The mobile phone as a platform for assisting the independent living ...

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Other terms that are related to smart homes are aware house, changeable home, attentivehouse and ambient intelligence. These terms are used to emphasise that the homeenvironment should be able to respond and modify itself continuously according to itsdiverse residents and their changeable needs. For instance ambient intelligence is definedas a digital environment that is sensitive, adaptive and responsive to the presence ofpeople. Ambient intelligence will encompass the home, car, clothing, work and publicplaces. Reading this definition one could conclude that ambient intelligence is somethingthat will happen in the far future. However there are many examples that ambientintelligence is something that is happening today. For instance cars adjust the settings ofthe chair and mirrors to a specific driver and large crowds are analysed by cameras andintelligent software to detect specific persons. With regard to the home environmentthere is a growing amount of digital equipment present in the home to support theresidents. This doesn’t mean that there are always the high-tech solutions that are presentin the homes but also existing low-key technological devices which are readily availablecan make a contribution. In this sense smart homes are considered to be a first step inthe process of creating a sensitive, adaptive and responsive home environment.From a user perspective it is important to realise that residents consider their home to bea safe and comfortable place to live in. Sometimes technology is seen as an intruder intheir safe environment, residents are afraid to lose control over their home. Some peopleeven fear the use of technology in their home. So technology and the home environmentare not naturally a perfect fit. With respect to smart home technology for elderly anddisabled people another aspect is important. Some solutions are implemented to reducethe need to do things but it is also important to implement solutions that increase theparticipation of the resident in an activity. The goal of equipping the home environmentwith technology isn’t just to automate all the tasks that are carried out by the residents.The objective in design is to provide tools and services that empower and enable peoplethemselves to address their social, rational, and emotional needs. Equality, autonomy,and control are the goals of empowering design.Furthermore technology is not the solution to create a perfect home environment buthas the ability to make a useful contribution. The environment as a whole, including forinstance social contacts and location of the home, is responsible for the overallsatisfaction of the residents.A smart home can enable elderly and disabled people to lead safe and independent livesin their own homes. A smart home can:• Provide an environment that is constantly monitored to ensure the householderis safe (activity monitoring)5
• Automate specific tasks that a householder is unable to perform (turning lightson or off)• Provide a safe and secure environment (alerting the householder of potentiallydangerous activities)• Alert helpers or carers should the householder be in difficulties (through linkingto a local community alarm scheme)• Enable and empower the user• Facilitate in the rehabilitation of householders (by giving prompts that beauditory and/or visual)2.3 Hierarchical classes of smart homesDuring the past years as a result of technical developments the possibilities of smartenvironments have risen tremendously. This increase in possibilities is physically visiblein different types of realized smart homes. In order to classify smart homes, a functionalperspective can be used. Since smart home technology is changing rapidly the functionalperspective provides a better framework than a technological point of view.With a focus on the functionality available to the user Aldrich [46] proposes fivehierarchical classes of smart homes:• Homes which contain intelligent objects - homes contain single, standaloneapplications and objects which function in an intelligent manner• Homes which contain intelligent, communicating objects - homes containappliances and objects which function intelligently in their own right and whichalso exchange information between one another to increase functionality• Connected homes - homes have internal and external networks, allowinginteractive and remote control of systems, as well as access to services andinformation, both within and beyond the home• Learning homes - patterns of activity in the homes are recorded and theaccumulated data are used to anticipate users’ needs and to control thetechnology accordingly• Attentive homes - the activity and location of people and objects within thehomes are constantly registered, and this information is used to controltechnology in anticipation of the occupants’ needsSince broadband is becoming more widespread, available smart homes are shifting withinthe hierarchy from homes which contain intelligent, communicating objects to connected6
Page 1: ATHENS UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS AND
Page 5 and 6: AbstractMobile phones or Personal D
Page 7 and 8: Chapter 7: Implementation of an app
Page 9 and 10: List of TablesTable 1: Advantages a
Page 11 and 12: suffering from memory and orientati
Page 13: Chapter 2Smart Homes2.1 Smart Homes
Page 17 and 18: Fig. 1: A smart home solution 1It i
Page 19 and 20: lighting strips and passive infra-r
Page 21 and 22: The Amigo project [10] is a joint e
Page 23 and 24: However, inside a building, that un
Page 25 and 26: with co-ordinates in the form of la
Page 27 and 28: At last, the utilized technology mu
Page 29 and 30: In this work we concentrate on achi
Page 31 and 32: In order to estimate the user locat
Page 33 and 34: 4.2.1 Cell-based methodsCell-based
Page 35 and 36: correlation between distance and si
Page 37 and 38: thus increasing the storage and mem
Page 39 and 40: egions. Examining images based on t
Page 41 and 42: Chapter 6Implementation of an indoo
Page 43 and 44: 6.3 Experimental environment, hardw
Page 45 and 46: Fig. 10: The database table that st
Page 47 and 48: Fig.12: The matching stageThe query
Page 49 and 50: 6.6 Future workIn this section we p
Page 51 and 52: According to the Eye Diseases Preva
Page 53 and 54: Fig. 14: Use of image processing te
Page 55 and 56: list, printing the best match as th
Page 57 and 58: Chapter 8Conclusion8.1 ConclusionMo
Page 59 and 60: [13] Gilles Virone, Norbert Noury,
Page 61 and 62: [40] Andrew M. Ladd, Kostas E. Bekr
Page 63: [65] X. Chen and A.L. Yuille, “A

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