ARena of Privacy: Exploring Augmented Reality in Enhancing Smart Home Privacy Awareness and Control
Hantao Zhao, Xin Qiang Yi, Liru Chen, Ziyi Zhang, Wenze Ren, Xiaomeng Shi, Bo Liu, Jiuxin Cao · International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction · 2025
The rapid emergence of smart homes offers convenience but also raises significant privacy concerns, such as challenges in comprehending privacy-related statuses, information, and settings. This study aims to mitigate these concerns by leveraging augmented reality technology to enhance privacy protection user experiences. Through interviews with experienced users in the Chinese culture context, we systematically identify and categorize three primary aspects of concerns encountered during smart home usage: sensor range and status, data transmission directions, and transparency of mode settings. Drawing on these insights, we design and implement a streamlined AR system for interacting with smart home devices. Our user studies demonstrate that our AR system offers significant advantages over traditional 2D smart home applications in terms of information representation, workload reduction (i.e., number of clicks), and enhanced privacy awareness. This research presents a notable step forward in privacy protection while suggesting pathways for AR-enhanced smart home systems.