Home Lab

The CUHTec demonstration home is situated in the new Computer Science Department on the newly built University of York, Heslington East campus.

Home Lab has two purposes:

•  It is a space for demonstrating what people want from the technology in their homes through research prototypes and off-the-shelf products. These demonstrations are used in our courses for telecare providers. They are also used communicate the results of our research to visitors from industry, government and the media.

•  It is a laboratory for research. Much of our research is carried out in the field, e.g., in peoples homes, but sometimes we need a homely but controlled laboratory space for experiments and user testing.

Home Lab is the successor to the CUHTec Responsive Home, a 3-bedroom bungalow on the University of York, Heslington West campus. View demos in the Responsive Home.

List of Demonstrations

Current demonstrations include:

• TV phone for Virtual Visits (Red Embedded)

• The Health Buddy (Bosch)

• SeN.Cit - inactivity monitoring with SMS message alerts (Send Technology)

• Door entry and security, key safe and motion detection (Supra UK)

• Fingerprint door lock (Access Automation)

• VitaDock apps for health monitoring (Medisana)

•  Conventional telecare, connection to call centre (Tunstall), floor mounted strip as alternative to pendent (T-cubed); solutions for blind and partially sighted (Tunstall).

•  Cooking aids for blind and partially sighted people, talking appliances, talking labels (RNIB).

•  Assistance for people with dementia, a reminiscence aid (T-cubed), cueing activities of daily living (poster describing research).

•  The appropriation of games technology, Wii-habilitation.

•  The appropriation of mobile technology, iPad health apps.

•  Connecting families across continents, TimelyPresent.

 

TV phone for Virtual Visits

The set top box supplied by Red Embedded requires only a domestic broadband link to provide an attractive and very easy to use video link via your TV. It is currently being used by Airdale NHS to allow nursing staff to do virtual visits with their patients.

 

 

 

 

 

The Health Buddy

The Bosch Health Buddy comes with 30 treatment and monitoring programs for long term medical conditions. The easy to use device allows patients to work through questions and information. The health related questions form questionnaires giving scores and have been standardised using a large sample of older people. It can also be connected to peripheral devices to measure blood pressure also pulse oximeters, for example (see picture). The unit can transmit these data to clinicians via a phone line or internet connection.

 

 

 

 

SeN.Cit - inactivity monitoring with SMS message alerts

This product, that can be bought for less than £200, is programmed to expect activity at certain times of day. If it does not sense activity at that time it raises an alarm by texting a list of contacts. It can also sense temperatures that are too cold or too hot and can be connected to a door switch to sense someone exiting the property at an unexpected time of night. It can be obtained from http://www.sendtech.co.uk/SeN-Cit/. The first picture shows the device set up in the Home lab kitchen to sense movement near the sink. The second picture shows the controls panel specifying when activity is expected and what text message should be sent if there is none.

 

Fingerprint Door Lock

Using fingerprints as way of authenticating one's identity used only to be seen in spy films, but there are now affordable and reliable applications like this door lock. We wanted a fingerprint door lock in the Home Lab because of its value for with people with learning difficulties. These people have little problem learning to use the lock and it circumvents any issues around forgetting, loosing or, as in one instance we heard of, giving away a door key. Supplied by Access Automation.

 

VitaDock apps for health monitoring

There are numerous Apps for the iPhone and Android phones that could be used for self monitoring blood pressure and other health indices. Most require the user to use separate measuring equipment and then to type in the readings which can be accumulated and emailed to a monitoring centre of some kind using the iPhone. These Medisana Apps have peripherals that can be plugged into an iPhone which records the readings automatically. Current peripherals include: blood pressure, weight, blood sugar and temperature. Supplied by Medisana.

 

Cooking aids for blind and partially sighted people

RNIB Pen Friend device can be seen on the table in the foreground to this picture. A small raised label can be fixed to any object. Touching it with the pen allows one to record a sound label that can be played back with the pen at a later date. Pen Pal is being used here to identify two similar shaped cans.

The microwave and weighing scales in the background of the picture are speaking devices from the large range of products offered by Cobalt Systems Ltd for blind and partially sighted people.

 

 

 

 

 

The appropriation of mobile technology

Apps for smart phones and tablets such as the iPad also present opportunities for caring purposes. This picture shows the iBP iPad app presents a very simple way of recording your blood pressure as measured with a home blood pressure kit. Readings are colour coded for meaning and can be emailed to a physician or telehealth service with one button press.

 

 

 

 

Connecting families across continents

The design of TimelyPresent was inspired by interviews with members of families split across continents. Major themes arising from the study revolved around time differences and the limitations of existing media when expressing emotions and having fun.

TimelyPresent consists of a pair of linked touch-screen devices resembling electronic picture frames. A user at one end can create a short video clip. This is represented as a present that is sent (i.e., no longer accessible to the sender) and is delayed so that it arrives at the local time that it was recorded.

 

 

Lounge with technology for connecting people.