Simple Care, the long-term care IoT project, is the solution combing Bluetooth, LoRa, WiFi, indoor positioning, smart home security sensors, smart light bulb adapter, etc to help take care of the elderly at home and track their daily mobility pattern. Whenever the elderly live or stay alone at home, their child could always know how their parents are via the mobile app. To help more people to apply the solution in daily life, the founder of Simple Care, Sco Lin, has the project to be open source and encourage makers to discuss and share ideas in the community on Facebook.

Ideas Originated from Taking Care of Elderly Parents

To know the elderly parents’ daily mobility pattern and take care of their health, people usually either make a phone call or visit them in person every day. However, while being busy with work, people might miss the chances to contact with their parents.

Some existing solutions apply surveillance system to monitor the elder’s actions and movements at home but might invade the elderly’s privacy. That’s the reason why Sco was thinking about if there is any solution that allow people to know the elderly parents’ health status and the real-time location and protect their parents’ privacy.

Home Care and Security System Combining Wearable & Smart Light

Simple Care features the 2 functions, home care and security system, tracking the elderly’s movement and monitoring if there’s any intruder in your home. The concept is quite simple that wearing bracelet is easy for the elderly; every apartment has lights. So, why not combine the 2 devices for long-term care solution?

The smart device (not only bracelet but also any BLE accessories) transmits the data of people’s movement to the gateway—smart light through Bluetooth, and the data will be transmitted to the cloud. While people are walking around their apartment within 2 kilometers, their movement still can be transmitted to the gateway by LoRa. All the movements and data can be accessed and displayed on mobile app.

Additionally, security system is also one of the functions in the solution. The smart light can be equipped with smart home security sensors like PIR (passive infrared) or door sensor; once someone intrudes into the apartment, the family will get the alarm via app.

Crowdsourcing Help the Open Source Project Development

The biggest challenge Sco confronted in developing the solution is that his partners, all having full-time jobs, do not have enough spare time to involve in development. To make the solution develop more efficiently, Sco decided to open-source the project and establish a Facebook group to get more people to help with the development and share their IoT knowledge in the community. With the power of crowdsourcing, Sco is hoping that the solution development could be more effective and innovative.

From Idea to Reality

From having an innovative idea to realizing the project, it’s a tough journey for makers. Instead of developing the solution independently, Sco open-sourced the project and establish a community to engage more makers who are interested in the topic. With the power of crowdsourcing, Simple Care is expected to make its debut in Maker Faire Taipei in November.

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