Home Automation and the Family Acceptance Factor

 

Source: Quora

What is Family Acceptance Factor and why is it important?

Family Acceptance Factor is today's preferred terminology for the original 'Wife Acceptance Factor' (or Wife Approval Factor).  The original WAF was coined in the 80's and generally referred to large stereo speaker systems or emerging home theater setups that could dominate the living or family room.

The smart home community has latched onto this concept in terms of assuring that the technology that you may wish to install into your home automation system will have a high Family Acceptance Factor.  If it doesn't, you will be fighting an uphill battle on future projects, be met with frustration and potentially anger by other household members and, if not handled properly, could seriously curtail your desire to build a true automated smart home.

I've covered the WAF (or FAF) briefly in some other posts about planning your smart home.  But it such an important topic, I felt like it deserved a separate article with a bit more detail on the why and how.

My journey

Luckily, I receive some good advice about WAF before I started getting very deep into the smart home scene.  (Side note:  while WAF is no longer the approved terminology, in my case it is just me and my wife in our household, so when talking about my personal journey, it truly was the Wife Approval Factor, so I will use that to just talk about my situation).

My wife isn't a technophobe.  But she is by no means a technophile either!  She has an iPad that she loves and uses a computer everyday for her job, but that is about the extent of her real interest in technology.  She isn't a gamer.  She couldn't care less about the latest gadget or newest phone.

But in the Spring of 2017, I won a new Google Home as a door prize at a tech conference I was attending.  At this point, we really didn't have any true "smart home" tech... other than some Internet connected devices, such as a "smart TV", Roku, etc.  But I could see the possibilities and it was this that kicked off my personal journey... despite the very limited capabilities of Google Home at that time, considering that it was less than 6 months old.

I immediately started playing with my new device, trying things out, seeing what it could and couldn't do. But the wife simply refused to even speak to it.  She said it felt silly and she didn't see the point.  But after hearing me interact with it, she began to routinely ask for things like the current temperature (still one of her favorite requests).  As Google Home grew up and got better and better, the more comfortable she became with interacting with it.  In fact, as of today, she probably interacts with our Google devices much more than I do... and I'm often surprised at how well Google does at interpreting her requests, despite how she phrases a particular query.

So, right off, this told me one important thing.  My smart home needed to be able to respond to voice commands.  I knew that she would not be willing to pull out a smart phone, find and launch the appropriate app to interact with our smart home tech.  It needed to be able to respond to voice requests. 

Next up, I started looking for routines or things that we did daily that might be automated.  Something that jumped out right away was two lights that we turned on every night as both night lights and as security... one was a recessed light in the kitchen and the other was a lamp in the family room.  Both were controlled by wall switches.  I converted these over to smart switches/relays that automatically come on based on sunrise/sunset, so we didn't have to remember to turn them on every night and off every morning.  However, they could still be manually controlled at any point with either the wall switches or by voice command.

I had also noted that because we spend much of our time in our finished basement while the washer and dryer are on the main level.  My wife would often ask me to check to see if the washer had finished if I was headed upstairs for something.  Here was another opportunity.  I used a smart plug and Google Home to announce that the washer is finished (it now also announces the dryer completion as well).

Flash forward to present day.  Google speakers (now totaling seven) are sprinkled throughout the house so that announcements can be heard and interacting with the home automation system is possible from anywhere.  I've continued to add devices and automations that directly benefit my wife mixed in with my own pet projects.  And so far I've had pretty good success and haven't had to strip out anything I've installed.  The only real complaints I hear is when something stops working properly.  If the garage door didn't auto-open or lights didn't come on as expected, my wife will let me know about it!  She has become accustomed to these automations and misses them when non-functional.

Recommendations

What TO do:

Start Simple

Introduce family members to smart home automation with some simple easy-to-follow things.  Don't start with something that requires pulling out a smart phone, launching the proper app, finding a device or routine in that app and then activating it, just to do something simple like turning on a light.  You will have an uphill battle for all your future projects if other family members are soured on the concept from the start.  

Find automations or processes that directly benefit other family members

While you might be itching to go whole hog and start throwing up a bunch of flashy, cool devices and automations, I'd recommend a gradual approach.  Look for things that a family member does everyday that might be automated (e.g. opens the bedroom blinds every morning and closed them at night).  Or look for problems that might be solved (e.g. someone consistently forgets to lock a door or leaves the garage lights on all night - leading to 'blame game' arguments!).  Maybe in the past something was mentioned about adding under cabinet lighting in the kitchen.  This can be an opportunity to provide a solution, with the added benefit of making the lighting automated or voice-controlled (and possibly at a fraction of the cost and headache of installing a 'pre-packaged' solution).

