Smart Speakers Research Articles

The impact of smart speakers and podcasts on news media consumption

ABSTRACT The increasing diffusion of smart speakers results in substantial challenges for news publishers. Voice-based formats – especially news podcasts – gain significant importance via smart speakers, raising the question of displacement effects on other news media. We investigate the interplay of smart speakers and podcasts with news consumption data from 1,528 respondents collected in Germany. We control for selection effects using propensity score matching and find (I) a higher usage of news podcasts as well as (II) higher podcast news consumption intensity, both driven by smart speaker diffusion. Additionally, podcast usage increases the total cross-media news consumption intensity without displacing other media. We provide converging evidence that smart speakers are a relevant complementary news content channel to access podcasts, which subsequently contribute to strengthening news consumption through other media.

Doing Virtual Companionship with Alexa

Technologists often claim that virtual assistants, e.g., smart speakers, can offer 'smart companionship for independent older people'. However, the concept of companionship manifested by such technologies is rarely explained further. Studies of virtual assistants as assistive technologies have tended to conceptualise companionship as a 'special form of friendship' or as a way of strengthening 'psychological wellbeing' and 'emotional resilience'. While these abstractions can be measured using psychological indices or self-report, they are not necessarily informative about how 'virtual companionship' may be performed in everyday interaction. This case study focuses on how a virtual assistant is used by a person living with dementia and asks to what extent it takes on a role recognizable, from interactional studies, as 'doing companionship'. We draw on naturalistic video data featuring a person living with dementia in her own home using a smart speaker. Our results show how actions such as complaints about and blamings directed towards the device are achieved through shifts of ‘footing’ between turns that are ostensibly ‘talk to oneself’ and turns designed to occasion a response. Our findings have implications for the design, feasibility, and ethics of virtual assistants as companions, and for our understanding of the embedded ontological assumptions, interactive participation frameworks, and conversational roles involved in doing companionship with machines.

User practices in dealing with trouble in interactions with virtual assistants in German: Repeating, altering and insisting

Moments of trouble and miscommunication occur regularly when users interact with virtual assistants like smart speakers. To add to the understanding of how users treat moments of trouble in everyday interactions with a virtual assistant (VA) in German, this paper reports on a conversation analytic study of practices that users deploy after a request to a VA has failed. The repair sequences that we analyse show users orienting to different trouble sources and employing a range of practices to resolve trouble, including repeating, altering their formulations and formulating related (new) requests. Most often, troubles are resolved after one instance of repair. Other repair sequences include several instances of repair and show more complex and diverse practices being employed. In some of these sequences, users ‘insist’ on their initial goal and/or strategy and do not always observably orient to the VA’s local reactions. In these cases, the interactional history with the VA and previously successful requests seem to play a role as well in the users’ local conduct.

“They Didn’t Buy Their Smart TV to Watch Me with the Kids”: Comparing Nannies’ and Parents’ Privacy Threat Models for Smart Home Devices

Smart home devices raise privacy concerns among not only primary users, but also bystanders like domestic workers. We conducted 25 qualitative interviews with nannies and 16 with parents who employed nannies, in the US, to explore and compare their views on and privacy threat models for smart home devices. We found device-specific purposes of use inspired different perspectives among nanny participants. Most were comfortable with employers’ smart speakers and smart TVs, whose purpose had nothing to do with them. However, with indoor smart cameras, nanny participants were often not just bystanders but targets of monitoring; in such situations, they had a wider range of attitudes. In contrast, parent participants tended to have more similar views across devices. We found notable disconnects regarding disclosure, where nanny participants often hesitated to ask about cameras, but parent participants assumed nannies just didn’t care. We recommend prioritizing interventions supporting disclosure, discussion, and sharing control.

