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Help Us Put the IoT in Innovation: Part 1, Workflow

Calling all InnOvaTors!

 

imageWe want to push the boundaries of forward-looking, connected applications by engaging the IoT innovators through conceptual challenges. The insights you deliver will fuel conversations and drive change when we take them to suppliers and major industry players in the electronics world at this year's Elektronica show.

 

So to launch this new InnOvaTors initiative, our very own has cooked up a real-world scenario that would benefit massively from an innovative IoT solution that we'd like you to conceptualise.

 

Your opinions and ideas on the subject are important, as we want these concepts to inform the next generation of IoT development and (perhaps more importantly), adoption.

 

Let's take a look at Randy's scenario before we go any further.

 

Design a Home Patient Monitoring System with Notification and Alert Capabilities

Background

Among the numerous types of innovations that are expected to be fostered by Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, smart-connected healthcare solutions will perhaps be the most important one for millions of elderly people who live alone. In the UK 3.5 million people over the age of 65 live alone, and almost 70% of the women in this age group. The U.S has a similar trend with 11.8 million, and nearly half of the women over the age of 75 living alone.

 

This number is expected to increase as the growth in people over age 65 is projected to double from 43.1 million in 2012 to 83.7 million in 2050, according to the U.S Census Bureau. Whether an elderly person lives alone by choice or necessity, this living arrangement can pose a potential health risk as physical and cognitive impairment becomes evident.

Your Challenge: Helping a Stroke Patient Who Falls

A typical example of the challenge that the elderly face while living alone is Mrs. Jones. She is 79 years-old and has been living alone successfully for ten years since her husband passed away. While she has not had any problems during this period of time, Mrs. Jones recently suffered a minor stroke that led to numbness in her extremities and an overall weakness in strength but did not appear to be life-changing until she began losing her balance and falling in her apartment

 

Mrs. Jones’s daughter suggested to her mother that it was time to consider moving into a nursing home for safety’s sake. Mrs. Jones dismissed the idea out of a desire to remain independent. Her daughter discussed this situation with Mrs. Jones's doctor who said her options were limited. Beyond a live-in caregiver, home nurse visits, or home monitoring systems, which had limited benefits as they are currently designed, there was little else to do.

 

 

The InnOvaTors Approach to IoT

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How would you solve the problem above through creative and innovative IoT design?

 

It seems to us that a complete IoT solution is built upon the support of three component pillars; the nodes/sensors, the gateway and the cloud. But before we delve into specific applications of the Three Legs of IoT (which we'll do in more detail over the next couple of weeks), the workflow process of IoT design seems like it warrants inspection.

 

What's your advice on designing an Internet of Things?

Do you have an established, unified workflow, or does each application demand its own unique approach?

 

In the comments section below, we'd like to hear your thoughts and advice on how to plan an IoT solution. Don't worry too much about the technical specifics of each element just yet; what's needed here is the initial workflow that'll help to shape a robust and innovative solution further down the line. An IoT bible, if you like, that you can confidently refer to when things get chaotic, confusing or fly off on a tangent.

 

Tell us where the industry can improve its efforts, where the gaps are in off-the-shelf solutions, and what your design methods are that will bolster and boost the expanding world of IoT application.

 

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

Parents

  • IoT cannot be shoehorned into a single paradigm - that would cripple its potential. Some companies that make a complete product line for a given application area may re-use their IP to leverage their investment and get new products to market quicker, but this also limits their ability to create whole new approaches that might be better.

    The living alone problem offers wide scope for solutions.

    • You could instrument the space to monitor anyone in it, or you could instrument the person to monitor them whereever they are, or you could do both. You could even make a mobile monitoring system that follows a person around.
    • You could make a system that looks for daily pattern anomalies, or you could make a system that detects incidents immediately, or you could make the system predict incidents before they happen and even prevent incidents from happenning or provides first aid
    • You could make a system where people monitor each other, providing human interaction and relationships that are so important to health , or you could make a system that inteacts physically and mentally with a person to provide physical and mental exercise to keep them stimulated and healthy.
    • Pets can be very theraputic, but they require maintenance - automated pet care is a whole field of applications.
    • Physical delivery systems for groceries, meals and all other goods and services can help to keep people living independently.
    • Moving people around is also important, mobility assistive devices - huge area.
Comment

  • IoT cannot be shoehorned into a single paradigm - that would cripple its potential. Some companies that make a complete product line for a given application area may re-use their IP to leverage their investment and get new products to market quicker, but this also limits their ability to create whole new approaches that might be better.

    The living alone problem offers wide scope for solutions.

    • You could instrument the space to monitor anyone in it, or you could instrument the person to monitor them whereever they are, or you could do both. You could even make a mobile monitoring system that follows a person around.
    • You could make a system that looks for daily pattern anomalies, or you could make a system that detects incidents immediately, or you could make the system predict incidents before they happen and even prevent incidents from happenning or provides first aid
    • You could make a system where people monitor each other, providing human interaction and relationships that are so important to health , or you could make a system that inteacts physically and mentally with a person to provide physical and mental exercise to keep them stimulated and healthy.
    • Pets can be very theraputic, but they require maintenance - automated pet care is a whole field of applications.
    • Physical delivery systems for groceries, meals and all other goods and services can help to keep people living independently.
    • Moving people around is also important, mobility assistive devices - huge area.
Children
  • in reply to dougw

    You delineate some possibilities that I had not thought about. So, just like said, the requirements of the system and the stakeholders involved are vital to developing this system. For my money (and my family's experience), I'd go for your bullet point No. 2 -- a predictive system. But I really like your bullet point #3 "You could make a system where people monitor each other, providing human interaction and relationships that are so important to health , or you could make a system that interacts physically and mentally with a person to provide physical and mental exercise to keep them stimulated and healthy."  Perhaps a buddy system could work where one elderly person monitored another and vice versa. The idea needs more fleshing out. Thanks for contributing.

  • in reply to dougw

    Douglas you are focusing one of the most important points of this technology. It is one of the rare cases that an innovation container can be clean and not market with the recycled (technology) logo.

    IoT cannot be shoehorned into a single paradigm - that would cripple its potential. Some companies that make a complete product line for a given application area may re-use their IP to leverage their investment and get new products to market quicker, but this also limits their ability to create whole new approaches that might be better.

    I am thinking on how to add a contribution based on my personal view and this is the right starting point. In the last year poll of what will be the next year dominating technology I was very unsure if adding or not the IoT as the most emerging. This was just for this reason; the risk that the big companies tends to save money and stay in the game reusing their knowledge and - also - trying to recycle their internal knowledge and production point.

    The single members approach of a very large number of projects got the boost and started training also the big players to make really innovative proposals. The actual scenario is promising because it really opens almost exclusively to the new ideas.

     

    A more detailed technical strategy I see will be posted later; IMHO you have focused what has become in very few time the top point of the wheel, now the potential energy should be addressed to increase the inertia to a sort of new revolution where there is few few space for the parasite tries. Sometimes explore the unknown is the right choice.

     

    Enrico