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

The Hospital Without Walls [52] is a home telecare project in Australia that includes awireless fall monitoring system in which patients wear small sensors that measure heartrate and body movement. A home computer records data from several sensors anduploads to a remote assessment center.Τhe Aware Home [53] developed by Georgia Tech in the USA is developed within twoidentical independent living spaces allow for controlled experiments with technology andenable inhabitants to live on one floor while demonstrating prototypes of assistivetechnologies on the other floor.The University of Florida has built a 500-square-foot smart house that is designed assistand to provide medical care to Matilda, a life size mannequin [9] , [5] . The houseimplements devices including “a microwave that recognizes entrees and automaticallydetermines how long to cook them” and devices to track the individuals location withinthe home. The house also uses devices to detect water on the floor and a camera thatallows the person to view who is at the door and let them in using a cell phone. TheGator Tech Smart House in Gainesville [16] , developed by the Mobile and PervasiveComputing Laboratory at University of Florida, is a new construction house that'sdesigned to assist older persons in maximizing independence and maintaining a highquality of life.The CASAS Smart Home project [54] is a multi-disciplinary research project atWashington State University focused on the creation of an intelligent home environment.It approaches a smart home as an intelligent agent that perceives its environmentthrough the use of sensors, and can act upon the environment through the use ofactuators. The CASAS Smart Home aims at minimizing the cost of maintaining thehome and maximizing the comfort of its inhabitants by adapting to informationprovided.A home that uses the latest smart technology to give people with dementia and otherserious long-term health conditions greater independence has been developed by theBath Institute of Medical Engineering (BIME) in the School for Health at the Universityof Bath [6] [6] . This project has been designed to help people readjust to living on theirown after a stay in hospital, and aims to reduce the risk of users being readmitted tohospital or going into long term care.The Home Depot Smart Home is a 6,000-square-foot live-in research laboratoryoperated by Duke's Pratt School of Engineering [8] . The Home Depot Smart Home,part of a Duke Smart Home Program, creates a dynamic "living laboratory" environmentthat contributes to the innovation and demonstration of future residential buildingtechnology.11