"You Can't Just Automate It": Negotiating and Sustaining a "Good" Family Life Through Energy Practices

Abstract

This study examines how Taiwanese parent-child families negotiate a "good" family life through everyday energy use and imagine future smart homes that support it. We conducted in-home interviews and co-design sessions with 21 families, including 46 parents and children. We found that families pursued a good life through energy practices shaped by thrift, comfort, care, safety, and enjoyment. These arrangements were continually adapted and responded to changing bodies, schedules, people, and infrastructures. This adaptive work was unevenly distributed, which in turn shaped different smart-home imaginaries. Drawing on the lens of Nearby and adversarial design, we conceptualize adaptation as situated sociotechnical work through which families continually rework energy arrangements. We further distinguish collective goods from plural and contestable goods to show why family IoT must support shared values while preserving opportunities to question and revise household arrangements. We offer theoretical and design directions for more adaptive, participatory, and contestable family IoT.