Time and again, science fiction has broached the idea of a virtual man-Friday. Fast forward to 2018 and the idea of machines having a humane quality isn’t a work of fiction anymore. Devices are becoming ‘smarter’ by the day; we have smart TVs, smart phones, smart lights, smart speakers, and even smart virtual assistants.

Google’s Home and Amazon’s Echo devices are making a huge uproar in the Indian markets, with their catchy taglines like ‘Make Google do it’ and ‘Just Ask (Alexa)’ that hint strongly about these devices’ capacities to help out in routine chores.

Are smart home speakers really helpful?

An exploratory research that we conducted revealed that, these smart devices were being used as extravagant stereo systems. Once the novelty factor wore off, users were unsure of how to expand the usage of the device.

There seems to be a gap between what the devices have to offer and their usage.

1. Far from the ultimate solution to druggery

Even though a ‘smart’ speaker offers a way to manage and keep track of daily tasks without the risk of screen fatigue, it is not the need of the hour.

According to Statista.com, more than 75% of Indians are Android users with smart assistants built into their phones. A smart phone is capable of doing the same, without any additional investment into a smart speaker.

2. Entertainment platform or a music streaming device?

A smart ‘speaker’ is also an entertainment platform, however current usage in Indian households is very much centered (if not limited) around music & entertainment. Jokes and games seem to loose their charm after the first few days.

3. Indian English is a whole other language!!

Both Amazon and Google have been working on localizing the accent to suit the Indian ear but accent is just one part of the story. Some other important aspects to consider:

• Support Indian Colloquial English: English is an acquired skill for most Indians. Hence, there are bound to be mistakes in choice of words or framing of requests. This is just a short term fix; the long term ask is support for Indian languages.
• Provide local content & services: The idea is to provide more value & greater convenience through integration of localized content and services. Amazon Echo has a healthy lead with their ability to book an Ola (Ride Hailing service) or order food from Zomato, or shop on Amazon. However, users like multiple options for every service category for example food ordering.

4. Home Automation — Neither effortless nor cheap!!

Google Home and Amazon Echo devices are being widely promoted as a platform for ushering in home automation. On the flip side, automation is not off the shelf and requires expertise to retrofit; not to speak of the additional costs.

5. Personal assistants can talk, but are they ready to learn and adapt?

Even though the conversational aspect of the interaction is still nascent, the device is considered novel for it’s ability to provide assistance in a manner most natural to humans, through voice.

However, there are certain limitations at the moment, which obstruct the idea of seeking effortless assistance.

• ‘Portability’ conundrum: Portability trumps assistance, a recurring question users ask is “what is the point of having the device talk to me if I can’t carry it anywhere I want?”
• Always plugged in: Power outages are a common occurrence in most Indian cities, so a device that needs to be plugged in 24 x 7 becomes useless without power.
• A learning system: A device that needs to be told how to do a task every time, quickly becomes a source of frustration. A device that remembers and learns from the users’ daily patterns would be of much higher value. For instance, if I book a cab everyday at 9 A.M., the device should ask about performing this task before my prompt.

Despite the grand launches and extensive marketing, the smart home speakers are yet to find their footing in Indian homes.

Smart speakers in India: How ‘desi’ can they become? was originally published in peepaldesign on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Welcoming smiles and a warm, cozy atmosphere; visiting the Shankaraiyya household felt like visiting your favorite uncle. After the success conclusion of their daughter’s engagement ceremony, there was a relaxed air around the house and the couple was quite eager to talk about their newly acquired gadget. The Google Home mini device was prominently displayed in the hall for our benefit and the conversation started to take shape around their decisions to buy the smart device.

Technology mediated connections

The couple had retired a few years back; their daily interaction with technology was minimal, mainly limited to using their smartphones and watching TV. They had a desktop PC which they used for sending e-mails or for Skype calls with their daughter.

Far from being technophobes they were quite impressed with apps like WhatsApp and Skype and how they helped in connecting people.

