Feeling at Home with the Internet of Things

The Internet of Things (IoT) has become a major force in the way technology enters into and integrates with our domestic lives. As various sources of computation continue to proliferate, data-driven frameworks of the IoT are becoming the dominant means to support everyday interactions between people, animals, and objects such as kettles, cars, watches, and thermostats. Living with the things of the Internet of Things, in this regard, poses an important question as to whether one feels “at home” with a technology that is largely determined by its networked, distributed and hidden aspects. Arguably, these logics are exploited to “care” for our well-being by capturing all sorts of data about our social patterns, rhythms and routines, movements of people, objects, and activities across different scales of the domestic. The data, however, are used to produce new kinds of value which more accurately serve companies and governments rather than the actual “users” of the technology. This essay employs the notion of “care” as an analytical provocation to explore how one might begin to feel “at home” with the new “smart” technology