Augmented Reality Control based Energy Management System for Residence

Introduction: The roots of virtual reality (VR) go back to the work of Ivan Sutherland in the 1960s. At the time, virtual reality showed promise in universities and labs, peaking in the early 1990s at a stable level. The latest form of IoT is merging with the Internet of Everything (IOE). Using this technology, users can access any device, device, and machine in the environment through any middleware application or system. In recent years, smart speakers have become a common commercial method for controlling household appliances, solving some of the problems of remote control. For example, speech recognition is difficult in noisy environments and is minimized using noise cancellation. It also takes a long time to determine the current state of the device as the user need to request or issue a command to the smart speaker and need to wait for a response. The evaluation of prototype system found, using a device with gestures and interacting with a virtual 3D device instead of a real device was acceptable in terms of usability. In this article, the Unity and Vuforia are used to create an AR-based IoT virtual switch that can control any device connected to a LAN controller via HTTP requests. Methods: The system is made experimental with the Augmented Reality (AR), the virtual communication system is designed instead of physical mode. It provide the real time based image for active control of Energy management. It consist of virtual switches, it supports the AR based power control system. Results: The proposed system are made evaluated and tested under various load conditions. The virtual image consist of virtual switches to make real time control of power equipment. The proposed system achieve the latency of about 0.06 sec. Conclusion: The advancement in day today activities required with AR based energy management system with proper control measures. The designed system is supportive for such mechanism. The further system is proposed to make more energy saving concept for enhancement in proposed work.

Values as causes of emotions and acceptability in the digital risk context: an extension of the values scale with privacy

Values have been proposed to be important predictors of emotions about products, which in turn have been proposed to be associated with acceptability of these products. While support for this theory has been found in the environmental domain, it has not been studied in other domains, such as the domain of digital risks. The main objective of this study was to examine if three values (hedonism, personal security, and privacy) are predictors of emotions about a smart home device (a smart speaker), and if, in turn, those emotions influence the acceptability of the device (operationalized as adoption attitude). Additional objectives were to test whether the relation between risk-related values and emotions strengthens when people receive a value-tailored warning, and whether privacy as a value is a valuable addition to the 19 value scale by Schwartz and colleagues. With a scenario study (N = 623), we found, first, that privacy as a value could indeed be distinguished from the other values. Second, the values hedonism and privacy, but not personal security, predicted either or both positive and negative emotions towards a smart device, and in turn the acceptability of the smart device. Third, the effects of the values privacy and personal security on emotions were not strengthened by a value-tailored warning. Fourth, two additional values were identified that also explained emotions and in turn acceptability of the smart device, being power-resources and tradition. Fifth, privacy was found to be a valuable addition to the 19 value measurement, which explained emotions over and above the other 19 values. The study thus shows that values are also important predictors of emotions and in turn acceptability in the context of digital risks, with privacy as an important newly developed value that contributes to a more in-depth understanding of consumer decision making in this context.

A service failure assessment model for smart product consumption experience based on customer perception

Customer perception is an important consideration factor in evaluating the quality of human-computer interaction services. Sustainable user experiences and marketing strategies can be created by analyzing customer perception. By understanding consumer satisfaction with product services in the customer perception area, appropriate product service failure prevention strategies can be formulated. A service failure evaluation model is proposed in this study, which considers the customer tolerance area to accurately evaluate consumers’ behavioral experiences from purchasing to using products. The concept of tolerance area is introduced, and a combination of the fuzzy Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) method and the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method is used to construct a human-computer interaction service failure evaluation model. Potential service failure factors of smart speakers are accurately evaluated by this model, and these service failure factors are ranked within the tolerance area. The research identifies voice misinterpretation and signal connectivity issues as the primary risk factors impacting the quality of human-computer interaction for smart speakers. The application of this method not only enhances the evaluation of smart speaker human-computer interaction services quality but also aids in the precise identification and prioritization of critical failure modes. The proposed service failure prevention strategies can reduce consumer dissatisfaction and provide innovative references for smart product design and marketing. The findings bolster empirical evidence for service failure prevention strategies in smart products and pave the way for novel perspectives on enhancing the quality of human-computer interaction services.

