans in the interaction.
2.1.3 Internet over products
2.1.4 Smart products and IOT
In IOT objects internet defines a sort of communication medium. Today the in-frastructure where we live in is internet-persistent: with the omnipresent wifi or the rising 5G technology, in every moment we can connect and transit data. The presence of this infrastructure allows for a different structure for the architecture of IOT product. IOT product can use Internet as an update source, simply le-aving the interaction to the instant connection (i.e. Bluetooth). An IOT product can use internet to send and process data: Google nest works thanks to data collection and process via internet (all data to google server) and this allows to have simpler hardware system and rely on the service system behind the product. Maybe the clearest examples for this kind of process that is used by major com-panies are home assistance: Siri, Alexa, Google, or any other home assistant is based on very simple and cheap technology hardware. The basic technology inside is a microphone and a speaker. All the rest of the work is done via softwa-re and background connections. In this way, we don’t need to csoftwa-reate complex products, with many functions and sensors, but we need to create value in the service (software related) that is offered. Today IOT products become more and more products in a service strategy.
We have talked about the importance of the Internet of Things and the change of perspective that they are creating in the modern society. Today we have many times encountered the world smart object when talking about IOT objects. Smart object is generally referred to an any object that has been equipped with sensors and/or actuators, some elaboration processor, a communication module and a power source (Giordano, Spezzano, Vinci, p.6)13. On its own the smart object is interesting because we can have an “enhanced” object that can detect and understand the world around itself. The real central relevant feature that smart object can have is the ability to communicate: exchanging information to a ser-ver unit, to other objects and to humans can become really important to adapt to physical world’s dynamics.
source: R. Minerva, A.Biru, D.Rotondi (2015) Towards a definition of the Internet of Things. IEEE Internet initiative.
Framework IOT world
2.2 Types of smart objects
Despite having developed man different hardware platforms for any specific need related to a smart product, we can define three main aspects of designing hardware:
Connected to those three different categories of interest, we have three types of smart objects.
Activity-aware objects14 are smart products that memorize information about
what happens around them and to them. Every event that they detect is basically related to simple activity of objects (on/off). They are not able to interact with humans or other objects. They are able to collect data on the long period, rela-ting the use of the object to the period of use. They are very simple types of smart objects: they are useful when we consider objects that know when they are used and how long they have been used (for example to calculate the renting time). Policy-aware smart objects14 are activity-aware objects that are able to
under-stand events and activities. Those kinds of smart objects can detect what hap-pens around them and are able to react to those changes and predict future situations based on collected data.
Process-aware14 smart objects are the most complete smart objects: they detect
and understand and are able to communicate live, adapting immediately to context change.
Smart objects are, then, an important part of what makes the IOT world. Today we are used to talk about smart objects as objects with technology in them: that is correct up to a certain point. The term smart refers to the ability to achieve a solution through a clever approach. A smart object is then considered to be an intelligent product that helps humans in they’re activity. I actually want to give smart object a more interesting definition.
On the other hand, a “smart” object is an object that define a solution that goes against preconceptions, creating a product intelligent in the way it solves a problem. Smart is today considered a technology-fueled product that answers and talks but from a design perspective a smart product can be also a “super simple” solution that answers a need without using high tech sensors and te-chnology. In this case we have many different examples. It is very common to quote an IKEA product for the ability that the Swedish design company can have to create value without technology. Let’s think about kitchen environment today
is one of the most interesting market for companies trying to create interfaces and technologies that make life easier for users (usually millennials that are becoming the new buying generation for these products and that don’t have a great culinary background). Ovens that automatically cook and give instructions for perfect chicken (Electrolux) or apps that narrated the correct passages for a perfect meal. Ikea came up with a simple idea: recipe sheets with graphical help to put and prepare food. This approach is about creating a new solution, a new easy way of preparing food. This is the so called “super simple” approach to design that can still be considered smart even without ay technology. Why today we tend to give the “smart” adjective to technological objects? Simply because today technology simplifies our life. We arrived at a point where technology is sometimes the only “smart” answer to our problems. This is taken usually as the correct answers but sometimes this doesn’t really work: let’s use for a clear example JUICERO product.
