Usability Challenges in Smart Home Devices

Smart homes, Users, Technologies, Smart devices, Authenticati -on, Households, Ener -gy, Assisted living, Usability Challenges, Future Research In this work, we describe designs and possible attacks of current smart home environments for the purpose of designing novel authentication mechanisms. Our work is motivated by the ever-increasing number of smart devices in people’s homes that are intended to improve users’ daily life. Examples of such devices include, but are not limited to, smart TVs, cleaning robots, devices for health and well-being, as well as for cooking. Such Devices can thus collect sensitive information and there after Derive information such as if a user is home how often they cook or Watch TV, etc. Smart home devices aim at convenience, efficiency, and security but are still a challenge on the usability front, which really restricts their adoption. Difficulties include complicated setting processes, lack of interoperability, and unintuitive user interfaces, which often are sources of frustration for users. Problems with connectivity, varied performance, and overdependence on smartphone applications really don’t help the issue with usability. Other limitations to adoption include privacy concerns, security fears, ease of access, and cost. These encompass the user-centric design standards with basis, security robustness as well as intuitive interfaces that may challenge an innovator. Developers ought to solve these areas so better adoption rates are driven and ensure this promise of smart homes happens. In order to understand potential threats that may be emanated by smart devices accessing sensitive data we begin by drawing out a design and problem space. The work is further enhanced with an in-depth discussion of future research directions and Challenges as well as how threats can be mitigated by visionary novel authentication approaches.