The Use of Smart Home Speakers by the Elderly: Exploratory Analyses and Potential for Big Data

Abstract Contemporary smart home speakers (Amazon Echo™, Google Nest™) represent an opportunity to capture streams of big data that represent user interactions. Once captured, these data streams may be analyzed to understand use patterns for different demographics. In this research, we focus on one demographic, the aging-at-home elderly. We describe how such data streams may be captured with appropriate safeguards from smart home speakers deployed in the homes of the elderly individuals. We analyze the data to develop visual representations and sonifications to discover several patterns about aggregate use, use intensity, use progression over time, and types of use. Based on these, we draw tentative conclusions about the aging-at-home elderly make use of smart speakers at home, identify some problems, and describe how the empirical findings may be used to discover new voice skills that can contribute to the quality of life for the elderly. The paper concludes with a discussion of possibilities for applying the approach we have demonstrated for larger data sets.