While home automation is most often associated with high-end luxury living, the inherent capabilities of some of these systems also make them ideal for disability care.

Integration specialist, Look and Listen, has developed a Dynalite-based smart home system to enhance disabled people’s independence by enabling them to take greater control over their surroundings.

Home automation systems have traditionally been developed and refined for high-end residential applications. They are designed to initiate various home system settings without the need for user intervention and to offer a range of different moods and effects.

Typically, home automation also allows a number of different systems — such as lighting and audio-visual (AV) equipment — to be integrated and controlled through a single control platform, thereby simplifying operation and delivering a sense of luxury to the end user.

Brisbane-based LifeTec — an organisation devoted to helping people with disabilities — realised that the latest advances in home automation could also be used to help solve individual’s problems of control and accessibility in the care industry. With this goal in mind, LifeTec has created a ‘Smart Home Demonstrator’ in its Newmarket display center in Brisbane, Australia, to demonstrate what can be achieved through today’s technology. According to LifeTec Senior Occupational Therapist, Gaenor Walker, LifeTec is involved in raising community awareness regarding the ways assistive technology can be used to overcome obstacles in everyday life. Moreover, the company provides education to healthcare professionals on the application of the solutions available.

“Our vision is to help as many people as we can to improve their quality of life to enable them to live independently and safely through the use of assistive technology,” she says.

“The creation of the Smart Home Demonstrator is a great way to show people what is possible to achieve at home from the latest technology and how this can be tailored to address individual’s needs.”

The right combination
In order to develop the Smart Home Demonstrator, LifeTec needed the support of a home automation integration specialist. Look and Listen Managing Director, Craig Samson, explains that he became involved in the project when he went to the Daily Living Expo in Sydney to demonstrate an iPad app he had developed to provide voice-activated control for a medical bed.

“This brought us to the attention of LifeTec, who asked us if we would like to be involved in a project to build the Smart Home Demonstrator in the LifeTec Centre,” he says.

“Naturally, we jumped at the chance, as we have developed a great deal of expertise working with the hearing impaired. We find it extremely rewarding to work on solutions for people living with a disability, using our technology to deliver a better quality of life and more independence.”

Samson liaised with Tony Arnedo, the Managing Director of his Queensland distributor, Smartscape Automation, who in turn secured the support of Philips Dynalite. Together, Smartscape Automation and Philips Dynalite jointly sponsored the project, supplying a selection of the latest Dynalite products, including the renowned Antumbra user interface (UI) panel. Avation, the Australian and New Zealand distributor of RTI, also sponsored the display by donating the control system.

As a Dynalite dealer himself, Samson was keen to base his solution on a Dynalite platform, believing that this portfolio of products and solutions — especially the Antumbra user interface — offers unparalleled opportunities for people with disabilities. Samson designed and programed the control solution at no cost as his own contribution to the success of the Smart Home Demonstrator project.

“One of our main challenges was to utilise the Dynalite and RTI products to develop a solution that has the flexibility to be used by people with all kinds of disability,” says Samson.

Ease of use
Philips Product and Marketing Manager – ANZ, Phil Hardy, explains that this project offered a great opportunity for Philips to demonstrate Antumbra in a residential care setting.

“The prospect of installing Antumbra in an environment where it can help people with disabilities is very exciting,” he says. “As Antumbra has been designed for ease of use and automation, disability care arguably represents the best example where these features can be used to enhance the quality of life for the end user. We are interested in the feedback we receive about how well Antumbra works for this kind of application.”

The Antumbra UI boasts an unprecedented number of features, including the innovative use of ‘field effects technology’, which allows the panel to automatically detect a person’s presence by their body’s own magnetic field. Every panel also contains integral light and temperature sensors, enabling a range of systems to take instruction from the panel to achieve some extremely sophisticated and streamlined integrated effects.

In addition to the Antumbra panel, the Smart Home Solution also includes the Philips Dynalite DDMC802GL multi-purpose controller, complete with trailing-edge cards to allow dimming of the lighting circuits.

“We used RTI together with a voice-activation product and an iPad to control the AV and lighting systems as the primary system interface,” says Samson.

“Dynalite DUS804Cmultifunction sensors further allow us to achieve automated effects based on presence sensing, as well as providing an IR receiver function to enable IR wheelchair controls to be able to directly control the Dynalite system.”

The finished result is a sophisticated solution equally suitable for inclusion in purpose-built care facilities or for retrofitting into private residences. The ability of the system to be installed into any residential setting can potentially make the difference in allowing people with certain disabilities to remain at home.

Customisable control
“Look and Listen has developed a cutting-edge solution that will increase a user’s independence, sense of control and safety, while reducing the carer burden,” says Walker. “One of the beauties of the system is its ability to be customised to meet an individual’s specific requirements. Look and Listen has ensured that the iPad interface features large target areas on the screen to simplify interaction for people with coordination or dexterity challenges. Equally, the Antumbra panel also has nice big buttons that really invites people to interact with the equipment and their surroundings.”

Samson agrees that the Dynalite system offers an ideal platform for disability-care applications. “The great thing about Antumbra is that it enables users to activate the switches with any part of their body,” he says. “Dynalite also supports the labelling of the UI buttons with a choice of words or graphics, which is a useful feature for a market where users cannot necessarily read.”

As a result of this project, Look and Listen is receiving a great deal of interest in this solution for similar care applications. “Looking to the future, we believe that the combination of Antumbra with Philips’ latest Guest Room Management System — originally developed for hotel rooms — will deliver a truly groundbreaking system, suitable for a wide range of residential care applications at a very reasonable price-point,” says Samson.

The LifeTec Smart Home Demonstrator project began in June 2013 and was commissioned — using Philips Dynalite’s EnvisionProject — in July 2013. Brisbane Lord Mayor, Graham Quirk, officially opened the display on 19 September. It is hoped that the great success of the Smart Home Demonstrator will continue to inspire, increase awareness and promote funding to enable more disabled people to enjoy a fuller, richer life with a greater sense of control and independence.