In-situ monitoring of occupant behavior in residential buildings ‒ a timely review

Abstract

Occupant behavior has a significant impact on building energy consumption and sustainable development of the community. In-situ monitoring of occupant behavior is one of the most effective and widely used research methods. It collects data of occupant behavior using smart sensors in the natural environment and, if appropriately designed and applied, can effectively avoid bias in the results. However, previous studies have rarely discussed how to design and apply in-situ monitoring activities in residential buildings. This paper, through a comprehensive and critical literature review, aims to close the knowledge gap on in-situ monitoring of occupant behavior in residential buildings. Multiple review techniques were used. First, a conceptual framework of monitoring activities was proposed based on a narrative appraisal of related publications. Second, the body of literature was established through an exhaustive search of papers by Web of Science and Scopus, two popular search engines. In total, 68 monitoring activities from 74 journal papers were selected according to the inclusion criteria. Third, meta-analysis and meta-synthesis were applied to this body of literature under the conceptual framework to reflect the achievements of previous studies and to explore the challenges facing future research. Results show that previous studies had limited consideration of sampling methods, setting of time interval and monitoring duration, installation of sensors, and the impact of microclimate. Ignoring these issues would reduce the productivity of data collected from in-situ monitoring activities and thus bring bias into the results. To address such limitations, recommendations are given for the design procedure of in-situ monitoring activities. In addition, an empirical rule is proposed with regard to setting the time interval and monitoring duration. Possible areas of future research are also discussed, e.g. occupant behavior in high-rise residential buildings in hot humid zone. The findings of this paper should facilitate the application of in-situ monitoring in building energy research and familiarize future studies with regard to occupant behavior in residential buildings.