"Nobody's Happy": Design Insights from Privacy-Conscious Smart Home Power Users on Enhancing Data Transparency, Visibility, and Control

As smart home technologies continue to grow in popularity and diversity, they raise important questions regarding ways to increase awareness about data collection practices and empower users to better manage data flows. In this paper, we share insights from 32 privacy-conscious smart home power users—individuals who have invested significant time, money, and technological prowess in customizing their smart home setup to maximize utility and meet privacy and security needs. We explore the drawbacks and limitations power users experience when balancing privacy goals with interoperability, customizability, and usability considerations, and we detail their design ideas to enhance and extend data transparency, visibility, and control. We conclude by discussing the importance of designing smart home technologies that both address these considerations and empower a wide range of users to make more informed decisions about whether and how to implement smart technologies in their homes, as well as the wider need for greater regulation of technologies that collect significant user data.