Along the trend of aging population throughout the developed countries, people are getting aware of the demand of elderly care with IoT technologies.
Along the trend of aging population throughout the developed countries, people are getting aware of the demand of elderly care with IoT technologies. However, everyone in the family needs home care. The following solutions, from single device to total solution, and from home to care center, have centered the user experience along with care innovations.
Voice-controllable designs to bring better life experience with new concepts
As the winner of 2018 SMAhome Top of Excellence Award,
Ambi Climate 2nd Edition of Hong Kong-based Ambi Labs is not only targeting elderly users, but all of the end-users in home or small offices that deserve personalized comfort indoors.
With built-in artificial intelligence, Ambi Climate 2nd Editioncan collect external weather status from the Internet, and sense the indoor time, light intensity, temperature, humidity, and geolocation by itself. All these data is analyzed to automatically adjust air conditioning and ventilation with users’ preference feedback, further offering a better environment for sleeping and other indoor activities. The compatibility of Ambi Climate 2nd Edition with Amazon Alexa ensures an intuitive control with voice controls.
“Connecting smart app, the cloud, Ambi Climate, and users' original air conditioner, we aim to provide the ideal home environment for all our users, whilst keeping energy usage efficient,” said Julian Lee, CEO of Ambi Labs, “We found humidity a critical factor that affects human senses of environment. With the multi sensor built in and users’ feedback, Ambi Climate is able to match accurately the indoor air status to the preferences.”
Opro9 of CviLux Group is one of the Apple Homekit certified device manufacturer in Taiwan. Simply talk to Siri, home user can remote control the multiple smart devices including air washer and smart fragrance diffuser to take care of their indoor air quality and health.
When turning on the smart air washer, it automatically starts detecting the PM2.5 density in the air, and shows the current status of the density level. The bad air quality will trigger the air washing process by absorbing the air from the bottom, washing and filtering with water, and blowing out the clean air for the home. Later, the smart air washer will automatically stops when it senses the improved air quality in real time. To further enhance health with soothing air, users can blend their favorite essential oil in Opro9’s smart fragrance diffuser.
“Home appliances should always be user friendly. Through natural voice and smartphone app, we are bringing Opro9 users simple control and experience just like turning on TV. We are expecting the Chinese voice capability of Apple HomePod in the coming future, which will drive in another climax of smart home demand in Taiwan and other Chinese-speaking markets,” explained Sam Hsiao, Chief Operating Officer of Opro9.
“Opro9 is currently working with constructors and developers on a project to turn sample houses into a demonstration of Apple Homekit smart home. End-users, constructors, and designers will realize the convenience of smart home control and home care with voice and smartphone,” added Hsiao, “We believe the simplicity will benefit consumers, especially the elders at home.”
Integrated solutions connect beyond home
For complete solutions of human-centric healthcare, system developers are determined to deliver a solution that bridge users from home with healthcare center. In this case, convenient home automation is rather a basic idea. What matters most, is the continuous and effective care and connection that match healthcare with living quality.
bPoint CARING is an assisted living solution designed for smart home, targeting not just the elders but everyone who wants to keep track of their health without going to a hospital. Beyond home devices, bPoint CARING also supports remote video calls with doctors or pharmacist, reducing efforts for the elders or patients to travel back and forth.
Personal health data, such as blood pressure, heart rate, sleep duration, medication and respiration, are collected by wearables or non-contact sensor bPoint PIN in the bed mattress and saved in the system platform as a reference for health evaluation. When the body measurements turn out to be abnormal, the system can directly send notifications to the care taker. In bPoint CARING, users can also control their customized home scenarios like lighting, shading, bedding, home entertainment, or view device real-time status.
TASHI, the expert in building automation and access control, has the bridge solution TeleHealth. With the wearable sensors and physiological measuring devices, users’ personal health data is saved automatically into the information platform, allowing real-time checking from laptop or smartphone. Its support for remote medical consultation brings greater convenience to the entire care scenario.
TeleHealth solution can be integrated with TASHI’s complete smart home system. With the most updated facial recognition technology, family members can soon be able to activate home settings in an easier approach.
TASHI and bPoint solutions have the ability to fit in hospitals. However, the two Taiwan-based companies tend to work with private care centers, nursing homes, or smart homes as domestic hospitals remain conservative in IoT healthcare systems with incomplete legislation.
“From healthcare to medicare, we are continuously improving bPoint solution while nurturing the professional medical expertise. The high flexibility to fit individual demand in healthcare has always been our goal in mind,” shared Jonathan Lin, CEO of bPoint. “Through the cooperative projects with medical universities and property developers in Taiwan, as well as the market experience in Japan, we are next targeting the opportunity in Chinese and Southeast Asian markets.”
“Our strategy targets health centers that provide remote care supports for individual users in their smart homes, and the families willing to keep connection with the elders via smart devices, no matter where they are. In the coming future, we will put more AI and biometrics technologies into our smart solutions to bring enhanced home experience,” explained Shelley Wu, Corporate Vice President & TASHI President.
“The most considerate home care requires seamless integration of hardware and software systems, including building a user-friendly environment, such as wheelchair path, or complete public facilities,” Wu added.
Professional health trackers and sensors to directly assist medical diagnosis
Extending the idea from connected home care, indoor movement tracking experts Future-Shape and
AnWeife are targeting hospitals or big care centers. Their solution are in close relation to mass data analysis. And the aims, are to provide doctors a clear view of their patients’ whole-day activities.
SensFloor is the key technology of Future-Shape. As how it's called, the sensor is installed beneath the floor, actively and precisely detecting change of capacitance, presence, movement, pressure, and shape from human steps.
The complex sensing result can be analyzed to prevent patients or the elders from falling, getting lost, or serve as tracker to learn from any specific movement pattern of the people. For hospitals or care centers, it’s also a sensor for security control by knowing exact activity, amount of people, and their location.
AnWeife, on the other hand, puts indoor trackers on wearables with LoRa or Bluetooth transmission. In the system, data recorded from staffs, doctors, and patients are all separated to keep analytics accurate. When an emergency occurs in one ward, the system can directly find out the nearest care taker to deal with the problem, reducing time of reaction.
The indoor mapping and tracking system of AnWeife can further be integrated with smart noncontact bed sensor. With thorough data analysis of health measurement with movement tracking, doctors can have complete evaluation of the patients’ activities, rest, and medication.
“With our experience in Central and Western Europe, we found obstacles that many operators are still unsure about their investment into technology. However, the interest and potential installation in care industry is definitely growing fast,” commented Erwin Burth, Chief Marketing Officer of Future-Shape. “Future-Shape will further extend our reach in care industry with AI data analytics as we believe data is the value to bring predictive strategy in the market.”
“In Brazil and China, people are adaptive to IoT medical applications, and willing to try advanced technology and services. Our users provide positive feedback on remote consultation and care, as well as the clear health measurements as these feature positively improves the care of their lives,” cited Jack Chen, Managing Director of AnWeife.