Conversational Assistant for an Accessible Smart Home

Ketsmur, Maksym; Teixeira, António; Almeida, Nuno; Silva, Samuel; Rodrigues, Mário

doi:10.1145/3218585.3218594

Cited by 9 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 11 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Only a few support different languages, such as Spanish [ 43 ], Indonesian [ 63 ], or Bengali [ 40 ]. Even counting our previous work [ 1 , 27 , 28 , 51 ], European Portuguese support is quite rare.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 81%

“…In the context of smart homes, there are available solutions based on graphical and/or touch modalities, with most of them being proprietary solutions that allow the configuration and control of only specific devices (e.g., Philips’ Hue apps for their smart lights [ 25 ] and the Kasa Smart app for TP-Link smart devices [ 26 ]). However, the most popular way of interacting with smart homes nowadays is through speech using voice assistants with conversational capabilities, which allow consulting information and control devices from multiple brands [ 27 , 28 ].…”

Section: Background and Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The home assistant was implemented by adopting an iterative design and a development for all approach. Initially, a family of Personas was defined together with different accessible scenarios to understand the needs of the different potential users of a smart home (e.g., younger and older people, people with one or more disabilities) [ 27 ]. Based on this information, an initial proof-of-concept assistant was developed and demonstrated using a simulated home.…”

Section: Home Assistantmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

An Accessible Smart Home Based on Integrated Multimodal Interaction

Rocha

Ketsmur

Almeida

et al. 2021

Sensors

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Our homes are becoming increasingly sensorized and smarter. However, they are also becoming increasingly complex, making accessing them and their advantages difficult. Assistants have the potential for improving the accessibility of smart homes, by providing everyone with an integrated, natural, and multimodal way of interacting with the home’s ecosystem. To demonstrate this potential and contribute to more environmentally friendly homes, in the scope of the project Smart Green Homes, a home assistant highly integrated with an ICT (Information and communications technology) home infrastructure was developed, deployed in a demonstrator, and evaluated by seventy users. The users’ global impression of our home assistant is in general positive, with 61% of the participants rating it as good or excellent overall and 51% being likely or very likely to recommend it to others. Moreover, most think that the assistant enhances interaction with the smart home’s multiple devices and is easy to use by everyone. These results show that a home assistant providing an integrated view of a smart home, through natural, multimodal, and adaptive interaction, is a suitable solution for enhancing the accessibility of smart homes and thus contributing to a better living ambient for all of their inhabitants.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 81%

Section: Background and Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Home Assistantmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

An Accessible Smart Home Based on Integrated Multimodal Interaction

Rocha

Ketsmur

Almeida

et al. 2021

Sensors

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This goal is pursued in multiple ways, such as exploring the integration of natural-language interactions with gamification techniques, also emphasizing the importance of multimodality [24,48], or rather experimenting with actual users to define more effective design principles and frameworks [47,49]. The focus on the user also emerges through the particular attention drawn to participants' consumption profiles [54] or individual characteristics, values, and beliefs [51] while investigating users' acceptance of the eco-feedback, but also underlining the importance of properly addressing accessibility issues [53].…”

Section: Rq1: Research Perspectives and Primary Focusmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Description of the agent [24,41,[44][45][46]48,[52][53][54][55]] Data-to-text architecture description [42,43] Behavioral study [51] Framework definition [47]…”

Section: Main Focus Referencementioning

confidence: 99%

Conversational Agents for Energy Awareness and Efficiency: A Survey

Sanguinetti,

Atzori

2024

Electronics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote energy efficiency is crucial to achieve the energy transition and sustainable development goals. The availability of tools that provide clear information on energy consumption plays a key role in this transition, enabling users to monitor, manage, and optimize their energy use. This process, commonly referred to as energy feedback or eco-feedback, involves delivering information regarding energy usage and potentially suggesting more sustainable practices. Within the range of available tools, conversational agents can represent a valuable channel to receive detailed information about energy consumption and tailored advice for improving energy efficiency. The aim of this article is thus to explore the application of conversational agents, focusing on eco-feedback, as these tools are primarily devised to foster user awareness of energy usage and enhance more participatory conservation strategies. To this end, we conducted a keyword-based search of major scientific article databases, applying strict criteria to select relevant studies. The results of the collection showed that there is a very diverse landscape with respect to this topic. The surveyed works exhibit a high versatility in feedback goals. Furthermore, while predominantly applied domestically, they also show potential in commercial and industrial settings. Implementation choices also vary to a great extent, while evaluation practices lack a systematic approach and highlight the need for greater consistency. In light of these remarks, we also outline possible future extensions of this type of application, exploring in particular the emerging challenges associated with the increased use of renewable sources and the rise of local decentralized energy communities.

show abstract