Internet of Things

The Internet of Things is the idea that ordinary everyday objects can, with the
addition of sensors and communications interfaces, be made ‘Smart’. In this
context ‘Smart’ means that they are able to communicate useful information
regarding their current state, their location and the environment they exist in. The
technology behind this idea has been applied to areas such as energy efficiency
[6], a virtual lost property office [7], tachographs for individual road charging [8],
RFID systems in logistics [5] and bar codes on supermarket products that can be
read by mobile phone applications to give nutritional information, allergy
warnings or ethical information [9]. However, in this paper we shall be
investigating the Internet of Things from the perspective of its application in what
have become known as ‘Smart Homes’ and more specifically how issues relating to
Human Computer Interaction (HCI) have been considered when developing
products and appliances therein. First we shall provide a background to the
subject, highlighting its origins and noting key technical themes. Following this we
shall look in more depth at studies relating to key HCI concerns we have identified.
The first of these concerns is the design, usability and acceptance of interfaces on
‘Smart’ appliances. The second concern is the impact of security and personal
privacy considerations on the perception and acceptance of ‘Smart Homes’
technology. Finally, in our conclusion we will show that… [TBC when conclusion
can be added]

Background
The term Internet of Things represents a vision in which the virtual world of the
Internet is extended into the physical world of everyday objects. A concept first
put forward by Mark Weiser in a 1991 article for Scientific American [1], it stems
from the idea that the continuing trend for reductions in price, size and energy
consumption of electronic components, microprocessors and communications
modules will lead to a truly ubiquitous computing experience. The term itself is
attributed to Kevin Ashton, co-founder of MIT’s Auto-ID Center [2], which was set
up to design, develop and propagate open standards for Radio Frequency
Identification (RFID) infrastructure. Using sensors, it is envisioned that objects
become context aware or ‘Smart’ and that built-in networking capabilities enable
these ‘Smart’ objects to communicate their current state both to people and other
systems via internet services.

Such developments have been widely recognised both by governments and

international bodies as important and potentially disruptive. The Internet of
Things was included in the US National Intelligence Council list of 6 ‘Disruptive Civil
Technologies’ [17] in 2008, whilst an EU Commission action plan [4] saw the
evolution of the Internet taking it from “a network of interconnected computers to
a network of interconnected objects”. This vision mirrors that of the International
Telecommunications Union which views the Internet of Things as a development
that means  ”from anytime, anyplace connectivity for anyone, we will now have
connectivity for anything” [20]. Applications include energy efficiency and
conservation [6], a virtual lost property office [7], tachographs for individual traffic
costs [8], RFID tagging in logistics [5] and barcodes in supermarkets that can be
read by mobile phones [9] [13] to supply information such as allergy warnings or
nutritional details. However, there is the potential to impact on any field that
would benefit from remote, automated observation and data collection, efficient
control & management or real-time interpretation of data from the physical world
[5].

Much of the research into the Internet of Things has been from a strictly
engineering perspective and as such follows a Design Science approach that is
very much machine focused. Examples of this research can be found in [10] and
[18] where it has been additionally described as following either a ‘Things oriented’
perspective or an ‘Internet oriented’ perspective. This is a reflection that the word
Internet acts both as a metaphor for connectedness and also, in a stricter
technical sense, to signify the use of IP (Internet Protocol) as a basis for
communication.

‘Things oriented’ initiatives are largely those originating from the Auto-ID Center,
which promote the use of RFID tags and a global Electronic Product Code (EPC).
RFID tags are the combination of a small microchip attached to a wireless antenna
in a package usually similar to an adhesive sticker. RFID tagged objects are not
‘Smart’ in and of themselves but rather they require a reader to aggregate and
interpret information they gather and sit between themselves and the
applications making use of their data. The development and adoption of an EPC
network [11] and EPCIS standards aims to provide the infrastructure to uniquely
identify RFID tagged objects and simplify the processing and exchange of the data
they capture. This will be helped by the creation of Wireless Sensor Networks
enabled through advances in energy efficient multi-hop Wireless Personal Area
networks (WPAN) [21]. RFID systems have the advantage of being ‘very small size
and very low cost’ [18] and are considered good for closed loop applications e.g.
logistics within a single organisation such UPS or FedEx rather than open loop
applications such as supply chain that have greater complexity problems [10].
 There are, however, major practical issues relating to scalability and
confidentiality.
Internet Protocol (IP) enables ‘Smart’ objects to be fully connected as Internet
nodes. However, the requirements for processing and power consumption are
currently prescriptive with regards to implementing a TCP/IP stack and wireless
communications into RFID tags. Research into technologies that overcome these
issues forms the ‘Internet oriented’ approach and promotes the idea of Unique,
Universal or Ubiquitous ID (uID) architectures. It also includes artefacts that have
alternatively been termed the Web of Things [16], as a refinement of Internet of
Things. A Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) approach, allowing for the
decomposition of ‘complex and monolithic systems into applications consisting of
an ecosystem of simpler and well defined components’ [18] has been adopted in
the development of middleware to bridge this gap. Middleware describes the
software layer(s) sitting between and acting as a communications link between
applications and low level objects. One such example is the SOCRADES Integration
Architecture [29] in which Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) application
developers can query networked devices to find the most suitable one to provide
the required service based on its real-time environmental context. Alternative
middleware approaches include Fosstrak [26] an open source RFID infrastructure
implementing EPC Network specifications and e-SENSE [25] that uses wireless
sensors to capture ambient intelligence. A more ad-hoc Web of Things approach
[27] applies REST (Representational State Transfer) [30] use of the Web as
application platform to devices. In this model ‘Smart’ objects are embedded with a
small HTTP server [15] [16] or use a middleware gateway to transmit XML or JSON
data. One outcome of this is the potential for real-time ‘Mashups’ (user generated
composite applications) of physical objects with Web 2.0 services. Examples
include tracking the flight paths of planes around Zurich [14] or measuring energy
consumption of appliances [16]. In the future this could mean an RSS or Twitter
feed from your fridge updating you on the status of its contents.

Mattern and Fleorkemeier [10] have identified twelve major challenges they
consider important to the ongoing development of an Internet of Things. Amongst
these are two that form the basis of our investigations and provide the focus of
the remainder of this paper. The reason we have settled on these two challenges
is that we have identified them as relating most directly to the Human Computer
Interaction (HCI) issues that are the focus of our studies. These two challenges are:

‘Arrive & Operate’ – The idea that ‘Smart’ objects should not be perceived as
computers and that there should be no need for user configuration, rather they
should ‘just work’. For the applications we shall study in more detail this is most
clearly manifested in the choices made when designing the user interface.
Security & personal privacy – The understanding that a wider Internet of Things
will inherit all the privacy issues associated with the existing Internet and in
addition will have to concerns regarding the authentication of other
communication partners where each partner is either a ‘Smart’ object or a service.