It became very famous for being a smart device that rapidly rose to success through the platform of Kickstarter. It was a smart juicer, wi-fi connected, and associated to a service of pre-juiced fruits and vegetables. The user could simply pay the service to receive the portions that would be squeezed by the machine. The project was at the beginning a real success, but a central issue arrived when it started to be used by the first customer: the whole machine was basically an over complicated solution to a very simple action that could be done by the person itself. The main part of the Juicero product was a machine with very com-plicated mechanisms to squeeze the single packages. Those packages could be simply squeezed by a hand without any machine or app integrated product. The additional fact that the machine itself contributed to the expensive price of the product, the final result was an immediate end to the JUICERO brand and product.
The central idea of creating a service of organic pre-juiced packages was actual-ly the best and most convincing part of the JUICERO hype: the juicing machine was actually an over-smart product and over-complicated device that didn’t give to the overall experience a new or more special meaning.
the ability of a smart object to understand the world around itself, events and the human activities that happen in the physical world14
awareness:
the ability to represent, referred to a smart object application and the programming model14
representation:
ability of a smart object to talk with user (input, output and feedback)14
interaction:
Considered one of teh most controversial product IOT, juicero made clear the limits of overtechnologization over super simple solutions (credits: the Verge)
14. A. Giordano, G. Spezzano, A. Vinci, “Smart object e forme di cooperazione”, a specific description of product awereness over humans in the interaction.
2.3 From objects to services
This last example, and may others (google home, alexa…) are smart iot pro-ducts that rely on a service-related features that sometimes are the biggest value of the product itself. When we think about google home, the device itself is really simple, with just a speaker and sensors. In this cases, higher value is inside the service associated with the product: google home is just a physical product ne-eded to put google services inside our house. Today smart objects are just the tip of the overall experience defined by the IOT infrastructure and service that a provider gives us. The products themselves just rely on hardware capabilities that are enhanced by the digital associated experience. In the IOT world of today a toaster that can be activated with internet cannot survive long in the market. On the other hand, creating an overall experience based on the possibilities of a virtual platform (no only an app, but a series of services provided via the inter-net) can be a potential value for the product experience. The borders between product and service are becoming more and more blurred.
We can define three main categories for this area of service-related products: -Products augmented by services: in this category the focus is the product, but it is enhanced by a virtual interface/experience that gives an additional meaning to the project. 15
-Services integrating physical products: in this case the focus is the services, that is made tangible by the physical devices that is associated with. In this category we see products like OFO, where the service is based on a tangible object, but this one is just the tangible element of a more complex service, that is what the customer buys. 15
-End-to-end user experiences: this is the midway category, composed by objects and services that integrate at the same level of importance. In this cluster we can put products ecosystems, series of products that create a complex structure that exists thanks to a connected layer between the different devices. 15
The product is more than the physical representation of the service: it becomes the meaning of the service as the service gives the meaning to the product. The creation of an infrastructure and an interconnected world of objects opens the opportunity to an amount of services that was never experienced before. The creation of a connected world between service and product creates a new meaning for the commercial value of products and for the social impact of smart objects.
The new commercial value comes from the subscription option that is coming reality for smart products-services. In this case this is used when the service has more importance that the product itself (i.e. ofo bike sharing). Related to this context, comes also a new change of perspective from the point of view of the user: he buys the values of the brand services and the product is the tangible representation of those values. A clear example of added values with services are the cloud platforms that many brands offer in association with their products (i.e. Apple and Microsoft). Today the service value sometimes creates more
im-portance (Netflix) than the product but it is still placed in a ecosystem of smart devices (smart TV) to work.
