Senior citizens are often forgotten about when it comes to smart home technology. Sean Carroll finds out about a Monash University project that puts seniors at the front and centre of smart home design.

Every day, we’re seeing smart home technology being increasingly adopted across the country. This starts at the bespoke, high-end side of the market and goes all the way down to picking up single smart home devices at the local tech store.

People are seeing the benefits of living with smart home tech and are reaping the rewards.

However, as younger generations lean further into the trend, senior members of society could be missing out on tech that would not only be fun to use, but also extremely helpful for their day-to-day functions.

Monash University’s Emerging Technologies Lab (ETLab), in tandem with McLean Care and Deakin University, with funding by the Australian Government Department of Health, has launched a project that brings smart home technology into the lives of senior citizens.

The team first visited seniors in their homes (before the pandemic), video recorded, interviewed and showed them how to use a selection of different smart home technologies.

The project ended up being turned into a documentary called Smart Homes for Seniors and it followed the journeys of the participants as they used digital voice assistants. It was featured at international film festivals including Mimesis Documentary Festival 2021 (Colorado) and the Awareness Film Festival 2021 (Los Angeles).

Monash University professor Sarah Pink, director of the ETLab and documentary, says that the project wanted to see how senior citizens could derive benefits from the technology, look at where they struggled and find ways to meaningfully benefit them.

“Our role was to interview the participants, find out more about their time with the technology but also help them where we could, support them to explore potential uses of the technologies,” she says.

“One of the key things for me that came out of the project was that we weren’t just testing and trialling smart home tech with seniors in their homes, we’re actually testing and trialling a whole set of new relationships with people and technology.”

She adds that the way in which they use the technologies is very much part of the whole research process: “They had our research team, including our social science researchers to support them throughout the months of the project.”

One of the key findings was that you can’t just hand over smart home tech or several devices and say it’s done. Each person who used the technology ended up finding different challenges but also different uses for smart home tech, not every participant used it in the same way.

“We found that somebody might lie in bed and ask the smart kettle to come on before they got up, so they didn’t have to stand and wait for the kettle to boil,” Sarah says.

“There were also people who just asked the voice assistants to play music for them so they can relax while they’re doing another task. Most of the time, people were using the devices separately, or in relationship with a digital voice system but for specific needs at specific points in the day, and integrating them into their daily routines.”

The technology in these homes were Google Home voice assistants, Aeotec smart lights, motion sensors, Fibaro smart buttons, door sensors, key fobs, flood sensors, a Roomba vacuum, Sonos speakers, Netatmo weather station and an iPad among others.

Sarah says that one of the more important elements was the smart lighting: “Somebody might be laying in their bed and asking the smart lights to come on in the hallway or the bathroom before they got there, which is fantastic because it illuminates their pathway and helps them to avoid dangerous accidental falls, which is great.”

One thing that ETLabs stipulated was that this smart home technology was introduced to complement the person’s lifestyles, not remove parts of their life or human contact. Giving them an automatic vacuum doesn’t mean that they don’t need a cleaner for example.

“We wanted to dispel some of those ideas about automation always taking jobs away or that the technologies will make people lonelier,” Sarah explains.

“We’re looking at it as though the tech is part of a service, not the whole service. Humans are still very much part of that service.”

The report states that any future endeavours must view smart home devices as supplements – rather than replacements – to other aged care services which support people to remain living independently in their own homes.

The ETLab has been recognised by the Internet of Things (IoT) Australia for research highlighting how modern technology can support older adults. Sarah says that getting the award was an amazing recognition for the entire team:

“It was a great honour to see our work recognised. Especially because seniors are not necessarily usually consulted or acknowledged in mainstream tech design. And to be able to bring their voice and their experience into the public domain and level where it helped to profile the work further was super important.”

In the conclusion of the report, it states that there is clear scope for greater involvement of older people in these types of research moving forward.

“At an average age of almost 82 years old, the 33 participants in this trial demonstrated their ability to adapt, modify, integrate, embrace or exclude technologies in their daily lives based on their unique interactions with and experiences of the smart devices,” the report states.

“It is imperative that this group must continue to be at the heart of policy and research initiatives aimed at closing the digital divide.”

Another finding from the report was that the smart home devices have to be tailored to each individual or household, there’s no blanket, one-and-done solution to install. It has to include accessible and ongoing technical support, it has to consider the role of the extended family and proactively address the common concerns about introducing smart home solutions.

Sarah says that the team would love to continue this research and win more funding so they can take it forward in new ways: “I think there are many interesting questions and technologies that are waiting to be explored with seniors in a range of different settings.

“We did this work with a group of people living relatively independently, in their own homes and for whom maintaining independence was essential. There are many seniors in situations where smart home technology might have different benefits that we just don’t know yet.”

Outside of the project, it also speaks to ways that smart home technology is developed as a whole. Social scientists and tech researchers can glean a lot of information about how tech is designed and how it’s interpreted by a cohort that wouldn’t have been using it as much as younger generations.