Hearth
Designing an identity system that gives every household member their own space, preferences, and permissions in a shared smart home app.
Title
Industry
Date
Challenge
Smart home apps treat every family member like a device administrator. In reality, only one person sets things up. Everyone else either goes through the same heavy registration flow just to turn on a light, or gives up and asks the admin to do it for them. There's no personal space, no clear permissions, and no lightweight way to join.
Approach
I audited four major platforms, interviewed three households, and synthesized the findings into three design principles.
From there I designed a frictionless invite flow, per-member profiles with personal comfort settings, and a visible permission system. I tested the full first-use experience with four non-admin members across three households, then iterated on the onboarding based on what I found.
Hearth rethinks how smart home apps handle identity. Instead of forcing everyone through the same account creation process, it lets household members join via a link in under 30 seconds, see exactly what devices they can control, and customize their own preferences without touching the admin's setup. After testing and iteration, all participants could find their personal settings and accurately describe their permission scope.
Works
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