This last example of Netflix is a great sort of representation of the change of perspective created by the IOT infrastructure. Before Netflix there was Blockbu-ster: a chain connected to a brand that was selling a product (vhs or dvd): the service was tangible, physical (the different stores). Netflix became the digital counterpart that completely overshadowed his predecessor: but Netflix, being a better and more comfortable service for the end user, couldn’t exist before the advent of Internet broadband connection or the presence of smart connected TVs. It didn’t require a complex product but more a complex infrastructure to be present to support the overall experience given by an almost 100% online movie distributor. The social value of the experience changed: from a deeper experience that involved going out of the house and physically search between thousands of copies of movies, now it is possible to stay at home and rapidly see between a bigger catalogue of movies the best choice (in addition, we have now a personalized experience, where everyone has a set of suggestions based on previous choices). The Netflix solution is easier, faster and simpler, and even specifically designed for each user, so it is personal.
service
product
The product is visible in the service and the service is visible in the product, each one coexist and influence the other
2.4 The value of limited features
While we are projected towards a world with less and less friction in our user experience, thanks to smart products and related services, we are witnessing a change in the social values that are needed in a product experience. Apparently, what is the simplest and less challenging experience is the best suitable solu-tion for the end user: ordering a product online, taking a bike-sharing vehicle, controlling the home temperature. Everything seems to be getting simpler and simpler, towards a world without friction for the user.
We are used to simplify our actions, our daily life. What is complex is usually frustrating and create a bad experience for the average user. The rise of IOT pla-tforms and smart products has given us the tools to create a friction-less world, but is this a real good solution for better experiences?
The value of inconvenient design has always been present, but it is becoming today potentially relevant in a world friction-less obsessed16. So important that some companies are starting to rethink some product service strategies. An example is amazon dash buttons: originally started as a solution to the process of ordering common products via amazon website, it became a physical repre-sentation to instantly buy without any additional web browsing of any kind. The perfect friction-less solution: no app, just a button. The result is that the users didn’t trust the process: they were not able to see how much stuff has being bou-ght or when, it was seen as a money-wasting potential habit to use that device. Amazon push buttons gave away the control from the user. It became so simple and friction-less that the user couldn’t really perceive that he had the direct con-trol over the order.
16. The value of inconvenient design, Weaver.
Value
Friction right amount
of friction too little
With this last example, we introduce another interesting level to the friction-non friction debate: the control. We are used to think that if something is smart can lower our daily problems, can create a faster and simplest list of actions for our user experience. This ability of the smart object to understand and change our daily life for the better without any given instruction (we are achieving technology that predicts our behaviors) takes away control from our hands. The problem with automating the user experience process and demanding decision to a ma-chine is basically like taking away control from the user.
We, as humans, don’t want to be in the passenger seat of our life, we want to keep control of our decision, even if it means taking more time to do a specific action or decide a specific solution. Let’s use as an example ordering food. We can search the web with the suggested locations and find a potential good one by mixing our tastes with a sort of casual choice that we want to keep. Let’s ima-gine now a scenario where all personal information and data are collected to so big amount that the food app perfectly knows our taste and can predict our choices: we would not even use the app, we would follow it’s suggestion. What is wrong in this process is that we, as humans, don’t like to feel that a machine is taking decision for us: it can be possible that in both scenario the restaurant chosen is the same, but the process to achieve that decision is completely diffe-rent. One is human-centred, and one is human oriented.
Today we can find many different challenges in developing IOT platforms and smart objects, but two main ones are central in this. First, humans want to keep control of their decisions, even if they are given to a computer: a machine can predict our future if we decide it to do so; we want to be, or at least feel, like we are the authors. Second privacy: in this world of over-connected devices and omnipresent internet, the value of protecting data is becoming a huge business. This is due for a social behavioral change of perspective: with more personal information given to the “web” we are more afraid of being controlled by an undefined entity. Our identity is better to remain ours: user profiling is becoming more difficult due to this recent tendency of the common user to share less and less information about themselves.17
In order to create a working user experience related to IOT platform, we have to achieve a good balance between user actions and machine autonomy. We can say that the structure of the smart product use scenario should be cantered on the user but enhanced by the machine.
