Log it While it's Hot

Abstract

Smart thermostats offer impressive scope for adapting to users' thermal comfort preferences and saving energy in shared work environments. Yet human interactions with smart thermostats thus far amount to an assumption from designers that users are willing and able to provide unbiased data at regular intervals; which may be unrealistic. In this paper we highlight the variety of social factors which complicate users' relationships with smart thermostats in shared work environments. These include social dynamics, expectations, and contextually specific factors that influence motivations for interaction with the system. In response we outline our framework towards a Smarter Thermostat: one which better accounts for these messy social inevitabilities, is equipped for a decline in user feedback over time and one which augments rather than attempts to replaces human intelligence- thereby ensuring a smarter thermostat does not create dumber humans.