clear what it does, and why you might want it. It will keep the house at a
comfortable temperature and, perhaps, save money. Devices that are enhanced
versions of pre-existing product types, like bathroom scales or baby monitors,
have the advantage of being recognizable as things that meet a defined,
familiar set of needs. You may have to convince customers as to why that
product benefits from connectivity. And you may have to address concerns
they have about adding connectivity or technical complexity to the product,
such as security, privacy or usability. But at least the product is familiar.
Mass-market consumers, in areas in which they do not have deep technical or
domain knowledge, generally expect a product to come designed and
engineered to fulfill a specific need. The Nest Protect smoke detector and
carbon monoxide alarm is a good example of a product^5. The marketing
website focuses on the ways in which it is a better safety alarm (see figure
4.9). Connectivity is only mentioned at the end, to say you’ll be alerted on
your phone if there’s a problem when you’re away from home.
(^5) Nest Protect has suffered from some interaction design problems. A Heads Up feature
originally allowed users to disable false alarms (such as those caused by burnt toast) by
waving at the alarm. But no-one had thought that, in the case of a genuine fire, users
might also wave their arms (in panic). The alarm was therefore too easy to disable.
Units were recalled and Heads Up was deactivated. But the Protect is still a good
example of a clear product concept.