We're the cheap smart home

The Actually Existing Smart Home as Rented and Shared

Bibliographic Data

ID3977366
AuthorsSophia Maalsen (0000-0001-6384-0785, The University of Sydney, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume24
Issue8
Pages1383-1402
Publication date2023-09-14
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial & Cultural Geography (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1464-9365 • E-ISSN: 1470-1197
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14649365.2022.2065693
OpenAlexW4224943877
LanguageEN
Citations received17
References cited53

The definition and materialization of smart homes has changed over time in accordance with technological advancements and changing housing trajectories. Despite this, to date little research has problematized what different household types and tenure mean for the smart home. As housing markets become more diverse and technology becomes increasingly embedded in the everyday, critical attention needs to be paid to ways in which technologies are being used to mediate households beyond the owner-occupied, nuclear family home. Thinking critically about this is necessary in order to better understand the benefits and pernicious effects of technology on people who have different needs for technology within the home due to different tenures and different materializations of housing and home. This article situates the rented and shared house as the ‘actually existing’ smart home. It shows that those sharing housing use smart technologies performatively, subversively and as an infrastructure of care across all stages of the share housing cycle – from finding a place to live, to managing the household and maintaining relationships. In doing so the shared smart home offers an alternative smart home reflecting a household diversity that smart home discourse has, to date, largely been blind to

Business · Computer security · Home automation · Internet privacy · Sociology · Telecommunications · Computer Science · Human Mobility and Location-Based Analysis · Smart Cities and Technologies · Technology Use by Older Adults

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