This document discusses smart homes and their potential benefits for people with disabilities and the elderly. It begins by defining smart homes as houses equipped with automated systems that can be remotely controlled. It then outlines the main components of smart homes, including sensors, devices, networks, and control mechanisms. The document explains how smart home applications could provide health monitoring, safety, communication, and entertainment services for those with disabilities or elderly. However, it also notes technological challenges around fragmentation, communication, and human factors like design, ease of use, and privacy. Overall, the document advocates for placing people's needs first and developing personalized and adaptive technologies to meet the needs of all users.

1. Technologies, potentials and challenges for people
with disabilities and elderly
Dr. Christos Kouroupetroglou
Laboratory Associate
ATEI of Thessaloniki
chris.kourou@gmail.com

2. What are we going to discuss
What is a smart home?
How do you build it?
What are they good for?
Can people with disabilities and elderly benefit?
How? Why are they good for them?
What do we need to take care?
Possible future directions of personalization and
adaptation technologies…
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3. What is a smart home/house?
A smart house is a house that has highly advanced automatic
systems for lighting, temperature control, multi-media,
security, window and door operations, and many other
functions. (http://
architecture.about.com/od/buildyourhous1/g/smarthouse.htm)
A smart home or building is a home or building, usually a new
one, that is equipped with special structured wiring to enable
occupants to remotely control or program an array of
automated home electronic devices by entering a single
command. (
http://searchcio-midmarket.techtarget.com/definition/smart-home-or-building
)
A home equipped with lighting, heating, and electronic devices
that can be controlled remotely by smartphone or computer (
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/smart%2Bhome)
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4. How do you build it?
Build it as a new building.
But wireless changed a lot!
Augmenting an existing home
with appropriate devices.
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5. Main components
Sensors
Devices / appliances
Networks
Control (panel) mechanisms
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6. Sensors
Security system sensors
Occupancy and motion sensors
Environmental sensors
Temperature
Smoke
Water leaks
Weather
Etc.
Audio/Video sensors
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7. Devices
Refrigerator
Oven
Dishwasher
Laundry
Vacuum
Home cinemas
TVs
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8. Network of devices/sensors
Bluetooth
IR
ZigBee
Z-Wave
NFC
WiFi
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9. Control panel / Server
PC?
Tablet?
Smart phone?
TV?
Dedicated device?
Robot?
Anything we can interact with!
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10. What do we need from our home?
Health: we all need to live in a healthy living
environment
Safety: we all need to feel safe in our home
Entertainment: we all need to get entertained in our
home
Communication & social participation: we all need to
communicate with friends and family from and within the
home
Education: we all (might) need to educate ourselves
Employment – employability: we all (might) need to
work from our home
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11. Smart home applications
Health services
Security
Monitoring services
Remote control
Energy resources control
Plant watering, coffee making, pet feeding…
The sky is the limit!
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12. What about Persons With
Disabilities?
“We all need…”
Interaction?
Design?
Privacy?
Applications?
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13. Applications for Persons With
Disabilities and Elderly
Health services
Monitoring
Notifications – reminder
Safety and security
Autonomy and mobility
Communication
Entertainment
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14. Technological Challenges
Fragmentation
Communication - Collaboration
Sustainability
Survivability
Energy
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15. Some answers…
Fragmentation
Devices as platforms
See the smart phones example
Communication – Collaboration
Standardization of communications
Platforms for app development (Android, HomeOS,
etc.)
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16. Human factor challenges
Design
Sensor and devices survivability
Ease of use – interaction!!!
Unobtrusiveness
Ambient
Privacy issues
All these mean that…
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17. All these mean that…
We should place people in the
first place!
We must design and develop
for ALL people!
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18. Opportunities not to be missed
New sensors (wearable, ambient etc.)
New interaction techniques
Affective computing
Ubiquitous computing
Cloud computing
Big Data trend
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19. Putting ALL people in the first
place
We already have sensors and devices
We already have applications
We are learning user needs of different users
We map appropriate applications/devices for groups
of people
Now we need machines to know their users
and adapt accordingly
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20. Personalization - Adaptation
We need data about the devices and applications
We need data about users and their needs
We need data about other contextual parameters
Combining all these using semantic technologies
(RDF, OWL) could lead to better personalization and
adaptation of smart home applications and solutions
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21. Existing approaches
 Composite Capabilities/ Preference Profiles framework
 http://www.w3.org/Mobile/CCPP/
 Universal Remote Console - URC Standard (ISO/IEC 24752)
 http://
www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=42309
 EMMA (Extensible Multi Modal Annotation mark-up language)
 http://www.w3.org/TR/emma/
 IMS AccLIP (Access For All Personal Needs and Preferences Description for
Digital Delivery Information Model) and AccMD
 http://zope.cetis.ac.uk/members/accessibility/meetings/2004/sig8/accliphtml
 http://zope.cetis.ac.uk/members/accessibility/meetings/2004/sig8/accmdhtml
 Individualized adaptability and accessibility in e-learning, education and
training (ISO/IEC 24751-1:2008)
 http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=41521
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22. What about context modeling?
