Energy Efficient Widcombe (EEW) are currently involved in a £100,000 Technology Strategy Board project to investigate the use of home sensors in monitoring the well-being of elderly ‘Assisted Living’ patients. EEW, along with their partners at the University of the West of England, ContinuumBridge Ltd and Designability are trialling a system coordinated by a Raspberry Pi which monitors temperatures, energy use, the opening and closing of doors, movement detection throughout a home to better understand how a coordinated array of sensors can assist in helping ‘Assisted Living’ patients. The data is automatically sent in real time to the ‘cloud’ for remote monitoring.
Energy Efficient Widcombe are trialling the system with the aim to reduce energy use and carbon emissions, locate and assist older people who are at risk from cold or in fuel poverty, and to work with others to tackle these issues. One of EEW’s main focuses is to use the system to reduce energy consumption by monitoring inside temperatures in a number of rooms along with the outside temperature to optimise the control of heating systems.
More information on the system and the project is available here.