The Meaning of Convenience in Smart Home Imaginaries: Tech Industry Insights

This paper investigates the meaning of convenience in the development of smart home technologies (SHT), showing how tech industry imaginaries often promote convenience over sustainability. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 11 SHT professionals, it reveals how passivity and disengagement from energy savings are embedded in user imaginaries. Interoperability is identified as both a facilitator of convenience and a reflection of strong interdependencies among developers. The study argues that the framing of convenience in professional practices risks masking energy consumption and undermining sustainability goals.

This paper investigates the meaning of convenience in the development of smart home technologies (SHT), showing how tech industry imaginaries often promote convenience over sustainability. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 11 SHT professionals, it reveals how passivity and disengagement from energy savings are embedded in user imaginaries. Interoperability is identified as both a facilitator of convenience and a reflection of strong interdependencies among developers. The study argues that the framing of convenience in professional practices risks masking energy consumption and undermining sustainability goals.