In 2014, Tesla, though a software update, gave to thousand of car users the possibility to give the car autonomy to drive on its own. That kind of technology is still being perfected today but gave a glance of our future possible world scena-rio where vehicles can drive autonomously. While for the cars, even If technology is still being developed, seems pretty clear that the future will be autonomous, a different situation has to be considered for smart products. It is easy to compare the two fields: Tesla cars are considered smart vehicles and the first to really em-brace an IOT platform for cars.
We are witnessing more and more capabilities to be autonomous also for many other devices that we use in our daily life: our smart thermostat can understand and predict our behaviours and take the best solution for our home tempera-ture. Our products are becoming so good at understanding us that they start to predict our actions: this is based on a correct analysis of the data that, while using them, we give. The simplest example is our phone: it can understand where we work and how to get there in the best possible way by collecting data. The processing of those data is not even complicated. By detecting the phone position during the day is easy to understand when a person is probably working and when is probably at home (probably, since a precise understanding is still missing) and, in the same way, by detecting multiple positions of phones, google maps can give the best traffic-free way to move around. The ability to predict and understanding our behaviors and our actions is actually a result of collecting and analyzing data.
The basic process of understanding what a person will do is simple: if that per-son keeps doing the same thing over and over, probably that task is something noticeable and perhaps define a specific detail about that person (work, leisure, private life…). We encounter predictable services every day.
Google make predictions every moment a person types something in his search engine. The user is the centre of the search and profiling interest of compa-nies: Google doesn’t want to give you all the possible websites (feature most underlined in the first years of existence of the platform) but wants to give the best websites (or answers) that best suits your profile18. In the same way online experiences are becoming personal, so the product experiences try to become more and more personalized. Thanks to advancement in software capabilities, we have specific solutions that are tailored to the single person.
Machine learning algorithms are taking a big part of the responsibility behind major platforms of today’s technology19. This can go through the personalization ability, a result of correct reorganization and interpretation of data (e.i. perso-nalized profile on Netflix). Another feature that is prevailing in modern products is also facial recognition capabilities (Facebook is investing a great amount of money in trying to optimize the algorithms) and speech recognition accuracy. Those features are actually changing the way we look at data collection and the way data are becoming the money of the future20. The way we interpret data has become a central point around social privacy that is still being debated today.
2.5 Towards an autonomous future?
17. The EEXCESS Use Case, 2017
18. Devey, 2018 19. Kour, 2018
2.6 The power of data
In 2018, precisely in September, Apple held a presentation about new devices that were going to be sold around USA. During this presentation, one particular device stands out: the new apple watch. The device itself didn’t change parti-cularly from the previous year, but a new feature was introduced: it could make ECG analysis. This marked the first time a consumer device could achieve an hospital-grade feature. The use of advanced sensors and correct analytics made possible to achieve this solution. In particular, the use of data collection domina-ted the central debate around the device: in order to work, the watch needs to collect data about the patient and those data are about health20. The collection of sensible information has always been a part of frictions and protests against virtual services in the last years: websites collecting personal information, profi-ling, etc…
With the rise of IOT platforms the problem just spread even more: now every smart device is actually collecting data to work. As we have seen in the previous chapters, data can become the main value of those devices.
Data is simply another form of information that is basically created by sensors that are the basic means for products to detect the world around them. The information is sorted in binary text and elaborated in a server facility. The data of a product goes through the internet and this create an important passage for information management, since the data can be “harvested” by companies. The value is not the single product or the single group of information, but more all the product’s information created during the period of use. Those pieces of information are incredibly valuable when collected on a big source base. The possibilities of using those data are immense: as previously seen, the use of pre-dictable path and the understanding of trending uses.
