The document describes a study that assessed the daily activities of older adults living alone using sensors in their homes. The study found that a basic monitoring system using ZigBee sensors could successfully classify and detect changes in usual behaviors over time. This information could then trigger alarms for sudden changes or notify caretakers of mid-to-long term trends. Field trials over 18 months in 11 homes found the system learned thresholds over time and was considered by users and experts to have potential benefits in supporting independent living.

1. Experiences from Assessing Daily
Activities to Increase Safety and
Comfort of Older Persons Living Alone
Paul Panek, Peter Mayer, Özge Subasi
and Wolfgang L. Zagler
Institute for Design and Assessment of Technology
Vienna University of Technology
IFA 11th Global Conference on Ageing
28 May – 1 June 2012, Prague, Czech Republic

2. Content
 Introduction and Aim
 Approach
 Results from Fieldtrials
 Conclusion

3. Introduction & Aim
 Many research papers available about AAL
systems and activity monitoring
– But unclear, to what extent such systems can be
applied in real life
 Therefore - Aim of eHome project:
– Demonstration of practical usefulness
– In daily use
– Basic system with ZigBee based sensors was
developed

4. Approach
 Daily life follows certain schedules
– Given by routine
– Following social and biological rhythms
 eHome monitors continuously
– Assessing activities in fixed time slices (e.g. 1 hour)
– Triggering supportive or emergency actions if
significant deviations
– Keeps private data protected inside the user’s home
 Objective of eHome: Improving safety and
comfort of older persons living alone at home

5. Approach
 eHome system uses
– Sensors connected via ZigBee
– Storing data in a database
– Data being processed in a small central
unit
– Situated at user’s home ( privacy of
data)
– Connected to the Internet.

6. Approach
 Event triggered expert system can raise
alerts based on:
– Time of activities
(e.g. rising from bed compared to daily history)
– Duration of selected activities
(e.g. nightly leaving of bed)
– Frequency of activities
(e.g. reduction in cooking, hygiene)

7. Approach
 Assumption of eHome is:
– Even by applying a rather coarse monitoring by
a small set of sensors a sufficient insight into the
user’s activity can be reached
– Even if “better” and “more” sensors would be
possible this was avoided in order to
 Increase perspective for economic exploitation
 Improve the to-be-expected user acceptance

8. Field Trials
 Extensive evaluation with
– 5 research prototype systems
– installed in 11 homes of older persons
– over a total time of 18 months

9. Field Trials
 ZigBee Sensors for
– Door / window
– Acceleration & floor
vibration
(e.g. for fall detection)
– Temperature
– Cooking plate temp.
(infrared)
– Movement (passive
infrared)
– Light

10. Impressions from Field Trials
 Local User Interface
– Touch-Screen Terminal
without typical PC look
– Fits to furniture
– Easy to use
– Video telephone
– Smart-Home Controls
– Emergency Call
– Internet Browser

11. e-HOME – reminders & call for help

12. e-HOME – easy to use (video) phone

13. Field Trials

14. Results
 System was able to classify “usual
behaviour” over time. This can be used in
different ways:
– Unusual sudden changes (e.g. not leaving bed in
the morning)  triggering alarm
– mid-term and long-term trends  present
changes to care persons to let them judge about
the meaning and severity of recognised
changes.

15. Presence in living room 9 July

16. Results
 The system is able to learn / adapt over time its
threshold parameters
 Remark: Even right from the beginning the system
is able to work with initial values  important for
practical use!
 By adapting over time it will improve performance

17. Conclusion
 Despite needs for improvement there is evidence
that the system actually is considered by users and
experts to have the potential to bring significant
benefits in supporting older persons and carers.
 eHome prototype currently is used in LLM (CIP)
and KSERA (FP7) project
 Costs for low quantities of basic eHome system
with 3 multi-sensor boxes are 1,500 Eur.

18. eHome in demo apartment Schwechat

19. Acknowledgements
Supported by: Austrian Federal Ministry for
Transport, Innovation and Technology
(FIT-IT contract number 815195).
Consortium: TU Vienna, Ceit Raltec, Kapsch
Carriercom and Treventus Mechatronics.
For questions: subasi@igw.tuwien.ac.at
Web site: www.aat.tuwien.ac.at/ehome/