In-situ Research Using Connected Devices: Challenges and Opportunities

An increasing number of research areas rely on collecting data from sensors and devices deployed in homes and beyond. Researchers typically deploy such devices, collect data, analyze and make interesting inferences based on this data. In order to collecting sufficient data to have confidence in the research findings it is desirable to collect data from a large numbers of locations. However, doing so requires major investment in engineering expertise and technology infrastructure; both not readily available to the academic community. Microsoft Research’s Lab of Things aims to provide such an infrastructure to facilitate at-scale in-situ research in a number of research areas. In this session, academic researchers deploying studies using the Lab of Things will provide overview of their in-situ research and lessons learnt while deploying such studies