Peer-to-peer rental services are continuously growing in the sharing economy era. There also are more and more houses with smarthome system added into the market. The hosts originally designed the automation system to improve the comfort and convenience of their own lives, but also shared it with guests for enhancing their experiences while the hosts were away from home. However, due to the lack of communication, the guests might encounter negative experiences when the automation took place without perceptible in-situ feedforward and feedback in advance. In this study, we developed a web-based application that combines augmented reality and visible light communication to control smart home devices. The tool uses a mobile camera to scan IoT communicators, let users change connected devices' settings, and visualizes the current set automation. Additionally, guests can use presets to change the atmosphere, creating a wonderful experience. Our user study shows users preferred the web-based system rather than installing new apps. The interaction experience was easy to use and overall positive. Our AR interface provided direct controls of the appliances and clear explanations of the functionalities. While users recognized the usefulness of the physical feedforward shown with LED interfaces, some users could not interpret the meanings initially, and sometimes the blinking lights were distracting. We highlighted several design considerations for improving the understandability and guest experiences for staying in smart accommodations.
• Human-centered computing → User interface design; Empirical studies in interaction design; Ubiquitous and mobile computing design and evaluation methods.
Copyright 2021 for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). 1
Smarthome recently becomes increasingly ubiquitous with
the popularity of Internet of Things (IoT) technology and
products. It brings comfort, energy eficiency, and security to
homeowners [
Smarthome is also a life-changing tool for Airbnb hosts
to ensure the safety of the rental accommodations and cut
of the energy costs. Hosts can remotely let guests enter by
using the smart lock or give access only for a limited amount
of time. They can also remotely check the temperature with
a smart thermostat and switch of the system when guests
are not staying inside. One of the reasons hosts are using
smart devices is to monitor the Airbnb property and guests’
activities, for example, by installing outdoor cameras or noise
sensors, hosts are checking if the visitors are not creating big
parties in their place and are not bothering neighbors with
the noise [
Customer satisfaction is an important factor when
providing a service as it delivers useful behavior after the purchase,
for example, helpful word-of-mouth or repeat visitations,
resulting in growing profits [
While smarthome provides significant benefits for the hosts,
the guests might lack a corresponding understanding of the
systems. Guests usually feel uncomfortable around smart
devices regarding privacy and do not understand how
everything works. Very often, hosts are not always present to help
guests check in the property and explain how the system
works. The lack of guests’ experience and understanding of
the smarthome system can lead to unexpected losses of time,
money, and complaints [
We applied the research through design methodology[
The first part of the prototype is a web application. The website is a tool that uses a mobile camera to detect smart appliances in the environment by reading IoT communicators’ light patterns (Fig.2). In the Airbnb context, the guests should have a quick and simple way how to interact with the smarthomes. To avoid creating additional mobile applications that guests would need to download and install, a diferent approach was selected - to create a website that could be accessible only in the local home network with the “.local” domain or by tapping the IoT communicators’ integrated NFC tag with your phone. After reading the visual light pattern the web interface gets the control from the smarthome system and gives access to the settings of the devices.
The other functionality of the web application is atmosphere selection (Fig.2b). A list of automation presets that the host could create and guests could choose to execute, for example, “Romantic time”, “Dinner with friends”, “Dance party”, could create a perfect setting for unforgettable memories. The shown atmosphere should be relevant to the user’s current context - showing options that control only the room devices the user is in and based on time of the day. Moreover, the interface could show suggestions that are connected with the scanned device, for example, when controlling music speaker, it could suggest local traditional or popular music playlists, or when interacting with motorized blinds in the morning, it could ofer to use “Morning routine” automation. In addition, the UI should indicate upcoming automation that is linked with the current scanned device, issues if something goes wrong, for example, the battery is low, the device lost connection to the network, etc. Besides that, the host could attach a notification or a message to the devices, informing the guests that they changed the device settings remotely or telling other relevant information (Fig.2c).
In addition, during the research it was found that hosts prefer to control the smart appliances remotely by themselves in order not to let the guests set the settings too high, for example, with thermostat increase the temperature, thus rising the energy consumption costs. For this reason, many hosts are not letting the guest access the smarthome interface at all. To find a compromise, the maximum or minimum value could be set by the host for each of the device settings (Fig.2d). In this case, the host can be sure, that the guests will not heat the accommodation too much or will not play music or TV in the night too loud, thus disturbing neighbors.
