ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to demystify, probe and reimagine the visions and alternate realities that the smart home is realizing, and potentially can realize, to achieve a lower energy demand future. It focuses on home automation devices and appliances, such as smart washing machines or thermostats, rather than looking more broadly at the suite of technologies proposed for the smart home, such as micro-generation or electric vehicles. The smart home is firmly situated at the nexus between the digital, material and human. Entangled as they are, these ingredients of the smart home are being ‘lashed together’ to create new visions and realities for our future. Home automation’s stealthy and silent approach positions it as an ‘immaterial material’ in the practices it seeks to automate, making its role as a digital intervention sometimes difficult to pin down. A smart thermostat can embody ideals of rational and efficient control of energy demand as well as a more comfortable life.