Voice-Activated Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia

Insomnia symptoms affect an estimated 30% to 50% of the 4 million US breast cancer survivors. Previous studies have shown the effectiveness of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), but high insomnia prevalence suggests continued opportunities for delivery via new modalities. To determine the efficacy of a CBT-I-informed, voice-activated, internet-delivered program for improving insomnia symptoms among breast cancer survivors. In this randomized clinical trial, breast cancer survivors with insomnia (Insomnia Severity Index [ISI] score >7) were recruited from advocacy and survivorship groups and an oncology clinic. Eligible patients were females aged 18 years or older who had completed curative treatment more than 3 months before enrollment and had not undergone other behavioral sleep treatments in the prior year. Individuals were assessed for eligibility and randomized between March 2022 and October 2023, with data collection completed by December 2023. Participants were randomized 1:1 to a smart speaker with a voice-interactive CBT-I program or educational control for 6 weeks. Linear mixed models and Cohen d estimates were used to evaluate the primary outcome of changes in ISI scores and secondary outcomes of sleep quality, wake after sleep onset, sleep onset latency, total sleep time, and sleep efficiency. Of 76 women enrolled (38 each in the intervention and control groups), 70 (92.1%) completed the study. Mean (SD) age was 61.2 (9.3) years; 49 (64.5%) were married or partnered, and participants were a mean (SD) of 9.6 (6.8) years from diagnosis. From baseline to follow-up, ISI scores changed by a mean (SD) of -8.4 (4.7) points in the intervention group compared with -2.6 (3.5) in the control group (P < .001) (Cohen d, 1.41; 95% CI, 0.87-1.94). Sleep diary data showed statistically significant improvements in the intervention group compared with the control group for sleep quality (0.56; 95% CI, 0.39-0.74), wake after sleep onset (9.54 minutes; 95% CI, 1.93-17.10 minutes), sleep onset latency (8.32 minutes; 95% CI, 1.91-14.70 minutes), and sleep efficiency (-0.04%; 95% CI, -0.07% to -0.01%) but not for total sleep time (0.01 hours; 95% CI, -0.27 to 0.29 hours). This randomized clinical trial of an in-home, voice-activated CBT-I program among breast cancer survivors found that the intervention improved insomnia symptoms. Future studies may explore how this program can be taken to scale and integrated into ambulatory care. ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT05233800.

"She has become my best friend": a qualitative study on the perspective of elderly with type 2 diabetes regarding the use of an interactive virtual assistant device for diabetes care and mental health promotion.

To qualitatively evaluate the experiences and emotional responses of elderly individuals with type 2 diabetes regarding the use of an interactive virtual assistant device. This qualitative study included elderly individuals who were diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and who had been using the Smart Speaker EchoDot 3rd Gen (Amazon Echo®) device for three months. A structured face-to-face interview with open-ended questions was conducted to evaluate their experiences and emotional responses associated with the device. Data analysis was performed using inductive thematic content analysis with deductive coding followed by narrative synthesis to present the overall perceptions of the participants. Thirty individuals with a mean diabetes duration of 17.1 ± 9.45 years and a mean age of 71.9 ± 5.1 years were interviewed to ensure saturation of responses. Three major themes were identified through response analysis: (1) Emotional response to user experience; (2) Humanization feelings in human-device interactions; (3) Diabetes-related self-care. Overall, participants experienced a wide range of feelings regarding the use of the interactive virtual assistant device, predominantly with positive connotations, highlighting aspects of humanization of technology and its use, and experiencing assistance in self-care related to diabetes. Our results highlight the overwhelmingly positive emotional responses and strong sense of humanization expressed by elderly individuals with diabetes toward an interactive virtual assistant device. This underscores its potential to improve mental health and diabetes care, although further studies are warranted to fully explore its impact.

