Domestic Robot Ecology

Abstract

It has been recognized that long-term effects exist in the interaction with robotic technologies. Despite this recognition, we still know little about how the temporal effects are associated with domestic robots. To bridge this gap, we undertook a long-term field study. We distributed Roomba vacuuming robots to 30 households, and observed the use over six months. During this study, which spans over 149 home visits, we identified how householders accepted robots as a part of the households via four temporal stages of pre-adoption, adoption, adaptation, and use/retention. With these findings, we took the first step toward establishing a framework, Domestic Robot Ecology (DRE). It shows a holistic view on the relationships that robots shape in the home. Further, it articulates how those relationships change over time. We suggest that DRE can become a useful tool to help design toward long-term acceptance of robotic technologies in the home.

People’s Perception of Domestic Service Robots: Same Household, Same Opinion?

“…Covering a period of two weeks, data does not allow drawing conclusions in terms of usage patterns or continuing adoption of the device. Longterm usage of robots and usage patterns beyond novelty effects have been examined by [7,17,19,20]. We didn't find a significant change in how people overall rated the robot during the two weeks and assume that amongst others, novelty factors might be one reason for this.…”

“…This hypothesis builds on the fact of a shared "physical" and "social space" in a domestic environment as well as on findings from previous studies showing that the household composition affected the expectation of Roomba as a practical tool [7]. Further, we assume that the adoption of a domestic robot in the context of the home not only happens as an individual but as a whole household [11].…”

“…To verify this, we analyzed people's attitudes and their reactions to the robot not only on an individual but also on a household level. A holistic view that regards people not only as users but rather as social actors within the ecology of their home will help to understand human-robot interaction in domestic settings [5,6,7]. We explored people's perceptions and examined how their reactions evolved.…”

Enabling Global Robot Navigation Based on a Cloud Robotics Approach

“…Furthermore, even if the current literature is rich of examples about robots in real or realistic environments, as [24,25], at the best of our knowledge this is the first attempt to include referential markers to provide information in a robotic scenario in real environments.…”

Lessons learned from robotic vacuum cleaners entering the home ecosystem

“…So far, the only success of domestic robots can be noted in the field of floor-cleaning robots; millions of these devices are used to vacuum people's homes today. We do not know much yet about the long-term acceptance of domestic robots, but first exploratory studies carried out with robotic vacuum cleaners in the United States [4][5][6] suggest that these devices have several shortcomings that may restrict a broad user acceptance beyond initial adoption. Also, there are strong novelty effects with innovative technologies such as robots [7,8].…”