A home automation system usually contains a set of tools that users use to control devices in their homes, often remotely. These devices often include but are not limited to light switches, thermostats, thermometers, window blinds, and climate controls. The potential for these kinds of systems is huge because of the sheer number of devices that could be controlled and managed with minimal and inexpensive extra hardware. Many of the appliances in a normal home could benefit from being connected to a system that allows the owner to manage and control the devices in their home. Thus the number of potential devices is orders of magnitude larger than the number of homes connected to the system. There are several systems on the market that provide systems to monitor and control a home environment, however these systems only support specific in system devices. This uncovers a problem where a homeowner only has the opportunity to use specific products that fit into these systems. By introducing an open platform for the public that are not bound to any system we can allow more devices to be integrated in the home and contribute to further development of smarter homes. The goal with this project was to provide a scalable open platform with the possibility of asynchronous updating. This has been done by implementing multiple logical parts to both provide a web interface for the user and to allow us to handle communication and storage of data. All these parts are linked together to form a system of servers that handles all background operations. This thesis discusses and presents implementations of all of these servers, how they are implemented, communicate with each other, provide secure connections and how they can scale with increasing usage. In this process we also discuss and present techniques that were used, how to use them and their benefits, to help us reach our goal. / ”Home automation” syftar till ett system som låter användaren kontrollera och styra olika apparater i hemmet, ofta sker detta utifrån. Dessa apparater inkluderar, men är inte begränsade till ljusbrytare, termostater, termometrar, persienner eller klimatanläggningar. Potentialen för ett sådant system är enormt då antalet apparater som skulle kunna övervakas med endast minimal och billig extra hårdvara är stort. Många av dessa apparater kan dra nytta av att vara ansluten till ett system som gör det möjligt för ägaren att hantera och styra enheter i deras hem. Antalet apparater är därför mångdubbelt fler än antalet hem som är kopplade till systemet. Det finns flera system på marknaden som ger användaren ett sätt att övervaka och styra en hemmiljö, men dessa system är ofta låsta och stödjer bara specifika enheter. Genom att införa en öppen plattform för allmänheten som inte är bunden till något system, kan vi tillåta att fler enheter kan integreras i hemmet och bidra till ytterligare utveckling av smartare hem. Målet med detta projekt var att skapa en skalbar öppen plattform med möjlighet till asynkron uppdatering. Detta har gjorts genom att implementera flera logiska delar för att förse användaren med ett webbgränssnitt och för att tillåta oss hantera kommunikation och lagring av data. Alla dessa delar är sammanlänkade för att bilda ett system av servrar som hanterar alla bakgrundsprocesser. Denna avhandling diskuterar och presenterar implementeringar av alla dessa servrar, hur de genomförs, kommunicera med varandra, ger säkra anslutningar och hur de kan skala med ökad användning. I denna process diskuterar och presenterar vi de tekniker som använts, hur man använder dem och deras fördelar.

Smart homes are a growing digital phenomenon worldwide. It is widely used in everyday lifeby many people and the number of users increases significantly the more the area develops. Thesmart home contributes to many advantages both from an environmental perspective and froma comfort perspective, but as with most digital solutions, smart homes also have a backside, inthe form of security problems. There are many risks associated with using a smart home, andthe purpose of the study is to find out to what extent the individuals are aware of the risksassociated with smart homes, and to find out which risks affect the individuals the most, basedon their own point of view. The questions underlying the study are as follows: "To what extentis the individual aware of the risks associated with smart homes?" and "What risks have thegreatest impact on the individual?". In order to answer these questions, the study has beencarried out through a quantitative method in which a questionnaire was designed, the surveypresented, among other things, the risks that were chosen from the theory where we asked therespondents how conscious they are about these risks. The result shows that the majority ofrespondents are aware that there are risks with smart homes. The study shows that the greatestknowledge existed about the risks of eavesdropping and traffic analysis, even for those whowere not users of smart homes and regardless of age group. As for the other risks, it is users ofsmart homes who have the greatest knowledge about the risks and also individuals aged 30-39.Eavesdropping is the risk that the individuals consider to be the most and least serious risk.Future research in the field can be to find out how the users protect themselves against the risksand to carry out a similar study with a qualitative method to get more nuanced answers.

