Providing user support in Web-of-Things enabled smart spaces

Abstract

With the proliferation of connected devices, ubiquitous computing success now depends on the availability of tools and interfaces to support users in connected environments. We present a platform realizing ambient intelligence concepts that empower users in the context of Smart Spaces based on the Web of Things. This platform adopts RESTful principles to expose connected resources and defines i) a development framework to host and publish objects, ii) user interfaces and semantic based tools to find and compose real world objects iii) an application model with a set of ontologies to consume them. Our approach permits fast and simple deployments of Smart Spaces composed of Web enabled objects. With the clear objective of confronting our approach to end users, we implemented a set of user interfaces to navigate within Smart Spaces and tools to intuitively design mashups composing real world resources. We present these user support mechanisms through a semantic engine component as well as a set of browsing modalities.