An Updated Watch-Over System Using an IoT Device, for Elderly People Living by Themselves

Abstract

People often worry about their elderly family members who are living by themselves or staying alone somewhere. We had previously developed an intelligent watch-over system using a Raspberry Pi IoT device for such elderly people. The system was consisted of one Raspberry Pi, seven motion sensors and seven temperature-humidity combined sensors, that are located at seven points within an elderly person's home. The first features of the system were privacy oriented for the elderly person by using the sensors above., instead of using cameras and microphones placed in the house. As the second features of the system, the system was able to send a Twitter direct message to designated family members, when an elderly relative is possibly in an unhealthy condition. The conditions are, e.g., an unusually long bathing time, or a visit to a restroom, too high a room temperature, dementia loitering, and intruders' detection when no one in the house. Accordingly, the system helps decrease family members' anxieties regarding their elderly relatives and increases their sense of home security. The previously developed system works well when only the elderly family is in the house. The system had a problem, in that the system should work when only the elderly family is in the house and should stop when other family members arrive home. Therefore, in this paper, we update our previously developed system to enable it to switch modes between “idling modes” and “watch over mode.” The system will be able to treat any combinations of the categories “Elderly family,” “Other families,” “Guest” entering and being in the house. The updating system in this paper will send LINE app's messages instead of Twitter messages.