From Plug-In Devices to Embedded Architecture: Classifying Smart Home Technologies for Older Adults from a Spatial-Integration Perspective

Aging-in-place has become a key response to population aging, with smart home technologies increasingly seen as its critical infrastructure. Such devices support older adults functionally, yet how they are embedded in residential spaces carries a double consequence. It shapes the daily experience through which older adults' sense of home accumulates, and how readily the dwelling adapts as that technology is renewed. However, smart home research has not systematically examined this integration, and the criteria distinguishing its forms remain unclear.

To address this gap, this paper develops a two-axis taxonomy through conceptual framework analysis. It synthesizes concepts from environmental psychology, ubiquitous computing, tangible interaction, and calm technology research on perceived intrusiveness, and combines them deductively. The first axis, based on mode of physical coupling, sorts them into three types along the dwelling's layered structure, Space-Detached, Furniture-Embedded, and Architecture-Embedded, which differ in who can install or remove a device and at what cost. The second axis adds three graded dimensions within each type, namely aesthetic-style fit, physical embedding depth, and interaction intrusiveness. The taxonomy is then applied to a sample of aging-in-place products, illustrating its discriminative capacity.

This study advances smart home research firstly by making spatial integration a primary axis previously left to designer intuition. The three types render explicit what earlier work treated as an implementation detail, so integration can be compared across devices and its impact on older adults' experiences measured under controlled comparison. Further, the taxonomy makes the sustainability of a smart-home installation analyzable. These types differ in the cost of change and in how long a device stays embedded. Therefore, the framework lets designers compare these options before the choice is fixed in the building fabric. The dwelling can then remain sustainable over its long service life, taking up new technology as older devices are replaced.