I was assigned to create a living space in the Sony facility, designed to be completely voice controlled to replicate an IoT home.

Create a living room space using smart home control products to understand the difficulties that users encounter, to find opportunities to improve design, products, and innovate solutions to fill the gaps in an IoT home.

Research IoT, home control, and set up a room with common use case scenarios.

Everything.

Research
I did not know much about IoT devices and home control in the beginning. I really didn't even use an Amazon Alexa product before working here. When I was tasked this project I was a bit concerned because I had a lot to learn. I began searching online what IoT and home control really was and how they worked. I learned there was already a lot of devices out there for the most used functions in the home. I read as many articles and websites that detailed a lot of the home control devices and their features, as well as how they fit in my ideal scenarios. After, I did some quick user research. I took to my office mates and Reddit to briefly ask them a set of questions about what they would like in a smart home, especially in regards to voice control, their ideal living space, and what they wish they can do in an automated setting.

Planning
Firstly, I created a schedule detailing what stages and goals I would be working towards throughout the length of the project. I had a better idea of IoT and home control, as well as what essential smart devices there are out there and how they work together. I also had an idea of what people would like in their ideal smart home as well as their wishes in an ideal home. Next step was to establish the use cases. I researched what people normally do in their daily lives, especially in regards to tech devices. Based off my life, my office mates, and some others online, I established common use cases such as "Movie Time", "Kids TV", "Party", "Meditation", "Dinner Time", "Bedtime", and a few others. With that, I determined what devices I'd need to achieve them. I had to research what products worked the best for what I wanted, by looking online. I also outlined the logic behind it for each scenario and device to operate. By doing it this way, I was able to determine what exactly I needed before purchasing the products. I drew a layout plan with all devices and the living room design.

Setup
I purchased all the products needed after getting confirmation from my manager. As soon as they all came in, I began going through the full unbox and setup experience for each product. Because I knew exactly where each product was going, it was only a matter of wiring and making all connections. I then ran into issues with the audio system with how I had planned. The setup I had in mind was not going to work, and had to think of alternatives. Luckily, I was able to use a full home audio system instead of the wireless solution I had in mind. This was better suited for the setup and eliminated a large problem of the use case scenarios I had in mind. I also had issues with other products not connecting and compatible with one another whether from a software issue or an external factor that I had no control of (such as wireless interference in the room). There were also smaller issues that arose, during and after setup, such as proper device naming and identification, because there should be consistency in what the system recognizes, especially with how finicky voice assistants can be. However, if this was in a real household, it would contribute to a poor user experience. Not only because the user would not know of the incompatibilities, but it's not always made clear across all products what works and what doesn't and how exactly they are compatible.

A lot of abilities I want are not yet possible. Many of the daily activities we do are much more complicated than it seems. Configuring many processes and devices to do what I exactly want is unlikely, because there are a lot of software and hardware limitations.

There are also limitations on how devices interact with each other.

It is an always learning process. Even with the amount of prior research done before buying and using the products, I learned more about them and smart home environments work in real time.

The learning process went both ways; encountering barriers and opening doors along the way of configuring a fully compatible and voice controllable room.

From start to end, things should be easier. These smart home products began to be more “dumb” than smart after using them. Setting them up and using them requires a lot of time before even using them. They’re only as smart as you make them, and when issues arise, they’re difficult to troubleshoot. Often times it isn’t issues with the user or configuration, but the product itself for unknown reasons.

For example, having to restart or re-setup the product for features or connection to work better. Most times I found myself blindly searching the internet for anything related to my issues. Troubleshooting is not always straightforward with smart home products, especially since every environment is different.

There is a lot of room for improvement. Ideally making set up across products more streamlined and easier to connect. I found most annoyance with how I had to always unlink and relink the accounts and sync every time. That’s too tedious to do, especially when troubleshooting and figuring out why some voice commands aren’t working as they should. Another issue is with the lack of full customization with certain products. Smart home products are becoming an off-the-shelf DIY way of home automation. It’s important that the user shouldn’t be confused and feel lost when setting up their products.

The overall experience was rewarding and humbling. I had zero experience with smart home products as well as setting up home audio entertainment. I learned a lot about what it takes to set them up, troubleshooting and how it affects daily life.

I had a real experience of the full process that most customers and users go through in the real world. Understanding the successes and pitfalls of building a smart room with most smart home products and common entertainment devices, helps identify where users may struggle when using these products.

Additionally, hopefully this experience is useful for not only the UX team with learning more about user experience in the living space, but product planners and administration who can become inspired to innovate and change daily life in the homes of customers.

This was my first end to end project as an intern, where I learned how to research, plan, and execute on my own. Although I wish I had more time to do a more in depth user experience review about usability when putting this room together, it really allowed me to learn from a users perspective of what they may encounter when setting up such products in their homes. What I will need to work on is my time and project management, because there were difficulties along the way that set me back a bit, when I should have anticipated it. In the future, I will plan things aggressively yet allow myself leeway in case of roadblocks. I also would like to improve on taking more notes during the project just to keep information of the process and the details of the usability side of things. This would help me in the long run stay organized, and details more of the process from end to end.