PriLens: An AR-Based Privacy Visualization and Control Platform Design for Transparency Enhancing in Smart Home

Data transparency is critical for fostering user trust in smart home ecosystems. However, prevailing approaches often present transparency information on a per-device basis, creating fragmented experiences that complicate interaction and obscure a holistic understanding of privacy practices. To tackle this fragmentation, we developed PriLens, a unified platform that uses augmented reality (AR) to integrate digital privacy information directly with the physical environment. Through a comparative study of AR, graphical user interfaces (GUIs), and virtual reality (VR), we demonstrate that AR uniquely supports the formation of a coherent mental model of data flows by bridging the physical and digital worlds. Our findings reveal that users synthesize observations of physical entities with overlaid digital data to assess credibility—a process poorly supported by the segmented nature of GUIs and VR. Furthermore, cross-age analysis indicates that older adults prefer contextually grounded physical controls over abstract digital dashboards, reporting higher trust in AR. Based on these results, we contribute three design guidelines for effective transparency-enhancing technologies.

Recommended citation: Yonghao Long; Mingyuan Zhang; Chen Hei; Xiapu Luo; Kun Pyo Lee et al. (2026). "PriLens: An AR-Based Privacy Visualization and Control Platform Design for Transparency Enhancing in Smart Home". IEEE Internet of Things Journal.
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