When?
Where?
What do I want to do?
How?
Other environmental parameters (sound, lighting,
etc.)
Who else is there?
… anything else?
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23. What about social context
modeling?
Who is in the house?
What are their needs?
How do we relate to them?
Do we trust them?
Do we feel comfortable with them?
Who is in command / superior position?
… anything else?
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24. What about cultural background
modeling?
Does cultural background affect interaction?
What is the cultural background of users?
What feels better/ more natural for them in their
interaction?
What happens when users with different cultural
background exist in the same environment?
… anything else?
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25. Research problem
Investigate possible technologies,
standards and models that could
be used for modeling social
context and cultural background.
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26. Further reading
 Biswas P., Langdon P. & Robinson P. (2012) Designing inclusive interfaces through user modelling
and simulation, International Journal of Human Computer Interaction, Taylor & Francis, Vol 28,
Issue 1 DOI:10.1080/10447318.2011.565718
 Brush, A.J.B., Lee, B., Mahajan, R., Agarwal, S., Saroiu, S. and Dixon, C., 2011. Home automation in
the wild: challenges and opportunities. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors
in Computing Systems. Vancouver, BC, Canada, 2011. New York: ACM, pp.2115-2124.
 Callejas, Z. and Lopez-Cozar, R., 2009. Designing smart home interfaces for the elderly. SIGACCESS
Access. Comput. 95, pp. 10-16
 Kirisci, P.T., Klein, P., Modzelewski, M., Lawo, M., Mohamad, Y., Fiddian, T., Bowden, C., Fennel, A.
and O’Connor, J., 2011. Supporting inclusive product design with virtual user models at the early
stages of product development. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 6766, pp.69-78.
 Lawo, M., Kirisci, P., Modzelewski, M., Connor, J.O., Fennell, A., Fiddian, T., Gökmen, H., Klann, M.,
Geissler, M., Matiouk, S. and Mohamad, Y., 2012. Virtual User Models – Approach and first results of
the VICON project. eChallenges e-2012, Lisbon, Portugal, October 2012.
 Mejia, A., Juarez-Ramirez, R., Inzunza, S. and Valenzuela, R., 2012. Implementing adaptive
interfaces: a user model for the development of usability in interactive systems. In: Proceedings of
the CUBE International Information Technology Conference. Pune, India, 2012. New York, NY, USA:
ACM. pp.598-604.
 Modzelewski, M., Lawo, M., Kirisci, P., Connor, J.O., Fennell, A., Mohamad, Y., Matiouk, S., Valle-
Klann, M. and Gokmen, H., 2012. Creative Design for Inclusion using Virtual User Models. Lecture
Notes in Computer Science 7382, pp.288-294.
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27. Further reading
 Peissner, M., Sellner, T. and Janssen, D., 2012. MyUI Individualization Patterns for Accessible and
Adaptive User Interfaces. In: Proceedings of SMART 2012, The First International Conference on
Smart Systems, Devices and Technologies, Stuttgart, Germany, 2012.
 Perry, M., Dowdall, A., Lines, L. and Hone, K., 2004. Multimodal and ubiquitous computing
systems: Supporting independent-living older users. IEEE Transactions on Information Technology
in Biomedicine, 8(3), pp.258-270.
 Portet, F., Vacher, M., Golanski, C., Roux, C. and Meillon, B., 2013. Design and evaluation of a smart
home voice interface for the elderly: acceptability and objection aspects. Personal and Ubiquitous
Computing, 17(1), pp.127-144.
 Rocker, C., Janse, M., Portolan, N., and Streitz, N., 2005. User requirements for intelligent home
environments: a scenario-driven approach and empirical cross-cultural study. In: Proceedings of the
2005 joint conference on Smart objects and ambient intelligence: innovative context-aware services:
usages and technologies. Grenoble, France, 2005. New York: ACM, pp.111-116.
 Strnad, O., Felic, A. and Schmidt, A., 2012. Context Management for Self-adaptive User Interfaces in
the Project MyUI. In Wichert, R. and Eberhardt, B., eds . 2012. Ambient Assisted Living. Berlin:
Springer. pp.263-27.
 Wehbi, A., Cherif, A. R. and Tadj, C., 2012. Modeling ontology for multimodal interaction in
ubiquitous computing systems. In: Proceedings of the 2012 ACM Conference on Ubiquitous
Computing. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, 2012. New York, NY, USA: ACM. pp.842-849.
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28. Thank you!
Any questions…
?
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