The interesting fact is that the large amount of those “big data” that online servi-ces and smart products are producing aren’t actually easy to be used. They are a source of information but become meaningful when we consider the analytics part of their use: they have to be reordered and interpreted.
The sort of data that is collected varies a lot depending on the platform and the situation. In the media world we are aware of personal data, information about a single person (i.e. Facebook), that is the most known and debated. Transactio-nal data is about all the transactions of actions on the web (e.i. clicking on web page, buying a specific product). This last one goes under the larger term of web data, information coming from the use of internet in any sort of way. Sensor data is the one that is directly connected to IOT, and is largely analysed from a company profile perspective, trying to reduce costs and rise efficiency. IOT in consumer products is actually something that bridges the gap between web and sensor, creating a source of information mixed between sensors and web information produced by the user. The media has portrayed a bad view of data collection, talking mainly about the privacy-related issues. In reality the use of big data can have a very important effect on our society and our future as humanity. Today data analysis can be used to track and predict health issues cure diseases thanks to a faster and easier way to collect and analyse data22. Those data are used to learn and understand the past, but the biggest value is
21. Gonzalez, 2018
understanding their features to predict the future. Since the data analytics are becoming important for companies to understand what to do next inside the market, another more important value is rising in these years: environmental data. We have at our disposal a large amount of sensor and information that can give us understanding on how to change our life for the better. Environment issue are clearly visible today and one of the most important tools to understand and change something is the use of data.
data
information
prediction analyse
2.7 New interactions
The use of new kind of connections and new technologies have created a wave of new interactions that became possible for the user. While the non-smart object of the past remained passive with the need of a direct intervention of the human to work, today we are witnessing a shift in the way we “talk” to our objects. New interactions can create new conversations between objects. In a world of friction-less objects the interaction is many times what differentiates a smart pro-duct from the rest. One of the most frequent examples regarding this specific approach is voice command: once a purely science-fiction talk with the object, today a omni-present reality in our everyday objects.
The spectrum of possible interactive scenarios has changed thanks to technolo-gical advancements: new sensors and actuators allow for smoother understan-ding of commands and new feedbacks. We can say that objects are becoming human counterparts for what is related to the interaction aspects.
While before we could only achieve some sensorial connection between the machine and the human, today all the senses that we use are translated to the machines, allowing to have a more spontaneous, human-like, conversations.
How we can “talk” to them
2.7.1 Smart interactions
New interaction means new scenario for the user and the object to have a con-versation. The technological advancement allowed in the past to change the space of interactions: a remote controller made possible to interact with a device from the distance.
The aspect of space is central in the new approach to smart interactions. The space of interaction has mutated not only within a few meters, but even larger. IOT connections work in an infrastructure of internet, and information given by and to the machine can be reached everywhere a connection is present. The app is the new simplest and sometimes excessively used approach: it allows to have a great variety of control and quantitative feedbacks with the product. It can be considered the remote control 2.0, universal and always usable.
The reality is that app-related interaction are limited to the use of a third actor in a two-way conversation23: it is useful to see data from the device everywhere, but is limiting when we are near the product, creating a friction in an otherwise simple interaction between man and smart object. While the app is the clear answer when we consider far away interaction, when we in the proximity of the device, the interaction possibilities widen sensibly.
In this case the conversation between product and person becomes more hu-man-like: voice, gesture, touch, movement become potential element of dialog. The screen is a source of information, but we can achieve more than this. Touch screens are the obvious answer in this case, allowing to have information and interaction in a simple and clear format.
