ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a critical perspective on the concept of the smart home from four distinct angles: a history of smart suburban homes; policy making; innovation; and reviewing non-determinist ways of interpreting human-technology relations. The chapter demonstrates how complex steering sustainability is, especially if policy makers do not question traditional or international directions and simply respond to market forces. In the classic and most popular perspective, capitalism magically delivers technological solutions to all human problems, so environmental sustainability becomes just one more challenge that inevitably and ultimately will be addressed and solved. There are histories and contemporary contexts of information and communication technology (ICT) use and innovation that need to be understood in order that effective sustainability policies be initiated and maintained in the domestic home. The Internet fridge becomes high-tech once it has the capacity to communicate and inform as a mediatic and/or informatic assemblage.
