Sabbath day home automation: "it's like mixing technology and religion"

We present a qualitative study of 20 American Orthodox Jewish families' use of home automation for religious purposes. These lead users offer insight into real-life, longterm experience with home automation technologies. We discuss how automation was seen by participants to contribute to spiritual experience and how participants oriented to the use of automation as a religious custom. We also discuss the relationship of home automation to family life. We draw design implications for the broader population, including surrender of control as a design resource, home technologies that support long-term goals and lifestyle choices, and respite from technology. Author Keywords Domestic technology, family life, home automation, religious technology, smart homes, ubiquitous computing ACM Classification Keywords H5.m. Information interfaces and presentation (e.g. HCI): Miscellaneous.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: CHI
• Authors: Allison Woodruff, Sally Augustin, Brooke E. Foucault
• Keywords: CHI 2007, Home Automation, Home Automation Technologies, Human Computer Interaction, Keywords Domestic Technology