| Sumario: | Purpose An aging population increasing all over the world, including Korea, signifies the importance of smart homes equipped with appropriate technology for the safety and health of older adults. The percentage of people over 65 years old worldwide is expected to increase to 18.6% by 2067 from 9.1% in 2019. The situation in Korea is urgent--14.9% in 2019 to 46.5% in 2067 (Statistics Korea, 2019). The market for smart homes also grows: In Korea that market was expected to increase from 20.6 trillion won in 2020 to 22.3 trillion won in 2021 (National Information Society Agency, 2021). The worldwide smart home market was expected to grow to 123 billion dollars in 2021 (Strategy Analytics, 2021). Well-designed smart homes can increase the desire of older adults to age in place as well as bring economic benefits to the country by reducing budgets for care providers. Older adults can reside at home safely with health-, convenience-, and leisure-related smart home services. Thus, reviewing trends in international research on smart homes for older adults is a timely endeavor. The purpose of this research was to use bibliometric and scientometric analysis to investigate trends in international research on smart homes for older adults. Method This analysis method is appropriate at comprehensive "understanding and the evaluation of the literature in a given field" (Zhao et al., 2019, p. 3). We used the Web of Science Core Collection database, searching keywords "smart home" "home automation," or "domotics" with terms related to older adults, resulting in a total of 1,408 documents. Data were analyzed in terms of frequency of country, organization, research area, most productive authors, and most cited documents. We conducted keyword co-occurrence and document co-citation analysis using VOS Viewer software. Results and Discussion The results showed that research on smart homes for older adults appeared from 1998 and increased steadily with a burst from 2015 forward. Countries most active in publication were the United States, China, and France in that order with South Korea in eighth place. The main research areas included computer science, engineering, and telecommunications; areas related to housing design were minimal as were environmental science ecology (21 publications), architecture (5), and art (2). Co-occurrence analysis showed that international studies on smart homes for older adults can be categorized as follows: (a) older adults and living venue, (b) technology for daily activity detection, (c) elements of smart home technology, and (d) disease and health status related to older adults. Co-citation analysis showed that core literature can be categorized as follows: (a) elements of smart home technology, (b) factors for the acceptance of smart technology by older adults, (c) the future and challenges of smart homes, and (d) ambient assisted living healthcare. The research shows that studies on smart homes for older adult have increased steadily with particular growth from 2015. The main research areas were technical fields, such as computer science and engineering, with minimal research in the humanities, social sciences, and design, indicating the necessity to expand research from a human-centered diverse perspective.
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