Software engineering for mobile applications has its own challenges, different from when we engineer software just for desktop environments. With the emergence of smart things (including smart everyday objects embedded with connectivity, computational ability, sensors, and sometimes actuators, urban robots such as delivery and cleaning robots, smart street lighting, smart vehicles, and smart park benches, and so on) not just within the home but in public spaces, there is a need to consider software engineering challenges for software on such things. Human-centred software engineering and work on ethical behaviours in smart things will need to come together, even as we continue to understand what it takes to effectively develop software (and systems) for such emerging devices. In order to demonstrate how software (and systems) for intelligent devices in public places might be developed, findings from a quantitative survey we performed are discussed in this study. The survey was designed such that the questions focused on the socio-ethical behaviours of smart devices when interacting with people in public places. The survey was based on a supermarket scenario where the participants had to answer the different questions in the questionnaire. There were 250 participants who only completed part of the survey; of them, 60 participants finished it in full. The complete replies have been examined and analysed in this paper. To determine how people feel about employing smart technology in public places, a variety of smart devices, including robots, smart cameras, smart speakers, and smart trolleys, are utilised in the survey questions. According to the findings, more than 80 percent of respondents think it important for smart gadgets to be socially-aware and ethical in public places.