The reality is that the user wants more from the interaction, some magic that needs to happen in the moment of dialog.24 The interaction becomes a moment of simplicity and magic for the user, that wants to communicate with ease his actions. This is actually a reason for the lower-than-expected success of voice control and voice assistance. It can be considered the easiest and most sponta-neous way for humans to communicate, since it is what we are used to do in our life in the society, but this not always match with a simplicity of use. Imagine that we want to dim the lights in a room: with voice we should say “a little bit less”, “no”, too much”, “dim a little more”, “ok, perfect”, not exactly the smoothest experience, being it with a human or a voice controlled machine; the same scenario with a moveable knob is simpler, since we have direct control over our decision, creating less friction. The two solutions are different from a technolo-gical point of view: one is complex technolotechnolo-gically and the other is simple (and actually not made with latest technology): the more effective is the less techno-logical one in this situation.
We live in a world of objects at our service and the control over them should be simple but not too much. When we consider a simple friction-less solution we need to think about new aspects of interaction that can achieve a multiple-sen-sorial approach.
The possibility to merge different aspects can create a more pleasant experien-ce25 thanks to the presence of multiple stimuli at the same time. The additional vantage is that it is possible to achieve a multi-layered interaction and give better feedback and clearer commands.
The implementation of haptic screens over touch screens is a clear example of new opportunities that this merging can create: while touch screen is good for having a changeable interface, with adaptable UI and simple action from the user, it is complicated when it is used without watching with our hand what we are doing. Inside the car touch commands in the central control are becoming a widespread solution (let just think to the simplistic solution of tesla central touchscreen) but are also a possible dangerous solution for the driver. When the person is not watching the screen, he doesn’t have a clear feedback of what is doing. The haptic solution tries to create a link between a screen and a physical button/knob solution.
25. Mesut, , 2016, prototypr.io 23.Danijel, 2019, Smart interaction design is the proper way to solve the learning problem in AI
24.Mesut, 2016, prototypr.io
One of the most interesting products that merges physical analogical elements and touch/capacitive one is a synthetic music interface developed by ROLI (credits: prototypr.io)
How they can “talk” to us
2.7.2 New archetypes
While we consider the new interactions inside a wider approach upon user dia-log with the machine, we can say that new archetypes are growing inside the common perceptions of interactions.
Thanks to technological advancements and technology diffusion, many inte-ractions are changing.
We can think, for example, to the change that made the use of touch screens: some actions movements that we never experienced before became normal and common.
As the change in the meaning of products (from passive to active) we can also say that there has been a change in the common way of interacting with pro-ducts.26
A screen positioned in front of us without any keyboard or button immediately makes us thing of a touch interaction.
We moved from a more mechanical interaction and input with the machines to a more natural approach. From a button we changed to a touch screen, because is simpler, more spontaneous, less “artificial”.
Another example can be considered for the gesture control,27 with which we can give commands to products in a “human” way, with just our movements. This interaction process is actually an evolution of touch interaction.
The change between the two is not only the approach itself but also the field of application. Gesture control comes in hand when we don’t have a screen, when we are not near the product.
The next process of evolution for product-user interaction is voice.28 This is the one that can be considered the most “human” one, the one that seems to mimic more than any other interaction the human communication.
Voice commands create a more spontaneous approach with the product, the interaction (supposedly) becomes more seamless and frictionless. The actual experience teaches us that in some scenarios a new archetype interaction can become more frustrating than a more super-simple technological solution (e.i. light
switch vs voice controlled lights).
Another new archetype, derived by the diffusion of smartphones, is the app interaction.29
In this case, the interaction is transferred to a screen (with touch) but the overall communication is made between the product and the smartphone: this one be-comes and extension of our person, a human counterpart in the digital world (could be considered the RFID that makes the Internet of Humans).
All these new archetypes that we have seen have all in common an important aspect in relation with the product and the person that interacts with it: distance. While touchscreen is a more natural button interaction, voice, gesture and app control have all been developed for a not-rear interaction with product.
Today more and more products start to be “distant” from humans, more autono-mous and more far-controlled.
What was once the TV that needed a remote to be easier to use, today is the light on our desk, the termostat or the car.
