Beyond The Prototype: Maintenance, Collective Responsibility, And Public Iot

This paper describes the reparative Internet of Things (Riot), a project investigating the role of loT devices in maintaining public resource accessibility. Drawing on a mix of interviews, technology development, and ethnographic engagements, we explore the distribution and stratification of menstrual hygiene resources in Seattle, WA. We redesigned menstrual product dispensers placed in public settings by outfitting them with networked sensor inserts to make them easier to stock by custodial staff and easier to access by members of the public. We use this case to show how such newly connected devices structure experiences of hygiene access and help expose important consequences of integrating those devices into the socioeconomic logics and infrastructure of public life. Our interventions further examine the role of public IoT devices once they pass the proof-of-concept stage, revealing their capacity to cultivate and maintain collective responsibility.