“WhatsApp was very helpful when I had to make decisions about which makeup to choose (for her daughter’s ceremony) and which photographer…I would send the pictures to her in the US and then we would (discuss &) decide.”

The need for an emotional connect drives their choice of technology whether it is with their daughter (Skype, Whatsapp), other friends & family (Whatsapp, Facebook) or their virtual man friday (Google Home).

Bringing home a (Welcome) Distraction

During the couple’s recent trip to the US, to visit their daughter, they had seen a similar device at a relative’s house and found it quite intriguing. They were fascinated by the idea that a speaker was capable of playing music upon request, answer questions and book a cab. Their curiosity lead to them asking their daughter to get them one on next trip to India.

“I thought that since there were only two of us in the house, it would be fun to have another voice to listen to. At least it would give a feeling that someone else is there. It is like a pet!”

Limited Knowledge of Functions

The setting up process was taken care of by their daughter and was completed quite seamlessly. In terms of use, their tryst with the smart device had just begun. Following their daughter’s instructions, the couple was using the device for those limited functions of playing music and videos via YouTube and Chromecast. Chromecast was also a recent purchase and was being used extensively for videos and music. They did not have any knowledge about additional functionalities of Google Home.

“I think it (Google home) does a lot. Our daughter knows…We still have to learn. It may also book taxis and send e-mails.”

Despite their limited knowledge about the utility of their smart speaker, Mrs.S was very enthusiastic about trying it out.

“Maybe it can switch off and switch on lights, fans, AC when we’re at home…I don’t know if it can be done. And when we’re not there maybe take care of security, maybe it can give a signal that someone is entering the house.”

Mrs. S further mentioned that she would like the device to take care of their banking transactions as well. She commented that it would be good to just use voice commands to transfer money from one account to another.

Overall Experience

Mrs. S was quite satisfied with the smart device as source of finding and listening to music.

“On the radio, you get 3 minutes of ads and just two minutes of the song. This (Google home) is nice as it lets me listen to old and new songs.”

While Mrs. S showed off Google Home as one of her cherished possessions, Mr. S wasn’t very impressed. Since the device had failed to respond to his voice once, he remarked that Google was friendlier towards his wife.

Furthermore, both of them felt the need to be very close to the speaker in order to give any voice commands. This may have been a result of their extensive experience with talking into their phone speakers.

English was not the primary spoken language and it took some effort to frame the right commands for the device. Failure to remember the right commands led to several attempts at getting the action right, which seemed annoying and a little disappointing.

At present, the Google home device was not adding any too much value to their lives; it was just a novel technological trinket that ‘entertained’. But in terms of actual utility, it was too soon to tell.

In Conclusion

According to the 2011 census there are over 103 million seniors in the country. Out of these over 15% of them live by themselves in senior only households. Given their need to stay connected smart speakers have the potential to become an key part of their lives.

As compared to younger adults, when it comes to interacting with technology, most seniors are still learning. Recent research has also shown that in terms of Voice User Interfaces (VUI), factors affecting the perceptions of older adults are markedly different from those of the younger population. The need for familiarity and reliance on habits is much more important for seniors as these factors are much more deeply ingrained for them than the younger people (Ziman, R., 2017).

We need to take into account that they did not grow up with technology and may require more information and greater flexibility when adopting smart devices. This would not only reduce the chances of getting frustrated with the device; it may also help in forming a trusted relationship with the device( Scruggs, J. R., 2018).

References

Ziman, R. (2017). Factors Affecting Seniors’ Perceptions of Voice User Interfaces.

Scruggs, J. R. (2018). Bridging the Gap: How Voice User Interface Technology Breaks Down Learnability Barriers of Human Computer Interaction for Older Adult Users.

Senior Citizens: Conversing with Smart Assistants was originally published in peepaldesign on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A small, compact device was perched on a corner table; at first glance it looked like a regular speaker nothing extraordinary. But contrary to our initial impression, this was a voice controlled ‘smart’ speaker powered by an intelligent personal assistant.

