health monitoring
Internet of Things

Not just automation, but also health monitoring

On 12/31/2020 by

Today, thanks in large part to Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, gadgets have become smarter, using sensors of all kinds, data and cloud computing to, for example, set the ideal temperature or cook food exactly as needed. Devices like the Amazon Echo or Google Home, with their voice technology, have become the de facto center of new autonomous systems.

Leaders in this market, such as Google, believe that the smart home can be more than just a collection of high-tech gizmos. Since 2009, the search giant has filed about 40 patent applications related to digital health. Many of the inventions filed by Google, as well as its competitors such as Microsoft, Amazon and Apple, focus on wearable devices and mobile apps for collecting data to study health conditions and even make diagnoses. This also includes developments in areas where smart home technology and digital health intersect, such as smart home health monitoring systems.

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One of Google’s latest inventions is an optical sensor that monitors cardiovascular health. This device, which can be built into something like a bathroom mirror, works by monitoring the dynamics of blood flow in the body. A change in skin color, for example, could indicate a problem, which could trigger additional monitoring with other sensors or wearable devices. The patent description for this technology notes that in-home monitoring would provide a more complete picture of cardiovascular health than “a brief examination done in a hospital or doctor’s office.”

The modern home is slowly being transformed from a place where we live that we take care of to a place that takes care of us itself. For example, if you have a fever, the temperature and air flow can be automatically regulated. If your heart is restless, the music in the room can rearrange itself in a meditative way.

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Many experts believe that the fastest way to reduce health care costs is to reduce the number of sick people. The way to reduce the number of sick people is to detect early signs of disease when the cure and treatment are relatively easy. Today, a number of companies are developing new technologies that are designed not only to make our lives easier, but also healthier. These are firms that work in smart home systems and organizations in the digital medicine industry. And these sectors are showing a trend toward integration as new, unified technology standards are developed, with nearly every major player in the technology market participating in their creation.

Smart home platform for health monitoring

Experts from the Advanced Sensing, Computation and Control Lab at the University of Oklahoma (USA) are developing a cloud-based “smart home” platform for medical monitoring that includes environmental sensors, wearable devices and a robotic “assistant.” A recent article published in Future Generation Computer Systems describes how such a system would work.

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Smart clothes with textile electrodes for ECG and a sensor belt for monitoring breathing are examples of wearable devices that, along with a microphone, are used by the patient in a prototype system, the smart home mockup. Environmental sensors include a network of infrared sensors and an array of Grid-EYE thermocouples in the apartment ceiling. The latter can be used for heat tracking. The robot assistant serves both as a companion to the system user and as a multifunctional sensor device.

Similar experiments to create a sensory home environment have been conducted since at least the beginning of the XXI century, but the development of the University of Oklahoma is one of the few that combines all the elements in one platform. For example, the microphone sensor works in conjunction with some environmental sensors, such as ceiling-mounted motion sensors. This collects data continuously and with great frequency, and this data can be analyzed by artificial intelligence algorithms in the cloud.

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The system can, for example, determine if the user is dehydrated. A robotic assistant can then prompt the user to drink more water. The platform can also determine if a person has fallen and call for help. Researchers are working to make the smart home platform sensitive to mental health issues by analyzing vital signs, facial expressions and changes in a person’s voice tone.

The system is able to tell if a person is in a bad mood or depressed, and then the robot can do something to distract them from that state.