The IET Archives -

Responding to COVID-19: The future of intelligent homes

January 4, 2021January 5, 2021 by Sophie Taysom Comment Closed

In the final of The Institution of Engineering and Technology’s (IET) series on Healthy Living and Housing, our focus was on the future of intelligent homes. You can access the session by clicking here and registering to watch on demand. For this session, I was pleased to be joined by: Dr Chris McGinley, Senior Research Fellow, Leader Age & Diversity Research Space, Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design, Royal College of Art; and, Dr Ozak Esu, Smart Assets Lead and part of the Construction Innovation Hub, Building Research Establishment (BRE) Homes, health, and inclusive design Chris outlined the role of the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design. It is a centre for inclusive design covering two main research themes, Age and Diversity, and Healthcare. They work across a number of design areas including strategic, visual, artefact, and the built environment and public spaces. His presentation included two short videos. The first was of an older woman trying to navigate the use of multiple remote controls to...

Smart Home Tech to Support People’s Needs

November 12, 2020June 11, 2021 by Sophie Taysom Comment Closed

I had the pleasure of chairing the fifth in The Institution of Engineering and Technology’s (IET) series on Healthy Living and Housing. The focus for this session was on smart home tech to support people’s needs. You can access the session by clicking the link here and registering to watch on demand. Speakers for this session included: Alisa Frik, Research Scientist, International Computer Science Institute; Postdoctoral Fellow for Berkeley Laboratory for Usable and Experimental SecurityNuno Almeida, Founder, Nourish CarePhilip Shelton, Principal Advisor (Commercial), Eastern Academic Health Science Network Perspectives on privacy and security Alisa discussed older people’s perspectives on privacy and security. This included reference to how older people make decisions about privacy and security with respect to smart home devices. What we know is that at present, much of the adoption of smart home tech is driven by older people’s children, and care providers, to support care needs. And it remains the case that a high proportion of older adults don’t have access to the internet. Alisa noted that...

Community care and care homes

September 23, 2020January 4, 2021 by Sophie Taysom Comment Closed

I had the pleasure of chairing the second in a series of webinars for The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) on Healthy Living and Housing. The focus for this session was on care homes and community care. This built on the first session that focused on the links between our lived environments and our health. You can access the session by clicking the link here, and registering to watch on demand. Speakers for this session included Shirley Ayres, Co-Founder, Connected Care Network* Dai Roberts, Senior Programme Innovation Lead, Health Innovation Manchester Shirley Hall, Head of Innovation and Wellbeing, The ExtraCare Charitable Trust Lee Fordham, Associate Director, Architype https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCLAr06knLg Clip from The IET’s EngShorts series covering many of the points raised in this discussion. Creating new living choices for older people Shirley Ayres outlined some of the opportunities and challenges in the care sector, calling for a radically different approach. For Shirley, it’s time we had a long term care revolution. To put in today’s context, this is clearly a...