Research Article
NetButler: Voice-Based Edge/Cloud Virtual Assistant for Home Network Management
@INPROCEEDINGS{10.1007/978-3-030-76063-2_17, author={Diogo Martins and Bruno Parreira and Pedro M. Santos and S\^{e}rgio Figueiredo}, title={NetButler: Voice-Based Edge/Cloud Virtual Assistant for Home Network Management}, proceedings={Science and Technologies for Smart Cities. 6th EAI International Conference, SmartCity360°, Virtual Event, December 2-4, 2020, Proceedings}, proceedings_a={SMARTCITY}, year={2021}, month={5}, keywords={Virtual assistant Voice recognition/synthesis Home network management}, doi={10.1007/978-3-030-76063-2_17} }- Diogo Martins
Bruno Parreira
Pedro M. Santos
Sérgio Figueiredo
Year: 2021
NetButler: Voice-Based Edge/Cloud Virtual Assistant for Home Network Management
SMARTCITY
Springer
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-76063-2_17
Abstract
Virtual assistants (VA) are becoming a standard tool in many aspects of our daily lives that require technical support. Voice-based VAs in particular, such as Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, have become common in smart phones and domestic IoT devices (e.g., Google Home, Amazon Echo), replying to user inquiries (e.g., weather forecast) or performing simple services (e.g., play music). Through dedicated interfaces, VAs can be used or extended to support new services, and one particular area typically requiring assistance is the management of home networks. Activating specific features or troubleshooting connectivity problems may be difficult or impossible for users that are not tech-savvy. In this paper we introduce NetButler, a voice-based virtual assistant tailored to support the management of home networks, that leverages a third-party cloud-based voice service (Alexa) and dedicated routines at the home gateway. Offered functionalities are the setup of a guest network and diagnosis of connectivity problems, by quantifying the signal strength of the devices in the local network and performing a throughput test to an external server. We evaluate the user experience with the NetButler system with 8 test users. We report an average of up to 15 s to set up a guest network and between 30 to 60 s to diagnose various problems, and we find overall user satisfaction to be 3.75 in a 1-to-5 scale by means of a after-interaction questionnaire.