Involve family members in the process

Once you've introduced a few automation and devices, ask if there is anything that might be nice for your family members.  Talk about how it might work.  Other family members don't have to be tech geeks or coders to pitch in.  If you've done a good job of pulling them over to the idea of smart home automation, you might be surprised at the ideas they come up with.  My wife has proposed a number of good ideas over the past couple of years... some easy, some a bit more difficult!

Introduce new devices and automations with the basics first

Before showing all the new flashy options of a new device or automation, cover the basics with family members first.  Don't replace all your standard bulbs in your family room with multicolor smart bulbs and immediately launch into complex demo of how you can sync these lights to music from the home theater and turn the room into a dance club!  Show the family member(s) how they can turn on the lamp next to their reading spot on the couch.  Make sure this is simple and easily understood.  Once you've addressed the basics... and covered the operations they are most likely to use on a daily basis, then you can show off some of the advanced features.

Always discuss new automations and devices BEFORE implementing

This is especially important if the change will have a large visual impact in your house or substantially change how something operates.

Find automations and controls that make life easier... without the need for training or fancy device interactions (e.g. washer notifications, parking assistant).  Ask for ideas... and how they would like them implemented (e.g. master bedroom lamp).  Watch behaviors and look for opportunities (under cabinet lighting, kitchen lighting)

Try to provide a minimum of two ways, preferably more, to control a device or automation

Whenever possible and feasible, try to provide multiple ways to control any device, especially if those devices require Internet connectivity (or better yet, find a locally controlled alternative!).  You also need to consider visitors or guests.  How will they interact with your devices?  I like to provide a button or switch whenever possible that serves as a fallback if there any network or systems issues... and as a means of control for visitors.

What NOT to do

Do not remove existing functionality

Don't do it!

Your smart home should enhance functionality... not remove it.  Nothing will anger family members more than taping over an existing switch that functioned perfectly well to turn on a lamp, but now they are forced to use an app or other method to complete this simple task.  You might be tempted to do something like this with a smart bulb.  Say you've installed a great smart, WIFI-enabled RGB bulb in a lamp or fixture.  But every time someone flips the wall switch and cuts power to the bulb, it will no longer respond to automations or any other smart home features.  To assure the bulb always has power, the inclination is to simply tape over the wall switch and tell everyone not to touch it!

In this case, look (or ask others) for alternatives.  For this situation, installing a smart switch or relay (aka Shelly or Sonoff) in place of the current switch will allow the lamp or fixture to be operated as it always has, but can maintain power to the bulb for any other automations or smart home platforms.  The takeaway here is to look for alternatives if you solution will remove existing functionality for a device in your home.  YouTube, Discord and other smart home forums are your friend here!

Don't try to change behavior... change your automation

If you can avoid initial frustrations, family members will likely adopt and adjust to interacting with your new smart home.  However, unless you are in a lucky situation where everyone in the home is as excited as you are about tech, this adoption will be gradual. In the transition phase, try to adapt your automations and processes to the "normal" behavior of the household.

Here's an example:  After installing under-cabinet LED lighting in the kitchen and enabling this via Google voice control, I had entered in phrases that I thought made the most sense (e.g. Hey Google... turn on the under cabinet lighting).  But I listened closely to the phrases that my wife was using (turn on the cabinet lights... turn the cabinet lights on, etc.).  Instead of trying to train her on the correct phrases, I simply modified the automation to add the phrases that she used.

The point here is that watch and listen to how household members are interacting and adjust your automations accordingly.  Change the behavior of the automations and avoid trying to change the behavior of family members... you'll be glad you did!

Final Thoughts

By following a few simple guidelines, and involving your family members in the process, your journey to an automated smart home can be a smooth and rewarding experience for all involved.  In fact, in my case, my wife now comes up with ideas or recommendations of things she things would be convenient.  Often these are interesting challenges or ideas that I haven't considered... and I love a challenge!

By including and involving other family members in your own personal home automation journey, you might be surprised at the results.  But you must consider a lot of factors in the process.  Good luck and good automations!