Distortion-tolerant on–off keying preemphasis signal transmission for a 10 Gbps indoor visible light communications

Abstract The design and simulation of indoor visible light communication (VLC) system with preemphasis is proposed for 5 m transmission of signal at the data rate of 10 Gbps for receiving only applications like smart TV, smart speaker, and smart home appliance control. The preemphasis driver circuit is designed to reduce the intersymbol interference by pulse shaping the signal and transimpedance amplifier is used to amplify the signal for longer distance transmission. Intensity modulation at the sender side and direct detection at the receiver-side are adopted in this work for the improvement of the system’s overall performance and to decrease its implementation cost. The system performance is analyzed in terms of BER, data-rate, Q-factor, and eye diagrams. The setup is developed, which includes a nonreturn-to-zero (NRZ) generator, preemphasis driver, light-emitting-diode, VLC channel, and receiver with an avalanche photodiode and Gaussian LPF. At 10 Gbps data rate, the maximum transmission distance that can be obtained is 5 m with a BER of less than 10−31.

How Service Recovery of Smart Speaker Impacts Experiential Value in the Social Customer Journey? The Moderation of Product Types

How Service Recovery of Smart Speaker Impacts Experiential Value in the Social Customer Journey? The Moderation of Product Types

Smart speakers and skill use: what do we know?

Personal smart technologies are becoming increasingly interwoven into everyday life, yet the usability and usefulness for some of these off-the-shelf technologies for persons with disabilities has yet to be determined. Smart speakers with both their native and downloadable functionalities (skills) have great potential to support individuals with disabilities through communication functionalities, smart home integrations, and more. However, the potential for usefulness does not always translate to how something is actually perceived or used in the real-world. Therefore, the objective of this qualitative study was to gather insight from individuals with disabilities on their experiences with smart speakers and smart speaker skills. Participant feedback highlighted several primary themes: (1) external factors that might influence extent of, and advancement in smart speaker use, (2) Smart speaker use barriers, (3) Smart speaker use facilitators, and (4) Smart speaker uses specific to individuals with disabilities. Continued research and development is needed to help ensure that commercially available technologies are designed with universal design principles that will ensure accessibility for all potential users.

Longitudinal Coadaptation of Older Adults With Wearables and Voice-Activated Virtual Assistants: Scoping Review.

The integration of smart technologies, including wearables and voice-activated devices, is increasingly recognized for enhancing the independence and well-being of older adults. However, the long-term dynamics of their use and the coadaptation process with older adults remain poorly understood. This scoping review explores how interactions between older adults and smart technologies evolve over time to improve both user experience and technology utility. This review synthesizes existing research on the coadaptation between older adults and smart technologies, focusing on longitudinal changes in use patterns, the effectiveness of technological adaptations, and the implications for future technology development and deployment to improve user experiences. Following the Joanna Briggs Institute Reviewer's Manual and PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews) guidelines, this scoping review examined peer-reviewed papers from databases including Ovid MEDLINE, Ovid Embase, PEDro, Ovid PsycINFO, and EBSCO CINAHL from the year 2000 to August 28, 2023, and included forward and backward searches. The search was updated on March 1, 2024. Empirical studies were included if they involved (1) individuals aged 55 years or older living independently and (2) focused on interactions and adaptations between older adults and wearables and voice-activated virtual assistants in interventions for a minimum period of 8 weeks. Data extraction was informed by the selection and optimization with compensation framework and the sex- and gender-based analysis plus theoretical framework and used a directed content analysis approach. The search yielded 16,143 papers. Following title and abstract screening and a full-text review, 5 papers met the inclusion criteria. Study populations were mostly female participants and aged 73-83 years from the United States and engaged with voice-activated virtual assistants accessed through smart speakers and wearables. Users frequently used simple commands related to music and weather, integrating devices into daily routines. However, communication barriers often led to frustration due to devices' inability to recognize cues or provide personalized responses. The findings suggest that while older adults can integrate smart technologies into their lives, a lack of customization and user-friendly interfaces hinder long-term adoption and satisfaction. The studies highlight the need for technology to be further developed so they can better meet this demographic's evolving needs and call for research addressing small sample sizes and limited diversity. Our findings highlight a critical need for continued research into the dynamic and reciprocal relationship between smart technologies and older adults over time. Future studies should focus on more diverse populations and extend monitoring periods to provide deeper insights into the coadaptation process. Insights gained from this review are vital for informing the development of more intuitive, user-centric smart technology solutions to better support the aging population in maintaining independence and enhancing their quality of life. RR2-10.2196/51129.

