# Factors Influencing Intention of Greek Consumers to Use Smart Home Technology
## 2 Previous Studies and Hypotheses  
Despite the technology advances and the expected benefits, there is a limited number of studies that have investigated users' perceptions and acceptance of smart homes. Users in the UK, Germany, and Italy liked the tangible benefits and improved quality of life, but had concerns regarding risks of installation failure, privacy, and difficulty in using smart home technology [12]. Therefore, the penetration of smart homes into people's daily lives is still low, with the United States leading the market, and Japan, Germany, Sweden, and Norway following [13]. Kitchen smart devices are leading the devices market [14]. However, the literature review showed that there are no smart home studies regarding Greek consumers. Various researchers investigated the degree of smart home technology adoption using popular frameworks and models such as the technology acceptance model (TAM) [15] and innovation diffusion theory (IDT) [16]. TAM investigates the consumer's technology acceptance through perceived usefulness (the degree that a user believes that a new technology will offer more positive and useful outcomes than a different or prior technology) and perceived ease of use (the degree that a user believes that it will be easy to use a new technology). Other researchers [17] argued that it is necessary to extend TAM according to the characteristics of the technology being analyzed, because consumer goals are different for each technology. Thus, extra factors to be measured were added to the TAM such as compatibility and protection of user privacy. Compatibility (the degree to which new technology will work and interact with other home appliances that pre-exist or are to be purchased in parallel) is a critical factor in adopting smart services as it is important to determine whether and to what extent home services are interoperable with various home appliances and external services [17]. This model is suitable for understanding and interpreting a consumer's attitude towards smart home technology, as well as for investigating the factors that influence its adoption. The variables used in this study will be discussed further below. While TAM looks at a number of factors that explain the acceptance of technology, such as compatibility and ease of use, the factors discussed in the innovation diffusion model focus solely on technology-related criteria [18]. According to [16], the diffusion of innovation is a procedural sequence in which an innovation is communicated through certain channels between the members of a social system. The rate of dissemination is determined by the rate of adoption, which is related to various characteristics of innovation. The following five characteristics of innovation are related to each other, from the point of view of the potential user: relative advantage, complexity, compatibility, the possibility of testing the technology, and the observability of innovation [16]. The most important category of factors that affect the technology adoption by consumers is related to the technology itself. The decision to adopt smart home technology can be explained by the perceptions of the individual consumer about its features [17]. Perceived usefulness shows how much the users value the usefulness of the device or service they use; therefore, users will not use smart technology if they will not find it useful [19]. Furthermore, perceived usefulness is the best predictor of the intention to use smart homes [19]. German consumers stated that they will not use smart technology if they do not find it useful [19]. Therefore, the following hypothesis is introduced:  
**Hypothesis 1 (H1). **_Perceived usefulness is positively related to intention to use smart homes._  
The cost factor (the degree to which the cost of installing, maintaining, and repairing new technology differs from the cost of old or other technology) [20] is directly related to perceived utility. Consumers will adopt a new technology, as long as the benefits outweigh the cost of installing and using it.