Right now, it’s an experimental project but if successful, will help elderly Australians get access to ‘smart home’ technology that can alert healthcare providers or relatives if something bad happensto them or if they have not taken their medication.
The release of this technology follows a joint trial by technology provider Samsung and Deakin University.
According to online reports, over the next few weeks, five homes in Geelong, Victoria, will be used to test a technology ecosystem specifically designed to help address challenges associated with in-home aged care.
Called the Holly Smart Home Project, it consists of small, battery-powered sensors developed by Samsung, which will help monitor aged care homes and can alert healthcare providers when strange activity is detected in or around the home.
The sensors are placed around the house — motions sensors, sensors under the bed for sleep tracking, door sensors, in cupboards, and so on, and information is streamed to the artificial intelligence program named Holly. The latter coordinates the information to make certain predictions about your behaviour, according to Rajesh Vasa, Professor of Software and Technology Innovation at Deakin University. Discreet vibration, motion, temperature and humidity sensors placed around the house can detect where they are, what time they get out of bed and how long they are in the shower.
Once the computer registers these behaviours, it can then look for irregularities.
Apparently, Holly has the intelligence to learn the patterns of somebody in the home and it’s only when you learn what the patterns are that you can learn when something potentially anomalous is taking place, such as a fall or a trip or someone has left the stove on a little too long.
The data gathered from the sensors is stored locally and only contacts the care providers in the event of an anomaly.
If this experiment is sucessful, reports suggest the tech will be rolled out globally within the next year and a half.
Image Credit: Samsung