Majoriteten av svenskarna (86%) tror att vi kommer se allt fler uppkopplade produkter i våra hem, men det är bara 33% som faktiskt vill ha fler smarta produkter i sina hem. I denna studie har författarna undersökt vilka faktorer som är centrala i svenska konsumenters adoption av IoT-produkten Facebook Portal, för att bidra med ökad förståelse för konsumenters motstånd mot användandet av denna typ av produkter. Utifrån en värdebaserad acceptansmodell (VAM) genomfördes en kvantitativ enkätundersökning där potentiella konsumenters attityd till användandet av Facebook Portal undersöktes utifrån faktorerna upplevd användbarhet (PU), upplevt nöje (PE), upplevd integritetsrisk (PPR) och upplevd påflugenhet (PI), i relation till det uppfattade värdet (PV) av produkten. Studien visade att upplevd användbarhet (PU) och upplevt nöje (PE) har ett starkt positivt samband med potentiella användares upplevda värde (PV) av Facebook Portal samt att upplevd dataintegritetsrisk (PPR) och upplevd påflugenhet (PI) har medelstarka negativa samband med potentiella konsumenters upplevda värde (PV) av produkten. Studien visade också att respondenter som identifierar produkten som användbar (PU) och upplever produkten som rolig (PE) också tenderar att vara mindre medhållande i att produkten utgör ett hot mot integriteten (PPR) eller upplevs påträngande (PI). / The majority of Swedes (86%) believe that smart home devices is a rising trend, yet only 33% actually want more smart objects in their homes. In this study, the authors elucidate the factors central to the Swedish consumers’ adoption of the IoT product Facebook Portal, to contribute to the understanding of their resistance to the use of this type of technology. Through a value based acceptance model (VAM), the authors conducted a quantitative survey, investigating consumers' attitudes toward the use of Facebook Portal through the factors perceived usefulness (PU), perceived enjoyment (PE), perceived privacy risk (PPR) and perceived intrusiveness (PI), in relation to the perceived value (PV) of the product. Perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived enjoyment (PE) showed a strong positive correlation to potential users' perceived value (PV) of Facebook Portal and perceived privacy risk (PPR) and perceived intrusiveness (PI) showed a medium strong negative correlation to potential consumers' perceived value (PV) of the product. The study also showed that respondents who identify the product as useful (PU) and perceive the product as enjoyable (PE) also tend to be less supportive in the claims that the product comes with a privacy risk (PPR) and/or is perceived as intrusive.

Smart homes are becoming more popular and there are more and more different devices for smart homes being made. Discussions have increased about the low security level of these devices, how much data is shared with companies that provide these services and how that data is used. This study aims to find what methods are most common for securing smart homes and not sharing too much data, and why these methods are used. The question that the study is based on is: What safety precautions do users take to not spread their private information through devices in smart homes and why? To answer this question a survey has been conducted by letting people answer an online survey and interviews based on the online survey. The answers from the online survey were then subjected to statistical testing, and for the interviews a thematic analysis was made. The most common methods for being safe in smart homes were strong passwords, having different passwords for different services, updating software on devices for smart homes and using multi-factor authentication. During the following interviews the interviewees motivated the reason for using these methods with them being easy to use, convenient and that some services required them. The interviewees also frequently spoke about why they did not use certain methods, which was lack of knowledge about those methods and the associated risks, not having anything to hide and that some methods were too complicated to use.

Gartners presenterar External Attack Surface Management (EASM) som är en framväxande cybersäkerhetsdisciplin som identifierar och hanterar de risker som internetbaserade tillgångar och system utgör. Dock är ramverket vagt definierat och har gett författaren intrycket av att fungera som ett komplement till ett mer tekniskt ramverk för säkerhetsövervakning. Syftet med denna studie är att definiera Gartners EASM-ramverket och undersöka om elementen i ramverket har olika vikt av betydelse, samt ifall ramverket behövs omdefinieras för att göra den mer användbar mot IoT-teknologi, specifikt Smart Home. En litteraturstudie har genomförts för att definiera EASM-ramverket och en kvantitativ enkät har skickats elektroniskt och besvarats av åtta olika respondenter för att värdera betydelsen av de olika elementen inom ramverket och om de skulle kunna använda ramverket för Smart Home teknologier inom sina nuvarande organisationer. Respondenterna jobbar inom Smart Homes när denna studie genomfördes och är handplockade på grund av sin erfarenhet och kompetens inom branschen.Respondenterna angav att de olika elementen av EASM-ramverket är av olika vikt och att respondenterna har en osäkerhet om att de skulle använda den nuvarande tillämpningen av EASM-ramverket i sin organisation. Olika faktorer påverkade respondenternas beslut, inklusive deras erfarenhetsnivå, positioner och de företagsstorlekar de arbetar för. Även om de olika elementen i ramverket har olika vikt/betydelse, har elementen ett sekventiellt beroende vilket gör det svårt att ta bort eller byta ut ett element. Analysen tyder på att EASM-ramverket inte är tillräckligt för att vara en komplett försvarslösning inom Smart Homes, utan bör i stället användas tillsammans med Confidentiality, Integrity & Availablity (CIA-triaden) och Autentisering, Auktorisering och Redovisning (AAA-ramverket). Den fysiska aspekten av säkerhet inom Smart Homes behöver också inkluderas för att anpassa EASM-ramverket ytterligare mot Smart Homes.

