Samsung Home Hub
An AI-driven mobile home control solution powered by SmartThings
Key Skills
Workshop Facilitation
Industrial Design
UX Design
3D modeling
Tools
Miro, Sketchbook Pro, Adobe Creative Suite, NX, Keyshot, PowerPoint
Overview
Role: US Team leader for Samsung’s Home Hub. Daily collaboration and sync with UK Research Team & Korean Product Planning & Engineering Teams.
Project Goals:
- Understanding U.S. smart home expert users through remote ethnographies.
- Identifying service opportunities that utilize Samsung & 3rd party hardware.
- Building a 1-3 year roadmap of services, partnerships & tech enablers.
- Service ideating, prototyping, testing, development.*
*service integration into Samsung’s existing SmartThings platform.
Status: We have thus far completed building the 1-3 year roadmap in order to provide Samsung Executives talking points at 2022 CES. Next steps include ideation, prototype development & testing.
Remaining Timeline: 1 month finalizing service roadmap and 4- 8 months for service creation & production.
WHY THIS PRODUCT WAS NEEDED
“SMART DISPLAYS FROM GOOGLE AND AMAZON HAVE FAILED TO PROVIDE A USABLE SMART HOME INTERFACE.”
“[Samsung Home Hub] is a step in the right direction: a dedicated device for controlling the many aspects of your smart home that doesn’t attempt to do unnecessary party tricks but gives you and your household an easy way to turn the home on and off.”
- The Verve
WHY MY INVOLVEMENT
I was project lead for three of Samsung’s latest experience projects & product strategy projects:
(left) Samsung + Microsoft: 3-year service roadmap focused on collective Smart Home opportunities that capitalize on shared technology & expertise.
(middle) Mobile Mailbox: an internal incubation project geared around community building through shared resources via autonomous robotics..
(right) Next-Gen Communication: 5 year product roadmap for person-to-person, person-to-object communication*
*led to the development of Samsung Freestyle, a mobile compact projector.
HOW WE SOLVED FOR THE GAP IN HOME PRODUCTIVITY
Primary Research: Online Survey & Ethnographies
Our first round of user interviews & surveys were focused on creating a foundation of understanding for the relationship between consumers & their smart homes. Through this endeavor we extracted:
User Values to understand consumer justification in owning Smart Home Hubs
Consumer Wants & Pain Points to act as our end-user north star
Experience Pillars to act as the foundation for our eventual opportunity areas
HOW WE BUILT, REFINED & VALIDATED MEANINGFUL SCENARIOS
Scenario Development Process:
Align with Korean HQ stakeholders and redefining our experience pillars to align with their product strategy and SKU pipeline
Build 19 scenarios from the 3 final experience pillars
Conduct ethnographic interviews, revisiting some of the same people who helped inform our primary research along with a new set of consumers who better aligned with our final pillars
30-min interview into smart homes behaviors, pain points & benefits/constraints as they relate to our pillars
3-day digital diary task meant to understand unspoken smart home uses and put consumers in the right mindset for concept validation
90-min interview to explore the relevance of specific scenarios and understand how the ideas could be further optimized
4. Synthesize interview feedback for each scenario
5. Consolidate complimentary ideas that could form larger holistic experience opportunities
6. Re-ideate on less receptive ideas and incorporate into these emerging experience opportunities
SCENARIO JOURNEY MAPPING & DEVELOPMENT ROADMAP
Final Scenarios:
Health Coach: Motivating healthier family habits through nutrition and fitness.
Approaching health goals more holistically for household users by linking nutrition to fitness activities. Health Coach bridges the divide between industry-leading Samsung product categories and creates a service that spans the full gamut of health and wellness.
Airbnb Mode: Augmenting the rise of shared spaces through automated maintenance and personalization.
Remote smart-hosting capabilities that gives the space to achieve peace of mind and security of their home, whilst enhancing the guest experience.
Energy Pro: Enabling energy saving tailored to user’s homes and habits.
Paving the way for more sustainable energy consumption in households; by nudging people towards sustainable behavior that leads to money saving. Energy Pro is built allow users to meet their goals while suiting accommodating their personal habits and individual homes
Invisible Care: Delivering peace-of-mind through a non-intrusive care experience.
Provide a dignified, nonintrusive, and loving care experience for those being looked after in a way that respects their autonomy in their own home.