Furthermore, guests who come to the new accommodation
are not aware of the current set automation in the smarthome
system. This web application should show the automation
overview and if needed, visualize which devices belong to
selected automation (Fig.3). For a smarthome system,
especially in the Airbnb context, privacy is important, therefore
people prefer to have a smarthome server locally rather than
cloud-based[
The second part is the IoT communicator which is a
batterypowered coin size device (Fig.4) that is attached to each
smart appliance in the home. Each also has connected to the
smarthome system and equipped with integrated LED lights
for providing feedback and feedforward to users. This device
uses visual light communication, a specific, morse code
inspired, light pattern to broadcast the identification number
of the smart appliance. While the smart appliance market
is rapidly growing[
In the Airbnb context, the guests should have a quick and
simple way how to interact with smarthomes. To eliminate
the hassle of forcing guests to download and install a new
application on their devices, a diferent approach was selected
- to create a website that could be accessed only in the local
home network with the ".local" domain or by tapping the
IoT communicators’ integrated NFC tag with your phone.
After reading the visual light pattern, the web interface gets
control from the smarthome system and gives access to the
devices’ settings. Research showed that Airbnb guests have
some dificulties with controlling appliances [
A user study is conducted with five participants to
evaluate the design concept and the usability of the prototype.
The research was performed in a studio-type apartment that
has a working smarthome system with few smart devices
two Philips light bulbs, a Philips hue light strip, a connected
speaker, a motion sensor, and a thermostat. In total, six IoT
communicators were used and scattered in the studio. The
smart device and IoT communicators’ placement can be seen
in Fig.6. We adapted the experimental setup used in [
The results indicate that participants look positive about this concept. Users value the exciting experience it creates - "I can imagine if I use this in every place, I would first just try out everything. Yeah, so it’s like quite exciting" (P2) and also the gamified feeling: "It was a nice experience. I really liked that scavenger hunt feeling, that you are walking with your phone and searching for the sensors, you don’t know what you are going to find. It’s really fun" (P3). Furthermore, users liked that it is easy to use application - "It’s incredibly easy to learn it’s the procedure" (P4), "Aesthetically pleasing, easy to understand, allows to avoid using voice commands" (P3), "That’s the power of this (product), like, you only need to learn once, and once you’ve seen it, then you know it’s quite easy" (P1). In addition, participants favored that the interface is in a website - "Everything looks cool and quite cute, but I don’t like to install any apps, but if it is made on the website, then it is awesome" (P3). Moreover, the atmosphere selection was an appreciated feature - "...the ambient settings are super nice when you want the right settings in a second" (P4), "But still, like the Ambient setting it’s really cool. You just come in, feel like this and ’pop’. That’s really the best" (P1). In overall, participants are positive about this project because it is easy to use, creates an exciting experience, it is quickly accessible and it helps them quickly change the environment to their needs.
The important factor of satisfaction with this concept is the experience of being around the lighted up IoT communicators. The user study showed that the opinions about it are contrasting. Three out of five participants felt the physical interface was very helpful. The lights create a feeling that the smarthome wants to interact - "They’re blinking. They try to tell me something" (P2), "It seems that they want my attention all the time" (P3). The IoT communicators also bring curiosity and help to find the smart devices in the accommodation - "The feeling was quite nice, it was intriguing" (P3), "But it is very good to find them because if it didn’t light up, I wouldn’t have found them [i.e., smart appliances]." (P1). On the other hand, two participants said that the blinking IoT communicators lights might be annoying and overwhelming - "They neutral well with the slightly negative though, because there’s still a bit distracting" (P4), "I feel like these lights might be a bit too much might be a bit overwhelming. When you’re being confronted by lights at the sudden from every direction" (P5).
Besides the interpretations, we also noticed that the light color could be adjusted to enhance the specific meanings of the message. For instance, P4 mentioned that "Notification should be more direct, it is too calm for it." Similarly, P1 also said, "I would use more ’Blink Blink’ solution." Since the notification light pattern color was connected more to the thermostat functionality rather than to the pattern itself, the color should be changed to more neutral, like white or violet. 5
After researching the smarthome systems in the Airbnb context, the main problems as confusion and misuse of appliances, unawareness about the current set automation, and lack of expressiveness of the smarthome system. Among them, the accessibility to the smarthome interface are found, which can outweigh the benefits like energy, cost savings, and pleasing home automation that could create a nice atmosphere or experience for the guests. To overcome those challenges, we developed a Smart ARbnb system for guiding guests’ onboarding process and facilitating them to use the smart system properly.
We conducted a user study with five participants to evaluate the usability and design concept. Their overall experience of the interaction and system appears to be positive, and all users would like to see the "Smart ARbnb" system inside the next Airbnb accommodation place. While users recognized the usefulness of the physical feedforward shown with visible LED lights, the information was not intuitive to some users. Sometimes the blinking lights were distracting.
In future work, the user interface and lighting patterns can be improved and evaluated regarding the understandability of the automation overview and better balance between notifying users and distracting their attentions.