ESSENTIAL ASSISTED LIVING
EMBRACING SUPPORT Paul Doyle, Associate Expert Witness at Bush and Company and CEDIA Subject Market Expert, looks forward to the smart home industry embracing assisted living systems. I am an assistive technologist and I’ve been involved in assisted living projects for many years, but most recently, I’ve become excited by the developments that I’m starting to see. The smart home industry is catching on to assisted living being an emerging market and some interesting products are coming through. There are four features that an assisted living home can deliver: • Comfort • Convenience • Safety • Security However, in matters related to safety and security, integrators should be aware that Telecare technologies are often integrated in a ‘hybrid approach’ to providing assisted living solutions. Here are a few examples of new products that tick these boxes and have piqued my interest. ProKNX is a dynamic, innovative home automation company that specialises in offline voice-controlled smart speakers that keep data private by working completely on-device. The company has developed a unique internetindependent assistant that combines vocally activated manipulation of smart appliances with assisted living features to keep frail people safe and independent in the familiar environment of their homes, or in residential care facilities. This offline version of Alexa means that users won’t be in the situation of needing to make a critical emergency call or escaping their property at a time when the internet connection goes down or needs rebooting, preventing them from getting the help that they need. Voiceitt, an Israeli company, is using AI to understand people who have motor speech disorders like dysarthria. The company, which is working closely with Amazon and Proctor & Gamble, provides a means of enabling people with speech impediments to do their online shopping using their voice. But the spin-off from this is that they can also start using their voice to control their home environment. AdaptEco has developed the Digital Care Partnership, which is a unique way of combining the world’s leading smart technologies to provide end to end digital care solutions. Assisted living projects tend to require multi-
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disciplinary teams, which include electricians, integrators, programmers, architects, etc. This ecosystem-based approach brings in the various professionals required to design and install the required end-to-end solution. There are a couple of other new technologies that are very interesting for this market. One is an eye gaze-based system that provides access to environmental control for smart home technologies. This is manufactured in France and has been around for about a year. The other one is a brain-computer interface that uses virtual and augmented reality to enable an individual with profound physical disabilities to interact with the physical world, including a smart home install. This American technology should become available within the next six to 12 months. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has, to a certain extent, been a solution to which there was no known problem. We are now finding practical applications where AI can be useful. For example, for somebody with a profound physical disability, we can fix a sensor array using a cap onto the back of their head that uses AI to discern what’s noise and what’s actually intended from
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the user’s brain function. The old sensor-based technology is involved and required a surgical application of sensors. So, this is a massive step forward. Two engineers from Google have started a company called Hello Robot and have developed a little robot called Stretch, a discbased robot with a mast, that has an end effector or ‘hand’ at the end of it, which you can control. Think about it, if you are in a wheelchair, the floor is no man’s land. If you drop your remote control or your keys, it’s not possible to reach. Stretch has a camera built into the hand, so that you actually see where the hand is going. Hello Robot is now looking at how Stretch can integrate into the smart home. The user interface has always been a challenge for those with physical, cognitive, or visual impairments. The issue for assisted living projects has never been what needs to be controlled, it’s how you are going to control it. Control panels are designed specifically for people without impairments. However, we are now seeing a shift and the interfaces are becoming far more adaptive.
Hello Robot helps those with physical mobility challenges
JULY 2021 57