A smart home is a term for everyday appliances connected to each other by a hub or the internet. By research through design, this project aims to understand how children can be included in the design process and seen as users affected by the current smart home products but don’t have their own means to communicate with them. By conducting interviews and then moving on to co-design workshops, it was possible to understand and identify the design opportunities in the project. Based on the insight from interviews, most children don’t have a way to interact with a smart object in their own home. The design was pushed toward understanding how we can involve children in the interactive design process. This thesis project has been focused on research, specifically research through design. The main goal has not been to develop an artefact at the end of the project but rather to create knowledge around how we can involve children when designing smart homes. The findings of this study show that the children participating cared more about the actions they wanted to do in a specific room rather than how to interact with the room itself. However, some ideas came up when asked for particular interactions or devices.

I takt med att samhället digitaliseras allt mer förändras våra liv på olika plan, inte minst i det egna hemmet. Idén om smarta hem har funnits ett tag, men nya innovationer fortsätter att dyka upp på marknaden. Samtidigt är det ofta aktuellt för människor att spara pengar om de kan, och ett sätt att spara pengar är att minska energiförbrukningen i den egna bostaden.Att via en SmartPhone kunna reglera temperaturen i en bostad är i dagsläget tekniskt möjligt, men är ändå inte fullt etablerat på bostadsmarknaden. Många människor befinner sig på arbetsplatser flera timmar av dagen, och det är inte nödvändigt att bostaden håller en komfortabel temperatur när ingen är hemma. I den här undersökningen utreds det av den anledningen lönsamheten i att addera mobilstyrning som ett komplement till regleringen av uppvärmningen i en byggnad, men även själva intresset för ett sådant här system på marknaden.För att kunna uppfylla syftet med undersökningen utfördes bland annat intervjuer av allmänheten och en fastighetsägare för att undersöka intresset på marknaden. För att undersöka den ekonomiska lönsamheten i att addera mobilstyrning som ett komplement till regleringen av uppvärmningen i en byggnad gjordes även hypotetiska kassaflöden. Efter undersökningen var slutförd kunde det konstateras att det fanns ett tydligt intresse för mobilstyrning på marknaden. Från kassaflödena kunde även utläsas att det på sikt är potentiellt ekonomiskt lönsamt för en fastighetsägare att installera mobila styrenheter. Lönsamheten beror dock på olika faktorer, däribland mänskliga faktorer och byggnadsteknik. / As society is increasingly digitalized our lives are changing rapidly in many areas of everyday life, one of them is the homes in which we live. The concept of a smart home has been around for some time and new innovations continue to appear on the market to define the modern homes of the future. Also, people often want to save money at given opportunity, and reducing the daily home energy consumption is a way to accomplish that.To be able to regulate the temperature of the home with a SmartPhone is currently technically possible, but it’s still not fully established in the housing market. As most people leave their homes for several hours a day during the average week a constant heating level is unnecessary. Because of this it could be interesting to investigate the potential market interest as well as the profitability of adding mobile control as a complement to the ordinary regulation of heating in a building.In order to conduct this study, interviews of the public and a property owner were conducted to get an overview of the level of potential market interest. In order to investigate the profitability of adding the mobile controlled system, a hypothetical cash flow calculation was made. After the interviews were completed, it was noted that there was a clear interest in using this kind of mobile controlling in the market. From the cash flow calculation it could also be seen that in the long term it is likely to be economically profitable for a property owner to invest in this system as well. The profitability, however, depends on a number of factors, including human behavioral patterns and building technology.

