Montpellier (AFP)

For a scientific experiment, two students from Montpellier lived for a year in a flat covered with electronic cookies. As a result, the occupants have gradually "forgotten" this monitoring and the data flows it has generated.

Connected ground, motion sensors, energy consumption, comfort, air quality or the presence of radio waves: for a year, the data collection of these two guinea pigs was massive. The purpose of the experiment, called HUT (Human at home), is to "understand the uses, to see what is useful, desirable and what is not humanly in the apartment of the future", detailed during Alain Foucaran, Director of the Institute of Electronics and Systems of the University of Montpellier.

Little by little, the occupants forgot this electronic monitoring. But those around them reminded him frequently.

The two students tamed the places differently. One has invested the apartment "by default and by effect of contamination", the other has explored more deeply its peculiarities before making its mark by proceeding to a "nesting".

Both described the apartment as "warm" and felt psychological well-being throughout these ten months. An imposing red button had been placed in the apartment. If there was a need for total peace of mind, the occupants could choose to operate it, causing the data collection to stop immediately.

Over the academic year, "never this button has been operated," said Anne-Sophie Cases, professor at the University of Montpellier in charge of e-marketing and who conducted interviews with students every month.

- Feeling -

Displacements in the apartment showed that the two residents used very regularly certain places of the apartment and never occupied other parts of the rooms. These data should make it possible to think of modifications of the architectural space more appropriate to the daily needs.

If the data collected are raw, they are compared with the feelings of the occupants. An application was put at their disposal on which they could inform, with the help of a green cursor, orange or red, the state of their well-being. "As soon as it clicked on one of the sliders, all the data froze so that the researchers could pin down their notion of comfort." At a given moment, what were the data on temperature, air quality, his movements? ", details Malo Depincé, member of the executive board of the Human at Home project (HUT) and senior lecturer at the University of Montpellier.

"We did not just collect data but also collect the testimonials and feelings of the occupants, and then cross-tabulated the quantitative and qualitative data by conducting monthly interviews with them," says Depincé.

Finally, the expectations of the two residents turned out to be more oriented towards utilitarian services. "The younger generations want an apartment of the future that favors a daily facilitated, an energy mastered and saved in order to free time for their pleasure or leisure," he said.

In the future, researchers want to move from an apartment to a connected building. A bias of "self-censorship" was also found. One of them was sometimes prevented from inviting people to her home to avoid explaining the principle of her apartment. The researchers said they wanted to better support and reassure future residents.

Validated by an ethics committee made up of researchers, notably from the CNRS, the protection of the data produced by the occupants was, from the beginning, reinforced and pushed beyond the French regulations. Their names have not been revealed. The HUT Project mobilizes an investment of five million euros over three years.

For the second year, the HUT 2 project will collect new data, particularly on the postures of the two new occupants, who entered mid-September in the connected dwelling.

© 2019 AFP