Children and adults produce distinct technology- and human-directed speech

This study compares how English-speaking adults and children from the United States adapt their speech when talking to a real person and a smart speaker (Amazon Alexa) in a psycholinguistic experiment. Overall, participants produced more effortful speech when talking to a device (longer duration and higher pitch). These differences also varied by age: children produced even higher pitch in device-directed speech, suggesting a stronger expectation to be misunderstood by the system. In support of this, we see that after a staged recognition error by the device, children increased pitch even more. Furthermore, both adults and children displayed the same degree of variation in their responses for whether “Alexa seems like a real person or not”, further indicating that children’s conceptualization of the system’s competence shaped their register adjustments, rather than an increased anthropomorphism response. This work speaks to models on the mechanisms underlying speech production, and human–computer interaction frameworks, providing support for routinized theories of spoken interaction with technology.

Building trust in remote attestation through transparency – a qualitative user study on observable attestation

ABSTRACT Internet of Things (IoT) devices have become increasingly important within the smart home domain, making the security of the devices a critical aspect. The majority of IoT devices are black-box systems running closed and pre-installed firmware. This raises concerns about the trustworthiness of these devices, especially considering that some of them are shipped with a microphone or a camera. Remote attestation aims at validating the trustworthiness of these devices by verifying the integrity of the software. However, users cannot validate whether the attestation has actually taken place and has not been manipulated by an attacker, raising the need for HCI research on trust and understandability. We conducted a qualitative study with 35 participants, investigating trust in the attestation process and whether this trust can be improved by additional explanations in the application. We developed an application that allows users to attest a smart speaker using their smartphone over an audio channel to identify the attested device and observe the attestation process. In order to observe the differences between the applications with and without explanations, we performed A/B testing. We discovered that trust increases when additional explanations of the technical process are provided, improving the understanding of the attestation process.

The impact of self-conscious emotions on the continuance intention of digital voice assistants in private and public contexts

Digital voice assistants (DVAs) are application programs that can understand and interpret natural language voice commands. They are embedded in various products like smartphones and smart speakers and have thus become integral in everyday life, interpersonal communications, and social relationships. Despite users tend to humanize DVAs, emotions that arise in interpersonal interactions such as self-conscious emotions (i.e., pride, shame, guilt, and vicarious embarrassment) and their influence on human-machine interaction remain unstudied. Grounding on regulatory focus theory, we argue that these emotions are fundamental for promoting or preventing future DVA use. Additionally, drawing on social influence theory, we contend that the influence of self-conscious emotions on continuous DVA use varies across specific usage situations. Thus, we extend the expectation-confirmation model with self-conscious emotions and empirically compare user reactions between different social scenarios (alone and with friends in private vs. public places). Analyzing 860 DVA user responses through structural equation modeling and multigroup analysis, our findings reveal that pride consistently positively influences continuance intention across all social contexts. Furthermore, shame acts as an important inhibitor of continuance intentions in public, while guilt inhibits continuance intentions in private places. Vicarious embarrassment, however, does not exhibit significant effects in any scenario. These results carry valuable implications for both research and management in understanding and optimizing DVA user experiences.

Smart Speakers as an Environmental Control Unit for Severe Motor Dependence: The Case of a Young Adult with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a disease that primarily affects males and causes a gradual loss of muscle strength. This results in a deterioration of motor skills and functional mobility, which can impact the performance of various occupations. Individuals with DMD often rely heavily on caregivers to assist with daily activities, which can lead to caregiver burden. A case study was conducted to explore and describe potential variations in the performance of a young adult diagnosed with DMD and his caregivers resulting from the integration of smart speakers (SS)-controlled Internet of Things (IoT) devices in the home environment. The study also examined the potential of SS as an environment control unit (ECU) and analysed variations in caregiver burden. Smart devices and SS were installed in the most frequently used spaces, namely, the bedroom and living room. The study employed WebQDA software to perform content analysis and Microsoft Excel to calculate the scores of the structured instruments. The implementation of the IoT-assisted environment compensated for previously physical tasks, resulting in a slight increase in independent performance and reduced demands on caregivers.