These smart speakers seem to be catching on amongst the younger, tech-savvy generation in India. So in order to get a better understanding of this trend, we decided to visit some of these homes and take a detailed look at how these devices fit into the day-to-day lives of these people and if they are truly delivering on their promise to transform lives.

Reasons to buy

Technology has become much more affordable and the average Indian has also become much more aware of how it can help bring convenience into their lives. They are also looking for coherence in their purchases and seek things that work well together.

In the case of smart devices, people purchased products that fit well with the other devices they owned. Whether they bought Amazon Echo, or the Google Home, their purchase was influenced by their need to have them fit seamlessly into their ‘technological ecosystem’ rather than as isolated devices.

“I have a Google Pixel and a Chromecast…Google home helps to have a better connectivity with everything. It was a conscious decision not to buy Alexa. We wanted something that talks to Chromecast.”

Overall, people bought the device primarily to reduce their interactions with individual devices and instead communicate with just one that takes care of everything else. And what is better than a speaker that can talk to you and assist you with your routine tasks!

The reason to integrate everything into a single system was the primary driver of purchase.

Usage

“The product is very nice but I don’t know what to do with it. Maybe that’s why (my interest) is diminishing .”

The set-up and app based onboarding experience was simple and seamless, however expanding usage to newer contexts was not well supported. The initial novelty and excitement lead to users trying out many use cases such as,

• Listening to music
• Playing games
• Search/ General Q&A
• News, Weather & Time updates

But once the initial excitement wore off, usage slowly got focused on tasks like play music either through their phones, or stream music through Chromecast on their TVs. Keeping people up to date with their day’s schedules, and setting alarms and reminders were some other tasks that were regularly entrusted to the smart device.

Expectations in Usage

Apart from acting as a entertainment hub and setting reminders, people expected the device to make their homes smarter. They commented that in the future such a device would manage their home’s lightings, temperature, and security. Given this aspiration, they look at installation of smart lights, switches and cameras as an immediate priority.

In a typical household where both the husband and wife work, people admit to becoming more forgetful. They forget to switch off the lights when they leave the room, switch off the geyser after use, leave the AC on during the summers in the anticipation of getting a cooler room etc. People want to have these conveniences without wasting electricity.

“So many times we forget to switch off the geyser and then there is an argument about who should go and switch it off. I would like to install a smart switch for the geyser so that it can be controlled by Alexa.”

Furthermore, erratic work schedules and lesser time at hand is one of the many reasons grocery apps like big-basket are so popular amongst the younger people. People with smart devices want an integration of such apps to make grocery shopping much more convenient than it is now. They also wish for their personal assistant to keep a track of their shopping lists and even place an order on their behalf.

All these expectations boil down to one factor, convenience; they want the routine tasks taken care off so that they can focus on more meaningful things.

Overall Experience

When asked about their experience so far, people felt the smart device served its purpose but they were not sure if it had any significant impact on their lives.

The major sore spot was the constant effort put in by the people in asking things to the device. The effort required was in conflict with their expectations of a device that delivers great convenience.

They wanted the device to be a learning system that would adapt and learn according to their needs and patterns. At the moment, to ask Google Home to play something from YouTube, they had to start with the wake up phrase “Ok Google” or “Hey Google”. These strict rules while talking to the device marred their overall experience with the device.

People felt that the interactions with the device needs to be more conversational to make it seem more natural.

“What I don’t like is the effort that I put in by asking ‘Ok, Google…’ ….Feels very stupid saying that all the time. Even if it was a little conversational I might have liked it more.”

People felt that the whole point of a personal assistance powered smart device was to make their lives uncomplicated and memorizing the right ways to talk to the device was only making things more frustrating.

In Conclusion

Smart homes still seems to be a far-fetched dream for a lot of people. Building a seamless eco-system of connected devices is quite costly. Things like smart switches, smart lights are not within the means for a lot of Indian households.

Connecting the device to more Indian apps would go a long way in contributing to the success of these smart devices in India.

Smart Assistants: In the home of a Technophile (Part 1) was originally published in peepaldesign on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.