INVISUIT

The Invisuit

Through this project, we explore scenarios in which you might want to be invisible and go unnoticed by your smart home. Want to cheat? Sneak out? Have a midnight snack? Or just have some privacy? We ask ourselves about the future we can expect when we have smart home cameras with AI-powered human recognition integrated throughout our homes. - Think of the Invisuit as a way to safeguard your privacy in the future of smart homes!

We have created our very own invisibility suit, to allow you to freely and unnoticed live in your own home. The suit works by confusing the camera with light, patterns, and shapes.

The Invisuit is a critical design project, aiming criticism of smart home devices that surveil users through their own cameras. The Invisuit offers participants the opportunity to reflect on the data collection practices inherent in smart home surveillance systems.

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Body Segmentation

Throughout the Invisuit project, the machine learning library ml5.js’s Body Segmentation model was used. This model identifies 24 different parts of the human body in near real-time. The model was adapted and reworked to fit our project and was an important part of prototyping the suit.

Feel free to try it for yourself!

WHY

Smart Home Cameras

Although the Invisuit makes you 'invisible' to the cameras, it doesn’t mean the surveillance stops. The cameras are still active, still collecting data, even if they fail to capture a clear image. This part of the experience is a metaphor for how smart home devices work. Even if their purpose isn't to see everything they do. In 2023 approximately 51% of Americans had smart home cameras in their home, and it is predicted to increase by 82,7% aka 81.84 million households worldwide, according to Future Market Insights.

Critical Design

The Inivisuit is a critical design project that aims for its user to reflect on the data they are consenting to share by installing smart home IoT solutions in their own homes. It probes the questions for future home scenarios where smart homes constantly collect data about their residents.

Would you ever want to be invisible? Could you be?

Scandals

There have been many scandals surrounding smart home appliances as well as their data collection. Some examples are when it was revealed that Verisure employees were watching and sharing photos from their customer's homes; When Target found out about one teenager's pregnancy and made the teenager's father find out through their advertisement; When Amazon Ring shared home surveillance footage with law enforcement without consent from its users; When Amazon Ring allowed the employees to access private customer videos and lacked basic security implementations, thus allowing hackers control of consumers accounts, cameras, and videos - compromising the customers' privacy.