2 HOME-BASED SMART TECHNOLOGY

2 HOME-BASED SMART TECHNOLOGY

2 HOME-BASED SMART TECHNOLOGY

Home-based smart technology encourages independent living at home with the support of smart technologies. Specialized assistive devices, smartphone or tablet based applications, on-body or passive sensing technology can be used to increase, maintain, or improve the functional capabilities of older adults or individuals with disabilities. Feedback and information from monitoring technology can be relayed to occupants or shared with informal caregivers to aid with decision making about a person’s health and wellbeing.

Challenges in the development of inclusive smart technology include how to develop understandable and usable technologies so that they meet individual variations in needs and abilities so that they help to maintain autonomy, provide meaningful activities, address the emotional state of individuals and promote social inclusion (Nunes, 2015). Moreover, there is a great variety within these user groups, such as differences in demographics (e.g., socioeconomic status) and personality, but also due to the diversity of specific conditions, each with different behavioral, cognitive, and emotional consequences. It is, therefore, vital to have extensive insight into the dynamic needs, wishes, and abilities of these user groups and a reiterated theme in the literature is the essential requirement to involve older adults or individuals with disabilities in identifying which needs technologies should meet as well as in the development and evaluation of such technology (Jovanovic 2021, Mannheim 2019, Cesta 2018, Ellers 2018). A review of the literature has highlighted the following as ethical considerations when developing smart assistive technologies.

The pervasive nature of some smart devices raises issues of technological understanding and consent. In addition, older adults or persons with specific disabilities might have a reduced or even compromised ability to decide for themselves about the use of smart technology (O’Connor, 2017).

Privacy

Smart devices gather a broad spectrum of data about their users, ranging from in-application activity to communications to movement and location data. Combined with their pervasive nature, data can be collected and used in ways that are not always clear to end users (O’Connor, 2017, Gochoo 2021).

Security

Security in smart spaces refers to securing the IoT devices and the networks they’re connected to. This involves physical security as well as security of the data from intrusion and cyber attacks. Users need to trust in these devices and that their data is secured (Karale 2021). Choosing the right technology to fit the requirements is crucial in avoiding over or unnecessary surveillance. For example when it comes to security, a motion sensing device may be sufficient in place of a camera to determine if a busy path is clear of traffic to ensure safe passage.

Autonomy

Technology should be designed to accommodate existing living patterns and should offer users control and influence over their lives and well-being (FakhrHosseini 2019).

Safety

Ensuring the safety of older adults and persons with disabilities is crucial to their independence and quality of life. From a technology standpoint, safety and technological reliability are highly coupled and it is important that evaluations of smart technologies are not limited to testing in laboratory settings designed to simulate potential end user environments rather than more complex real world environments (Pigini 2017).

Data Accuracy

The accuracy of data collected in smart spaces depends on a number of factors including the reliability of the device, device configuration or placement, device misuse or misunderstanding. Smart sensors can also generate false positives and inferences, recommendations and predictions based on inaccurate data will contain errors (Aramendi 2019).

Data collected via smart technologies is often shared with manufacturers and third parties. This can be for varied purposes, to help the manufacturer to improve the product or to aggregate data for analytics and insights. Older adults or persons with disabilities may wish to share data with formal or informal caregivers but they should have control over how and with whom their own data is shared (Doyle et al., 2015). Data management policies should be available and accessible (Mocrii 2018).

Transparency

Transparency enables end users to understand the smart system. It incorporates previous factors such as privacy and data management and ensuring that these are well understood by those using the system. Transparency is important at both the device and system levels (Yao 2019). Understanding how the data is stored and managed is essential for trust of system and data (Doyle et al., 2015)

Trust

To trust decisions computed by smart systems, users need to know how that system arrives at its conclusions and recommendations. Trust is related to data accuracy and transparency above and explanation below (Cannizzaro 2020).

Explanation

Existing approaches to explanations for smart systems are tailored more towards interpretations that are more suitable for modelers and less for technically inexperienced users. The majority of smart systems do not incorporate explanation capabilities (Nikou 2019).

Acceptability

It is accepted that end users make trade-offs when using smart technology, for example, data privacy for increased autonomy, security over privacy for better surveillance, increased functionality or better displays for less explanations or usability for complexity. We argue that these trade-offs should not be inevitable, particularly for persons who are reliant on technology. We posit that an ethical, user driven framework incorporating a design-driven approach can reduce or eliminate these trade-offs by better understanding the needs and requirements of end users.

Affordability

Immersive technology requires immersive data to understand the environment and the individual. This means allowing technology access to our personal spaces. This can be intrusive if not done correctly and tailored for the cohort. Passive, low impact, low visibility, low maintenance and high reliability should be considered as high priority requirements when dealing with older adults and people with disabilities. These requirements have a cost trade off over disposable low cost IoT devices.