Comparative Analysis of MoCA and DigiMoCA Test Results: A Pilot Study

This study examined the cognitive performance of older adults aged 60 and above using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) test and DigiMoCA, a digital tool for cognitive screening administered by means of a smart speaker, to investigate whether the additional variables utilised by DigiMoCA allow for the identification of significant differences between individuals with depressive symptoms and those with mild cognitive impairment, which are not detected using the original MoCA test. A total of 73 senior adults located in Northwestern Spain, 22 male and 51 female, participated in this study. Subjects were divided into four groups based on the presence of depressive symptoms and mild cognitive impairment, with the aim of analysing the results of each dimension of the MoCA and DigiMoCA tests and assessing the additional insights provided by the digital administration tool. The results indicate significant differences among groups. Individuals with depressive symptoms exhibited poorer performance in forward number span, attention, and clock drawing compared to healthy controls. Furthermore, individuals with depressive symptoms and mild cognitive impairment exhibited significantly worse memory and orientation compared to those with cognitive impairment alone. Correlations revealed that a greater severity of depressive symptoms was associated with poorer performance across cognitive domains, including visuospatial skills, attention, language, memory, and phonemic verbal fluency. This study also illustrated how the exploitation of additional variables systematically captured by digital instruments, such as completion times or response delays to individual interactions, may facilitate the early identification of cognitive and depressive conditions, providing initial evidence about the importance of integrating advanced digital tools in cognitive assessment to inspire the development of more effective, personalised interventions.

The Influence of Response Time and Feedback Type on the User Experience of Voice Interaction among Older Adults

With the maturity and development of digital technology, voice interaction has been widely used in different devices or scenarios. However, older adults have low satisfaction and acceptance levels when using voice interaction. To improve older adults’ user experience of voice interaction, the current study explored the effect of response time and feedback type on the user experience of voice interaction among older adults. A Xiaodu smart speaker was used as the experimental device, and the response time was recorded using artificial breakpoints. Our study consisted of two experiments that explored the voice wake-up and voice dialogue stages under different combinations of response time and feedback type and older adults rated their satisfaction, comfort, anthropomorphism, and perceived speed level. The results showed that: (1) the optimal wake-up response time for older adults is 250–1000 ms, and the optimal dialogue response time is 600–1500 ms. (2) As response time increases, older adults’ satisfaction, comfort, and anthropomorphism toward smart speakers decrease. In the wake-up stage, the scores in the time period >2000 ms is significantly lower than those shorter response times. In the dialogue stage, the scores in the time periods >3000 ms are significantly lower than those shorter response times. (3) In the wake-up stage, the voice-based prompt “Hello, I’m Xiaodu” scores highest among all kinds of feedback types. In the dialogue stage, the social-oriented feedback scores higher in satisfaction and comfort than task-oriented feedback. The results of the current study could provide implications for age-friendly voice interaction design.

How a Child Learns to ‘Talk’ to a Smart Speaker: On the Emergence of Enlanguaged Practices

Abstract In this paper, I am concerned with the socio-material practice of engaging with voice-enabled machines. Far from ‘talking’ to a smart speaker, a user must master the skill of composing a command while routinely engaging with the machine. While the practice relies on practical understanding and intelligibility, attention must be paid to the trans-situational aspects that enable the situated enactment of socio-material practices. By conceptualizing engagement with the smart speaker as an enlanguaged practice, I trace the ability to engage in a seemingly individualistic practice to a person‘s history of engagement in and with the world. Specifically, I consider how a pre-literate child relies on instances of recursive bodily coordination with her caregiver to learn how to engage with a smart speaker. Informed by the languaging perspective which treats language as multiscalar bodily verbal activity, I trace enlanguaging to the intricate interplay of dialogicality, temporality, and embodiment.