Women and Smart Home Technology

I strongly believe that men and women have different methodologies and different visions of a future, and with equal offsets, having more from the female perspective is so much better than solely through a mans eyes. Just my opinion.

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I wasn’t trying to prove a point or to pick on you specifically, it was just the almost knee-jerk reaction to the question of getting women involved is “make it pink”.

We do have different PoVs and methodologies, one thing I enjoy about having my spouse involved in the discussion about smartening up our home, is she makes me justify what I am doing.

I am a geek, and always have been. I love using tech for the sake of using tech. She’s made me low down and explain the use cases for almost everything I’ve done.

How we get more women involved in this field (if we even need to worry about it) is part of a MUCH larger conversation that needs to happen.

Same in my house…
My wife was an Aircraft Electrician… not a lot of women in that field.

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Ya, a bad choice of words, but not intended to be taken the way it appeared and it wasn’t targeted at women. Was trying to make a different point altogether.

I completely agree. I was looking at everything more from knowing “how many”, which was leading to “how do we get” based on curiosity of numbers because where I see this space and where it is right now, it doesn’t make significant gains or improvements without more from the female gender. Not just from an end user perspective, but as innovators in this industry. You are right, it’s part of a much larger conversation. I will leave it alone, and apologies to anyone that took my original comments negatively. Was completely the opposite of what I was trying to convey.

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I prefer to treat women like adults who don’t need to be steered, cajoled or otherwise convinced that they need to be interested in something that they, for whatever reason, have chosen to not take an interest in. By all means, welcome those who do express an interest, and happily give them whatever help that they request. But I see no reason at all to worry about whether or not some particular demographic is sufficiently (by whatever standard one measures that) involved in this interest or any other.

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I disagree; and now this is a compound debate:

.1. I posit that there is a significant under-representation of women in the smart home market and that represents a problem, opportunity, and challenge.

###AND

.2. I posit that this SmartThings Community is not particularly “welcoming” to women and that discussing it may help resolve this inequity.

Well… to make a less altruistic point (as devil’s advocate :smiling_imp:), a major role of marketing is specifically meant to “steer, cajol, and otherwise convince” people to be interested in a family of products; in this case “smart home technology” and SmartThings in particular!!!

I have to emphasize that I personally, strongly feel that there is a non-profit motive for finding out if there are “fixable” reasons that women are (assumed) under-represented in the smart-home industry and the SmartThings Community; … however, the marketing & profit motive also most certainly exists.

SmartThings is a product that is aimed at many market segments, and, yes, we “know” that the Community leans towards the “technology geek” demographic; but what is the overlap in the segment? In other words, while there are many possible ways to improve the success of marketing this technology to women (and other market segments), is one of them to make this Community more welcoming?

I was the first person to raise the point that the term “WAF” (wife acceptance factor) is sexist. However, admittedly, without a degree in women’s studies and/or various scientific studies, focus groups, etc., I am speaking purely speculatively, that if I were a woman, I absolutely would find that “off-putting” … i.e., it would make me feel less-than-optimally welcome here. As a male, I would not disagree with that feeling.


Since we don’t have a “women’s expert” here, and, we have the catch-22 of being unlikely to reach a statistically significant women’s population within the Community, we cannot know how off-putting this community is.

There are forums across the spectrum of interests (political, technical, gaming, etc.) where this general topic is discussed from time to time; i.e., Is a male-dominated online community self-perpetuating? You could remove the word “online” from that question, of course, but that would completely derail the topic.

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We all have opinions that may differ from one another and context and understanding may be taken different from one person to the next in how we view or perceive things. But hopefully all peoples opinions are valued and welcomed, even if disagreed upon.

I totally agree with JD on this statement of not being gender specific about using SmartThings. To further clarify where my thoughts were, it wasn’t specific to SmartThings or the end user of a product. It was aimed at the entire Smart home industry and women playing a bigger role in the shaping or forming or advancing of where it goes next. It was about seeing the trials and tribulations of the space and where it is at today and how improvements can be made moving forward with a more gender equal participation on how this technology to come is implemented for a better tomorrow for the home (where it is populated by men and women alike). I was looking at from the aspect of more females in an innovation role for the entire industry that may see things in a totally different and fresh light than the direction things have gone in so far. This got so much more serious than it was intended for. I respect women and I agree that women have their own minds and don’t need to be steered, convinced coaxed or otherwise. My thoughts were of it would be refreshing to know that more women played a part in this industry as a whole than what it appears like from the outside looking in. I don’t know official numbers on any of it, it was about curiosity and that’s all.

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That is the spirit with which I would like to see this conversation continue; if possible. :innocent:

This is not meant to be an adversarial or political discussion; but that doesn’t mean it can’t bring a range of enlightenment and benefits.

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And when my paychecks start coming from SmartThings’ or I otherwise have a financial interest in the success of the platform then I’ll become very concerned about marketing the product to every demographic you can think of. In the meantime I’m just a geek who is having fun with this stuff, like nearly all of the other participants on this forum. I’m more than happy to tell others about it if I think they’d enjoy/be able to benefit from it…and I’m equally happy to help them out with it in any way that I can. But I couldn’t care less about doing so because of their gender, race, religion, etc.

The problem of emotionally stunted forum members harrassing others is another matter. If that occurs then the forum management needs to nip it in the bud immediately and kick those engaging in it to the virtual curb…regardless of whether the targets are chosen based on sex, ethnicity, funny-sounding names or any other non-behavioral attribute. I don’t view that as something that’s needed in order make women “feel safe” (I’ve long been at the age that the women I know are mature and intelligent enough that they aren’t scared off by a few jerks in a cyberspace environment.) It’s something that’s needed in order to discourage stupid behavior in general.