26. Gupta, Kembhavi, Davis, 2009 white paper for human-object interaction 27. Wendorf, 2019
28. Kirschner, 2018 29. Dossey, 2019.
On September 8, 2018, in the North Pacific a start-up company founded 2013 put in place his first physical project: a floating large (600 mt.) floating tube that captures the plastic particles present in the ocean. This was an important mile-stone that showed how ideas can change our world for the better.
By 2050 oceans are predicted to have more plastics than fish by weight (from: Ellen Macarthur Foundation report, 201630). This is just one of the many threats
that we, as society, must face in the next years. The pollution, on many levels, is just a part of the result of industrialization of society. We are witnessing a large change in our environment and in our culture. Today the “green” approach and sensibility is widely present in our society but still a big change has to be done. In this moment where we need a strong change, technology and data can beco-me our most important allies in our society. The renewable energies that today are crucial to a possible 0 pollution energy in the future are part of the techno-logy advancement. Big data are actually as important, partly to understand the major events that are happening to our world, partly because they can be used to understand how to solve our planet’s problems.
3. Technology and environment
3.1 The human footprint
Today we all have acknowledged the fact that hearth resources don’t come for free or even are eternal. Our planet, that once seemed huge and prosperous has shrink in the last two centuries. Humanity has witnessed the biggest techno-logical development in his entire history and what once seemed impossible today is taken for granted in our everyday life.
The new engines, new means of transportation, new routes have made travel easier, faster communication and diffusion of knowledge. Inside the society a new process has risen, of a positive feedback from the new achieved technology: advancement in research has made machines simpler and more effective, and this gives way to possible new discoveries. Technology has become (and speci-fically electronic technology) has become in the last decade the first element of innovation in our society. We have already seen the Iot and smart technology, where it has come from and the potential future it can achieve.
On the other hand, this incredible development has come to a very important cost regarding resources and materials. New technologies and transportations require energy to operate. This energy can be of different origin, but in many ways is still something that can be harvested from hearth resources, directly or indirectly.
In the last 30 years humanity has seen a progressive change in the environment. The resources harvested are not infinite and the waste produced can spoil our environment. As a consequence, has risen more and more in those years the conscience of reducing waste and consumption. More and more people has be-come aware of the dangers that thoughtless consumption can cause not simply to the earth but to our society. The importance of changing the way we consume is crucial and can lead to many different social changes in the world of today. What we are used to do can drastically change in order to avoid excessive consumption. Today we are still living in a world where not enough is done to prevent any possible terrible future scenario.
We talk today about how many hearths we consume every year19, because still, after many social campaigns, we are still consuming too much and doing too little to change our behaviors. Today we are used to many sorts of services and perks that are wasteful. The change of behavior is still something very complex, because can be partially imposed by laws (reducing the time of light consump-tion or water used at home) but it is still not something always very effectful. Another way to turn behaviours in the right direction is to create a financial incentive for people.
31. The Earth Overshoot day has become in the last years one of the most iconic symbol of the human pollution (Nace, 2017)
The importance of changing the mentality of the common user is a very impor-tant challenge: we are used to see polar bears that cannot find a safe space in a melting environment on tv but we don’t see in our daily life the results of our actions. The importance of associating the need of a conscious lifestyle and the interest of monetary advantage is an important element to convince people to change lifestyle.
Today we talk more about circular economy as an approach that companies and governments use in some very few cases. Today the level of monetary come-back from an investment in green economy is still not considered in many case enough to use a virtuous road. The approach of the end user is always about a difficulty to change the level
“No matter what measures policymakers deploy to
collect, recycle, and process waste, they will never
achieve truly clean cities unless there is a fundamental
shift in public mindsets and behaviour towards
producing less trash and not littering.“
3.2 IOT in a changing world
Today’s world can be described as a reflection of the human mind. We created a world of connections, of synapsis that talk between each other. The entire so-ciety is today more complex and interconnected that has ever been in his history. We have inputs and outputs from every source, we can have instant information about what is happening in the other part of the world. Since we developed IOT to work as a second net of internet in our world, we can also use it as a source of information about the environment. Sensors are the central protagonist of this change.
