What is RESMART?
Playful tools to get a better understanding of your smart home!
As we welcome smart products in our homes, they may bring along uninvited guests such as vulnerabilities
and controversies.The RESMART toolkit invites users of smart home devices, and current or (future) professionals working with these technologies to playfully assess their relationship with these digital technologies.
This toolkit draws on knowledge and research from the Relink project, and contains activities ideally done in groups to explore the current issues and future possible evolution of the digitally connected home.
Doing the activities might prompt you to question whether your home remains truly yours when you don’t
hold the keys to controlling your home technology environment. You might also be encouraged to look behind the narratives of convenience and innovation surrounding smart home technologies, wondering how you might regain control over your technological choices, both as a user, a citizen, and a maker of digital products.
This toolkit includes two playful activities:
The Smart Home Investigation invites you to become a modern detective, uncovering the present issues posed by connected devices.
Once Upon a Smart Home encourages you to explore near-future fictions and imagine your new household in worlds where smart environments have radically evolved.
You can play both Once Upon a Smart Home and Smart Home Investigation on your own or in a small group.
How to get the toolkit?
Each activity from the RESMART toolkit is available in two versions:
- Home Edition with creative and accessible exercises that empower you to discover what really lies
behind your convenient smart home solutions. - Student Edition with additional and pedagogical options to facilitate a workshop session if you teach or
study smart home technologies and digital services.
Download the toolkit (pdf)
Dowload the pdfs below
Instructions:
- The resources for both of the activities are available for free in a print and play version. It means you have to print the resources on your own printer, and then cut out and assemble them.
- To get the best experience of these playful tools, please follow the instructions from the ‘Read me first’
document included with each activity pack.
Share your feedback!
This toolkit and its activities are part of outcomes from the RELINK project, which aims to construct
knowledge, raise awareness and reduce digital vulnerabilities in connected homes through research.
We would be glad to hear about your experience with Once Upon a Smart Home or Smart Home Investigation
whether you used the Home or Student Edition. Feel free to drop us a line with your feedback:
- How did the overall experience infuence your view on smart homes and connected products?
- What did you like? What surprised you?
- What felt complicated to understand or work with?
Contact: Henry Mainsah, Research Professor and RELINK project manager – henryma@oslomet.no