Yes / The introduction of smart metering has brought more detailed information on the actual load profile of a house. With the ability to measure, comes the desire to control the load profile. Furthermore, advances in renewable energy have made the consumer to become supplier, known as Prosumer, who therefore also becomes interested in the detail of his load, and also his energy production. With the lowering cost of smart plugs and other automation units, it has become possible to schedule electrical appliances. This makes it possible to adjust the load profiles of houses. However, without a market in the demand side, the use of load profile modification techniques are unlikely to be adapted by consumers on the long term. In this research, we will be presenting work on scheduling of energy appliances to modify the load profiles within a market environment. The paper will review the literature on algorithms used in scheduling of appliances in residential areas. Whilst many algorithms presented in the literature show that scheduling of appliances is feasible, many issues arise with respect to user interaction, and hence adaptation. Furthermore, the criteria used to evaluate the algorithms is often related only to reducing energy consumption, and hence CO2. Whilst this a key factor, it may not necessarily meet the demands of the consumer. In this paper we will be presenting work on a novel genetic algorithm that will optimize the load profile while taking into account user participation indices. A novel measure of the comfort of the customer, derived from the standard deviation of the load profile, is proposed in order to encourage the customer to participate more actively in demand response programs. Different scenarios will also be tested. / This work was supported by the British Council and the UK Department of Business Innovation and Skills under GII funding for the SITARA project.

In the future, computers will be virtually everywhere: carried by everyone and integrated into the environment. The increased computation and communication capabilities will enable intelligent environments that react to occupants through automated decision-making. Devices (sensors and actuators) are the key to making intelligent environments a reality. We believe that devices must be made more approachable for average users. Existing approaches to application development for intelligent environments require detailed knowledge about devices and their low-leveling programming interfaces, which greatly limits the number of potential users. Instead of limiting users, we must enable everyone to program the devices around them. Intelligent environments will not be commonplace until average people can set up and manage the hardware and software necessary for their personalized applications. In simplifying the programming of intelligent environments, we first made sensors and actuators accessible to average programmers then extended our work to end-users. We term the former contribution Sensor Enablement for Average Programmers (SEAP); the latter work is Sensor Enablement for End-Users (SEEU). In our experience, devices’ disparate, niche programming languages and communication protocols presented great difficulty in developing intelligent environments. To ease the development effort for average programmers, we abstracted and standardized complex sensor and actuator interactions, allowing users to instead think in terms of well-understood web applications. Users have said that SEAP is easy-to-use and exciting. But what about average people, end-users? We found that end-users are incredibly interested in intelligent environments. By engaging end-users we can create intelligent environments even faster and allow domain experts to tailor their environment. This dissertation’s second contribution, Sensor Enablement for End-Users (SEEU) provides a visual programming interface that allows users to create personalized automated behaviors given available devices and data. We performed several user studies to uncover people’s desires for intelligent environments and determine the best interface for managing an intelligent environment. SEEU combines an intuitive interface with the power and flexibility of SEAP. SEEU is a usable end-user programming framework that allows average people to create useful applications for their intelligent environments. With SEEU and SEAP, we simplified the development of intelligent environments, reducing barriers to adoption of emerging sensing and actuation technologies. We demonstrated the feasability with a series of user studies. / text

Smart home technology and IoT is rapidly gaining popularity, and many systems use mobile applications to control the hardware in the homes of the owners. Connective created by Indentive is one such system, which allows users to control things like the temperature in their homes via their smartphones. However, the usability of applications such as this one can be limited, which leads to frustration and even loss of interest for the users. This can result in critical implications for the company producing such a system – both economically and in regards to popularity. It is therefore important for companies to detect issues with their systems early on in order to address these issues and prevent negative implications. Connective was thus tested in a qualitative study using contextual inquiries with 7 participants. The data from the inquiries was then structured through thematic analysis, and the usability of the application was also tested using SUS-evaluation. Wireframe suggestions for changes to the application were then brainstormed with the thematic analysis and the result of the SUS in mind. Major issues that were addressed were access to help, information, the layout, the handling of errors, and feedback. Future studies should include further, more in-depth qualitative studies, perhaps in combination with quantitative data, to further improve and develop the wireframe-suggestions into working prototypes that can then be user tested.