Smart Home Configuration and Control: Transforming Residential Spaces into Efficient Work Environments

The pervasiveness of digital endpoints, particularly mobile devices such as smartphones, is increasingly blurring the boundaries between professional and private life. This phenomenon is exemplified by the emergence of multiple identities, whereby individuals may simultaneously occupy roles as employees and as fathers or mothers of families. The concept of singular identities, which may include contextual information such as Skype calls with colleagues at other company locations or Skype calls with family members in the same profile, is becoming increasingly prevalent. This phenomenon is evident at both the software level, where profiles and user data are involved, and at the hardware level, where laptops and tablets are used. This paper addresses the implications of the home as a workplace (home office) and its impact on both work and private life. The focus is on the challenges associated with integrating a future workplace into a future home (smart home) in terms of work technology. In contrast to the workplace in the company, the workplace at home offers a greater degree of freedom in terms of design, but also poses greater challenges. This is because there are typically no service technicians, system administrators or network specialists on site to establish and maintain the necessary infrastructural basis for working "from home". Currently, this type of preparation is the responsibility of the technically skilled or appropriately trained person themselves.