The importance of detecting leaks or changes in an infrastructure can lead to re-ducing money loss and reduce environmental impact. The possibility to monitor an entire infrastructure can become useful for a company. In this case we are re-ferring to a commercial use of an Iot platform: Statoil designed in 2017 (project in collaboration with IBM) a sensors’ structure to detect methane leak from their tubes. The effect was both the reduction of money loss from the company and, more important, the reduction of environmental impact of methane in nature. The application of this sort of solutions about the use of IOT platforms and envi-ronmental control is not only about companies but is becoming more and more interesting for the consumer market.
Hyperlocal data is the rising trend of use of information: the data that is collected not in a large area but that is sourced in a very small level. Related to the envi-ronmental issues, Google street view cars, in a 2018 project in the UK, were ad-ded sensor for air pollution. The data were then detected no more in a general are of a city (in this case London) but were taken in a specific place, creating a more peculiar sort of information.
The Hyperlocal data is strictly connected to the IOT platform in everyday life objects. More and more products are becoming sensor platform to detect and understand what is happening in each moment. The result is that each home is a potential hub of information not only for the owner but for the community. In the context of smart home IOT has a huge potential: to apply commercial-sty-le energy and pollution management and strategies in a private home context (Keenan, 2019).
Local data (even more in the citie) can help detect and understand new solutions to reduce pollution
3.2.1 From companies to homes
The IOT consumer market is rich in project that promise a better lifestyle and an easier, more friction-less use of the different object. They become “smart” because they understand us, they “talk” to us. The possibility to control many different aspects of our personal space can give tools that can lower the con-sumptions that we have in our daily life. This aspect is crucial for our future: making house more efficient not only from the construction point in their life can potentially lower the world pollution levels.
Smart objects are things and solutions that around us help to solve or make our live better through intelligent solutions. We are used to the term “smart city” and smart Iot world, connected and interactive world of objects. This level of com-plexity that is achievable today can give us possible and interesting new scena-rios on the side of smart sustainable design, in which the technological solutions can be applied to reduce our environmental footprint and help our environment. The possibility to collect data from more local platform can give us better unser-standing on many levels. On of which is the possiblity to understand the levels of resources consumption. (Keenan, 2019)
better level of
precise data
allows to make
predictions and
assess solutions
local data small information big data3.3 Smart sustainability design
The role of design is fundamental in this change of perspective happening in the modern days. The application of smart products and solutions can achieve a new and more effective result in changing the human effects on environment for the better. Smart solutions can be an effective approach on changing human behaviours in daily life. Smart products have many potential fields of application and many possible methods of connection. These products can be normal pro-ducts that thanks to technological advancements reduce the consumption levels and products that directly are designed to reduce specific consumptions inside the household.
Those devices are potentially useful for the house both in terms of technology and in terms of communication and systemic exchange of information. The con-nection between devices allows to understand different actions that can be taken at the same time to reduce energy consumptions and resources consumptions (water, heating…).
Today we are still witnessing a development of those interconnected technolo-gies that despite all the potential capabilities are still having many issues, first of all communication standards, needed to make all the systems understand each other.
This is the basic needed approach to achieve a correct systemic efficiency inside the house. Every product has his own specific technologies and features and is specialized in a particular field (e.i. reduce electric consumption) but allowing it to “talk” to other objects or a central hub to correctly manage his possibilities can become important to achieve better results.
The application of “smart” sustainable-approach products inside domestic en-vironment are multiple, on different levels: electricity, heating, water and food waste.
The creation of a circular economy goes though the
better understaning of each part of the process and
every single action inside our daily life, if optimized,
can achieve a deeper effect aroud the world.
(keenan, 2018)
33Today objects and technologies can give us new tools to achieve an impactful effect on human footprint. Consumptions and waste are becoming new frontiers of development to create a better future.
