Dataset of Interview Recordings and Transcripts Collected through Ethnographic Visits to Smart Home Technology Adopters – Work Package 4 of the project “SMARTUP: Smart(ening up the modern) home – Redesigning power dynamics through domestic space digitalisation” (CHANSE Scheme)

Abstract

This dataset contains qualitative materials generated within the ethnographic component of the SMARTUP project, which examines how smart technologies are incorporated into everyday domestic life. The data come from research with ten Polish households that have adopted smart technologies. Fieldwork consisted primarily of in-person ethnographic visits, including guided “home tours” of smart devices and group interviews with adult household members, complemented by online interviews where in-person visits were not possible. All interviews were conducted in Polish.

The interviews explore residents’ reasons and expectations for adopting smart technologies; their understandings of “smart homes” and “smart living”; and how specific devices are used in the course of daily routines. Further topics include pleasures and frustrations associated with smart technologies, perceptions of competence and technological expertise, and the distribution of both domestic and digital labour within the household. The conversations also address care relations, experiences of control and monitoring, concerns about privacy and security, and imagined futures and “ideal” smart homes.