ACM DIS 2024 Best Paper Award for Fostering IoT Repair Through Care: Learning from Emotional Durable Gaming Practices and Communities

Abstract
Electronic waste (e-waste) has become the fastest growing waste stream in the world. So called ‘smart’ Internet of Things (IoT) devices, now ubiquitous in our homes, are increasingly contributing to this waste stream, due to their lack of repairability and consumer cycles driven by planned obsolescence. However, other electronic household products, such as gaming devices, are often used and cared for by their owners for far longer than other IoT devices, whose protean lifecycles are driven by fast moving, profit-focussed consumer markets. This paper argues that by developing a deeper understanding of the relationship between gamers and their devices, and the communities they inhabit, design practitioners and researchers can learn to engender the design of IoT products that foster emotional durability and care, and support the development of more sustainable repair practices, to tangibly improve the lifespans of next generation IoT products.