This study investigated how proactive virtual assistants, in a simulated smart home ecosystem, influence occupants to take energy-saving, adaptive actions for Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) operations and how participants' personal characteristics affect their responses.
Proactive communications with follow-up conversations increased the number of participants (by 16%) who accepted energy-saving suggestions.
User experience (30% increase), pro-environmental values/beliefs (24% to 35% increase) and forgiving thermal preferences (12% increase) had a significant influence on participants' stated likelihood to accept the virtual assistants' recommendations, and their evaluation of the general concept of proactive communication from virtual assistants.
The findings are based on interactive online experiment with 307 participants from diverse backgrounds across the United States. |
