Carlos Manuel Rodrigues Machado Autonomic Ubiquitous Computing

6 Case Study: Home Environment Application
In this chapter it is presented a case study using the system architecture adopted in this
thesis. The case study consists of the instrumentation of a real house where its inhabitants were not
asked to change their daily routine, i.e., the study of a real family in a real life home scenario.
6.1 Overview
The home environment is an ideal place to test the ubiquitous system appropriateness
because in this atmosphere the routines of the inhabitants of everyday life inevitably happen.
Therefore, the capability of such system making a positive intervention and impact can be tested.
In order not to create any interference in the normal behaviour of the inhabitants of the flat,
no extra tasks were imposed to them, i.e., the users were not required to report, using a log-like
register procedure, what they were thinking, doing or intending to do. This aspect was very
important because the experiment is supposed to be extended for as much time as possible
(several years) in order to be able to detect changes in behaviour over long time intervals. Any
requests for inhabitants’ extensive reports inevitably limit the motivation of the users to be a part of
the study and may have impact in their normal daily life behaviour.
In a home environment, a system that is constantly used is the illumination system. This is
used by the inhabitants all the time and this usage reflects the users’ habits and behaviour, making
the house illumination system a good case study.
The type of housing used in this case study is an apartment with a total area of 225 m 2 ,
having a total of 12 divisions consisting in: a suite bedroom, a bedroom, a study room, a living-
room, two WC, a kitchen, a corridor, a hall, an entrance and two balconies. The plan of the flat is
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