Indoor Soundscapes of the Future: Listening to Smart Houses

Abstract

The acoustic environment of smart houses impacts the overall quality of life and wellbeing of occupants. A well-designed acoustic environment can promote relaxation, while excessive noise or distractions can negatively impact wellbeing. It is crucial to consider sound’s role in smart house design. Smart houses have built-in virtual assistants that respond to voice commands, perform various tasks, and verbally respond to such commands. This machine-to-human-to-machine verbal interaction requires high speech intelligibility (i.e., low reverberation time and high signal-to-noise ratio) in smart houses, which is not required for traditional homes. The open floor plan and multi-purpose rooms in smart houses can create challenges for sound management. This can be addressed by creating separate zones for different activities or using room dividers that help to direct and absorb sound. The design of smart houses includes the placement of speakers and other audio devices to optimize sound quality and distribution. Speakers are installed in the ceiling or walls to create a more immersive and balanced listening experience. The placement of microphones and other sensors should also be optimized for smart houses. Microphones should be placed where sound is most likely heard or where it best captures voice commands. Integrating multiple audio sources and devices creates challenges in managing and organizing sound in a smart house. Designers should consider configuring smart devices and ensuring that different devices are compatible and functioning properly.