Home Monitoring System

MOBILE APP DESIGN TO HELP PEOPLE CONTROL THEIR SMART HOME

Home monitoring system has become essential in today’s world with increasing energy usage and high crime rates. Smart home devices which can help in controlling and generating automation is now easy to track with much finer detail using Home monitoring system.

pROBLEM

To design an intuitive and easy to use home monitoring interface

use cases

Shubham Mazumdar

Age: 28 yr

Marital status : Bachelor

Profession: Software Engineer

Hobbies: Playing games, Loves to read books and listen to music

Goal:

Manage finances well
Be more productive

Concerns:

He often forgets to change batteries of fire alarm hence need a reminder on his phone, so that it can work in case of emergency.
He wants to monitor the unnecessary consumption of electricity

Priya Gupta

Age: 35 yr

Marital status : Married, 2 children

Profession: Marketing head

Hobbies: Loves to read books, attend events and parties

Goal:

Manage her daily chores and activities efficiently
Get some quality time for herself

Concerns:

While she is out to meet her neighbors and wishes to do laundry, she want to receive a prior notification on her phone about any washing machine damage(if at all) caused, so that she can connect to the service store for any assistant or get any handy tips to fix it on her own
While she is in the kitchen, she wants to track activities of her baby in her smartphone, so that she can get back to him if needed
While she is resting on bed, she wishes to check on all the running appliances, so that she can switch them off via her smartphone

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Rincy Joseph

Age: 29 yr

Marital status : Married, 2 children

Profession: Business Analyst

Hobbies: Travel to new places, Visit museums

Goal:

Manage her daily chores and activities efficiently
Get some quality time for herself

Concerns:

While she is on her way back home after office, she wishes to switch on the AC of room before her arrival
While she is out for business meeting and her husband too is unavailable at home, she wants to monitor the activities of her children and check the security around them

PAIN POINTS

Need for easy application to control devices and monitor as smart home is a relatively new category and most ordinary people do not understand how smart home devices are used.
Need for alerts in different scenarios defined by users.
Monitoring smart devices electricity usage
Need for tracking activities around and inside home

Major Findings

Smart home devices take a long time to detect all the home appliances which result in incorrect data and wrong estimation of bills.
Users expect a smart home ecosystem to develop intelligent pattern recognition and operate according to user’s behavior and preferences. Moreover, they also expressed the preference for bill reminders and straightforward, online payment in such a system.
Smart home is a relatively new category and majority of people do not understand how smart home devices are used and what benefits they offer. This general lack of knowledge about smart home technology made answering specific questions during user research difficult.

Solution

Designed a mid fidelity wire frame of dashboard as shown below with list of rooms are provided in carousel with last card in carousel being " Add room".
Based on room selection from the carousel user can view list of smart devices installed in that particular room and can monitor its activity. Furthermore, they can add devices in future.
From the drop down of devices user can access or edit the settings of each devices
User can lock device settings and on/ off it
Apart from Devices user can add scenario; scenario is a situation or case in which user can define customized settings for devices in a room. For instance, when a user is out for a meeting and is not available at home. He can create a scenario "Meeting" and define customized settings for all devices.