Citizens Advice - Consumer attitudes towards smart home technology

Report

Citizens Advice want to build an in-depth understanding of how consumers are likely to react to smart home products and services, what they see as the benefits and risks of these technologies and what consumer protection they would hope/expect to be in place. To develop this understanding, Citizens Advice commissioned Traverse (under former name, OPM Group) to conduct a range of research activities including social media research, short deliberative workshops, and community workshops. This report summarises the key findings from these activities. The research aims to explore the following:

• What consumers want, need, and expect from interactions with smart home equipment (benefits / risks, perceived value / concerns)
• What kind of control and transparency consumers want in relation to these interactions (assumptions and concerns about privacy and data); and
• What seeking redress should look like in the event that something goes wrong (potential policies and protections). The outputs of this research will be used by Citizens Advice to enable them to confidently represent the consumer voice in this arena, inform policy lines, and potentially form the basis of a guiding framework for this emerging market.

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/about-us/policy/policy-research-topics/energy-policy-research-and-consultation-responses/energy-policy-research/current-consumer-attitudes-to-smart-home-technology/

Authors