Design for Living with Smart Products

Design for Living with Smart Products: The Intelligent Home

A Quick Introduction to the “Smart” Problem

The house from which I wrote this report was built around a hundred years ago. It was built by the French in the 1920s to be lent by the Shanghainese municipality to an official of a political party, and then it was given as a sign of respect to a famous opera singer, who decided to consign it to his mistress. It was sold—or more accurately, passed on—in the 1990s and subdivided into smaller apartments to accommodate up to eight families. Now, as a result of Shanghai’s housing boom, it’s rented out to just three families, at 20 times the price for which it was originally lent. It was built when electricity was a luxury. It was later wired for telephone and then eventually TV cables were installed. I guess that there should also be a satellite cable somewhere, but I cannot recognize which plugs are which anymore. When I moved in, fiber-optic was quickly set up by a cable contractor, thrown out in the courtyard to be bundled up in the mess of wires. My home is connected, and it always was in some way. It’s not really owned by anyone and it’s a very complex mix of old, new, East, West, rich, poor, and so on.

When I look around my apartment, I see only a few things that I would consider “smart”: my laptop; maybe a couple of other things that I managed to coax to work together via Bluetooth; and my dog. The rooms have a complex mix of new things, old things, things I brought with ...