Low-cost physical computing platforms for end-user prototyping of smart home systems

ABSTRACT

End-user development (EUD) seeks to facilitate the extension and customisation of systems during use, with increasing possibilities as the Internet-of-Things (IoT) computing paradigm becomes widespread and expands into realms such as the smart home. This exploratory research study explores two popular physical computing platforms, oriented towards novice makers, that allow end-user developers to create and deploy an IoT smart home sensor device, as well as visualise the resulting data in the cloud. The end users’ experiences are evaluated against known EUD design principles, finding that the platforms in their current state are only partially able to meet two of the principles. Such end-to-end IoT prototyping platforms are a relatively recent offering of these maker-focused organisations and, despite some issues in their current state, they offer the potential to increase the ability of end-users to prototype across the complex layers of an IoT system. Future possibilities around the data visualisation layer and for integration with visual programming work are identified, to improve the end-users’ ability to deeply customise their IoT systems.

KEYWORDS:

• End-user development
• Arduino
• physical computing
• prototyping
• Internet-of-Things

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).