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I didn’t pursue joining the beta because I was busy at the time. #somanyprojectssolittletime

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I haven’t found it off putting, but I come from moderating tech forums where I suit up in Nomex first. At most, things just elicit an eye roll.

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/me pops some popcorn and sits back and sits back to watch the men folk decide how I should be more into tech.

having been in IT 20+ years, I have grown tired of this conversation.

The problem with women in Tech is really 2 fold. The most obvious is the "boys club" bull Crap. You all know it is there, do not try to deny it. And the guys that don't do it, but still laugh at it and does not call it out, is just as bad as the "Bros" that are saying and doing the crap.

The other issue, and maybe the bigger issue is how we raise our daughters. With children, we do not encourage girls to tinker and build and explore. We encourage them to look pretty and develop nurture skills. STEM toys were primary marketed to boys for the last 25 years. So getting women (20-60) interested in Tech now is like trying to change a rockets trajectory after launch.

Sorry about the soapbox bit, the is a subject I might be to passionate about.

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How I wish the same: it shouldn’t have to be. Well said, Megan :+1:

So, with due humility, please consider this Topic as a guy “calling it out”.

I took a soft approach in starting this conversation in order to not alienate my male peers, especially those who don participate in the insensitive humor.

But, frankly, I’m sick of it.

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so to be clear, the Girlfriend to wife upgrade is bit is funny. I am not thinned skin. And if we can’t laugh at ourselves who do we laugh at. I am talking the more direct crap stuff like:

Being treated like I am there to take notes and make coffee
being subjected to sexually explicit material and jokes
Being called “Sweetie”, “Nice Tits”, “honey” in a business environment
Having to pass my ideas and solutions to enlightened male co-workers, so that other non enlightened male coworkers will even listen or consider them.
Being told I am not allowed to talk in meeting as there are men there that take office to women being in IT.

and I have and had bosses and HR departments defend all this, and hell a lot of it still goes on today. I could tell you stories that fit right in with all the shit in the news about what women in Silicon Valley are reporting now. It is not new.

But going back to my first post in this subject, the “male aspect” is only part of the problem. I would not even say it is even half the problem. The bigger of the 2 issues is how we raise children. I think it was in the 80s toys became hyper gendered. I don’t know why, hell I was a kid. Legos are a good example. at the start of the 80s, legos was a gender neutral toy, but the end of the 80’s legos were “Boys toys” Why? And it goes on look at the outrage when Target said they were going to remove pink and blue from the shelves in the toy section. O the humanity. How will little girls know they should not play with Starwar toys?!?

Sorry if I am going all over the place on this, I don’t mean to.

So back to your question, from a marketing (aka make money off of) angle.
Simple is the key. Generally women are less inclined to tinker, they just want it to work. Action Tiles is a great example,simple to install, straight forward to configure, and just works. I don’t think there is “one” device or feature that will get women interested in Smart home tech in droves. But in the interest of this, here are the things that got me (tom boy tech girl) and my wife ( more traditional pink and flowers girl) into our smart home adventures.

tracking our kids coming and going
Smart Lock - kids loose keys or forget them.
PlantLink - neither of us have a green thumb.
voice control, we love our Echo’s and Google Homes.

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This is probably just as true for a lot of male ST users, even if they won’t admit it – or won’t RTFM or ask directions, LOL.

(Our daughter is a Director in HR. We’ve heard a lot of stories w/r/t sexual harassment right in line with your comments. Those things are clearly wrong…,)

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I am not sure how calling out the issues I face as a woman in IT (also reported by so many others) and making a generalization that I even call a generalization, conflict with each other. The point of generalization is just that, generalizing, broad statements that can apply to a broad swath of the population.

On the same note, I did not all men do the negative stuff that I mentioned.

I am glad your company in the UK is more progressive than a lot of the companies here in the US. There are companies here that do better than others. But generally there is a good ways to go, at least in the US.

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LadySapphy this is not directed at you… it’s at the person that flagged my original post.

So, speaking the truth, even if that truth does not agree with your version of “Political Correctness” is wrong? My post was flagged and hidden. Why?

What exactly is offensive about that post?

It did nothing but continue the discussion in a respectful and intelligent way. Why hide behind your computer screen and flag a post without the common courtesy of even saying something.

I’m sure you’ll flag this post as well. That’s fine. Be my guest. But before you do, have the guts to say what’s so very offensive. I don’t think you will.

Isn’t this going against the very thing you are talking about?

Gender specific toys - they are labels that create stereotypes
Tom boy - a label that creates a stereotype
Traditional pink - yet another label

I’m sorry, but to talk about these issues and in the very same breath put yourself into the stereotypes that you are so against, well that’s rather hypocritical in my opinion.

To be gender neutral, is to BE gender neutral.

Unfortunately, our species is not gender neutral. We have men and we have women. They are fundamentally and physiologically different. We think different and we act different, that’s nature.

And to the point here, to purposely offend our Hadreas someone is complete BS and can not be tolerated.

But to decide someone else’s words, that are not directed at you (generalization) in any fashion are offensive is also BS.

Who is anyone to tell someone else that their opinion is offensive. That is nothing less that one person telling another that they must think the same as they do.

Sorry, I’m an American. If my words offend, get over it. I have the right to say what I please.

Now, on that note, actions are an entirely different thing.

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Ok all, I have been trying to decide what to do with this thread.

After re-reading the thread 5+ times, I have decided to close the thread.

I don’t think this is the forum to discuss this topic. If you adamantly disagree with this, please send me a PM.

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