Our increasingly intelligent environments – or Smart Living – uses a multitude of technologies and methods, to create an environment that supports its inhabitants in successfully performing their daily task. Wishes and needs are recognised dynamically, in order to allow an appropriate system response. One example are sensors in the floor that register potential falls of an elderly person and can call for help immediately. Common standards, guidelines and open platforms support this idea of an active and independent life in older age. They support the affordable creation of new products and services in this domain, and helps to make them safe fort he future, adaptive and accessible.

© Fraunhofer IGD

Provisions for an emergency

A smart home environment makes everyday life easier for many--it can also save lives in an emergency. We have developed CapFloor to detect falls and, when connected to other smart objects, do things like call emergency services, notify family and open the front door.

Projects

ACTIVAGE - Funding Smart Living in Europe with IoT technologies (e.g.. over 50,000 connected devices) in 14 Deployment Sites in seven European countries that involve ca. 10,000 users.

universAAL – The EU project universAAL is tearing down barriers in the development and use of AAL solutions, and supports innovative ideas and products in this field.

HIS: Home Interaction Service – User-friendly, everyday solutions for seniors to interact within their own four walls make it possible to communicate with friends and relatives as well as interactively use lights, heating, etc.

Did you know?

Darmstadt, the City of Science, has won the Bitkom “Digital City” competition! It’s no surprise that this has also increased interest in smart homes. And what do a lot of small homes make? One great city! To ensure the digitization of cities and communes continues its rapid progression, the Smart Living Competence Center is also dedicated to projects in the field of the “Smart City”, such as Espresso.

DHC – The Digital Health Companion project is a startup initiative funded by the German federal government’s research transfer program to use smartwatches to develop an automated health assistant.

DiaTrace – By using pattern recognition methods, it is possible to use signals from sensors on the body to identify the duration and type of activity as well as the quality of resting periods or sleep.

The watch of tomorrow

Smart Living affects more than our furniture--even our watches are reinventing themselves and providing helpful assistance for healthy everyday living as wearables.

Reference projects