THE HUMAN DIMENSION IN INTELLIGENT LIVING ENVIRONMENT

Due to the rapid aging of the Dutch population and aging-in-place policies, anincreasing demand for suitable dwellings focused on the human dimension of construction is to be expected. This global issue of aging in place is a wakeup call for us architects to move towards constructions that empower this active aging. A significant contribution can be provided by “Domotics”; which is defined as the advanced technological equipments and services in the domestic environment to sustain and to enhance the quality of aging in place as well as empowerment of the senior citizen (in daily life). This paper is based on literature review, qualitative and quantitative studies i) it seeks to inform the development of domotics technology in the living environment of the older adults; ii) it provides an overview of the multiplicity of needs and attitudes of the older citizens in regards to smart technology in the domestic environment; iii) and develops recommendations to incorporate domotics in the architectural structure of the dwelling keeping the Human factor in mind. This study on senior citizens’ needs and attitudes toward domotics is based upon a triangulation of cohort-group discussions, enabling techniques and in-depth interviews followed by a postal questionnaire survey. The findings indicate that needs, perceptions, environmental and personal attributes of the seniors determine their attitudes towards automation. This attitude can be described as ‘critical/positive’. Too much automation, where little or no consideration is put towards the user’s needs, is regarded as undesirable. Ethical considerations are particularly related to, professional stakeholders, especially caregivers, whereas seniors are mainly interested in the functionality of domotics. The integration and domestication of domotics in a house needs to be a synthesis of the user’s needs, technology, the living environment, services and healthcare.To enable aging in place and the acceptance of (care through) domotics we need, i) to familiarize inhabitants with smart technology, ii) to domesticate and personalize it, iii) as well as to (imperceptibly) apply need-based technology in the (pre-existing) homes

Study on the perception of DIY in domotics in Portugal

The growth of the home automation market depends on technological innovations, rapid evolution of the Internet of Things and Do-It-Yourself (DIY) solutions. This project analysed the perception about domotics related to DIY in Portugal, intending to understand if smart home technologies are used and valued, which factors motivate their acquisition, their purpose and the advantages perceived by users. A questionnaire was used to collect data, resulting in an exploratory study based on data from a convenience sample. The model to evaluate this study was based on the constructs based on Technology Acceptance Models - TAM. From the results obtained, it was concluded that the respondents have a positive perception about domotics and its usefulness faced with DIY on the technologies that make a smart home. Regarding the acquisition and installation of technologies associated with home automation on their own, the respondents are divided, as half consider that they can do it autonomously and the other half only with the intervention of specialists in home automation

THE STUDY OF DOMOTICS FOR GREEN SERVER ROOM INFRASTRUCTURE

Server rooms everywhere face a continuous problem: energy costs. These costs come from running the servers more often than necessary, including college settings where students’ use of servers for projects can be sparse and lacks continuity. The University of New Hampshire at Manchester (UNH-M) has such a server room with these problems. domotics stood out from the rest when researching possible solutions. domotics is the study of applications of information technology to create intelligent home environments and can be used to conserve energy. In this work we thoroughly examine common domotics solutions to determine the best one to apply to a server room setting to save energy. We demonstrate a solution that is both cost-conscious as well as simple to implement. This is done by developing a prototype tool based on the X10 protocol that allowed for easy and efficient power management for a series of servers. The result is a significant reduction in energy waste for the UNH-M server room over the course of a year with a relatively simple installation process. These estimated results are also compared to the overall energy analysis of the academic building it is housed in. This analysis focused on the monthly usage of energy, a survey of faculty habits, and finally the impact of the solar panels on the building

Background and approach to a definition of smart buildings

There is no doubt that there is no possibility of finding a single reference about domotics in the first half of the 20th century. The best known authors and those who have documented this discipline, set its origin in the 1970’s, when the x-10 technology began to be used, but it was not until 1988 when Larousse Encyclopedia decided to include the definition of "Smart Building". Furthermore, even nowadays, there is not a single definition widely accepted, and for that reason, many other expressions, namely "Intelligent Buildings" "Domotics" "Digital Home" or "Home Automation" have appeared to describe the automated buildings and homes. The lack of a clear definition for "Smart Buildings" causes difficulty not only in the development of a common international framework to develop research in this field, but it also causes insecurity in the potential user of these buildings. That is to say, the user does not know what is offered by this kind of buildings, hindering the dissemination of the culture of building automation in society. Thus, the main purpose of this paper is to propose a definition of the expression “Smart Buildings” that satisfactorily describes the meaning of this discipline. To achieve this aim, a thorough review of the origin of the term itself and the historical background before the emergence of the phenomenon of domotics was conducted, followed by a critical discussion of existing definitions of the term "Smart Buildings" and other similar terms. The extent of each definition has been analyzed, inaccuracies have been discarded and commonalities have been compared. Throughout the discussion, definitions that bring the term "Smart Buildings" near to disciplines such as computer science, robotics and also telecommunications have been found. However, there are also many other definitions that emphasize in a more abstract way the role of these new buildings in the society and the future of mankind

Enabling Machine Understandable Exchange of Energy Consumption Information in Intelligent Domotic Environments

In the 21st century, all the major countries around the world are coming together to reduce the impact of energy generation and consumption on the global environment. Energy conservation and its efficient usage has become a top agenda on the desks of many governments. In the last decade, the drive to make homes automated and to deliver a better assisted living picked pace and the research into home automation systems accelerated, usually based on a centralized residential gateway. However most devised solutions fail to provide users with information about power consumption of different house appliances. The ability to collect power consumption information can lead us to have a more energy efficient society. The goal addressed in this paper is to enable residential gateways to provide the energy consumption information, in a machine understandable format, to support third party applications and services. To reach this goal, we propose a Semantic Energy Information Publishing Framework. The proposed framework publishes, for different appliances in the house, their power consumption information and other properties, in a machine understandable format. Appliance properties are exposed according to the existing semantic modeling supported by residential gateways, while instantaneous power consumption is modeled through a new modular Energy Profile ontolog

Domotics, smart homes and Parkinson’s disease

Technology has an increasing presence and role in the management of Parkinson’s disease. Whether embraced or rebuffed by patients and clinicians, this is an undoubtedly growing area. Wearable sensors have received most of the attention so far. This review will focus on technology integrated into the home setting; from fixed sensors to automated appliances, which are able to capture information and have the potential to respond in an unsupervised manner. Domotics also have the potential to provide ‘real world’ context to kinematic data and therapeutic opportunities to tackle challenging motor and non-motor symptoms. Together with wearable technology, domotics have the ability to gather long-term data and record discrete events, changing the model of the cross-sectional outpatient assessment. As clinicians, our ultimate goal is to maximise quality of life, promote autonomy, and personalisation of care. In these respects, domotics may play an essential role in the coming years

Experimental Evaluation of a SIP-Based Home Gateway with Multiple Wireless Interfaces for Domotics Systems

In modern houses, the presence of sensors and actuators is increasing, whilecommunication servicesandentertainment systemshad long since settled into everyday life. The utilization of wireless communication technologies, such as ZigBee, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth, is attractive because of their short installation times and low costs. The research is moving towards the integration of the various home appliances and devices into a single domotics system, able to exploit the cooperation among the diverse subsystems and offer the end-user a single multiservice platform. In this scenario, the paper presents the experimental evaluation of a domotics framework centered on a SIP-based home gateway (SHG). While SIP is used to build a common control plane, the SHG is in charge of translating the user commands from and to the specific domotics languages. The analysis has been devoted to assess both the performance of the SHG software framework and the negative effects produced by the simultaneous interference among the three widespread wireless technologies

Promoting the social integration of the eldery: housing rehabilitation and assistive technologies

This paper addresses the need to respond to the new demographic reality, namely the increase of the elderly population, regarding new housing requirements. The research carried out focuses on defining housing rehabilitation strategies to fulfil the elderly needs and on how the integration of Information and Communication Technologies and Assistive Technologies (ICAT) in the dwelling space will assist this group of population and enable “ageing in place”

Measuring Age-Friendly Housing: A Framework

An ageing population raises the question of providing adequate housing that enables older people to age in place without losing autonomy and independence. Except for the issue of accessibility, no framework exists that specifically outlines a standard to achieve and, as a result, interventions on existing or on new buildings may be inconsistent without leading to a desired rise in living standards. This research addresses this issue by presenting a framework for the assessment of the age-appropriateness of housing through a number of metrics that detect and identify physical and non-physical features of a home environment to enable ageing in place. The study combines data from a qualitative systematic literature review of 93 papers and qualitative data from structured interviews with four experts in the field. As a result, 71 metrics were identified, divided into eight main domains, to describe the framework. This paper provides an improved understanding of the housing features that enable ageing in place. The tool categorizes and rates qualitative and quantitative aspects that contribute to the age-friendliness of housing, resulting in an easy to adopt assessment framework. This is a valuable means for stakeholders engaged in improving the current housing stock or in constructing new buildings for older people