Source: The Edge Malaysia
Date: 24 October 2020
The original article is reported by Tan Zhai Yun, The Edge Media Group

Because of experiencing the stress that occurs when an elderly family member gets into an accident or falls sick, our founders decided to embark on a journey to assist seniors in healthcare facilities and at home with AI technology.

“We know that if we rely heavily on humans to take care of the seniors [who are sick], the caregiver has to make many sacrifices. It can be very tiring. We also see many families hiring full-time helpers to do this task, but what about families who cannot afford to do so? Technology is something that can be used to assist these people,” says our COO & Co-founder, Toh Ying Wei. 

Senior citizens may also prefer to age in place. Their children might be worried about the seniors’ safety when they are alone at home, especially for those with poor health conditions.

This is why our team went on to create an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven sensor that can detect falls and anomalies at home.

SmartPeep and smart monitoring

This year, we launched our Smart Home Care solution to help seniors to age independently at home. We use optical sensors to detect what is happening on the scene, and we train our AI to recognise the seniors’ behaviours. Family members and caregivers can be immediately alerted if the senior falls or exhibits abnormal behaviours at home. 

“The AI is trained to recognise patterns such as a person collapsing or falling down … We’ve already accumulated quite a lot of experience deploying this technology in healthcare facilities in Malaysia, Singapore and Australia, so now we are bringing it to the consumer space and personal home. We have tried it with 20 customers in Johor Bahru,” says Our COO.
‍

How does it work?

The sensors will be installed in areas such as the living room, kitchen and walkways. Not only does the AI detect falls, but it can also detect if the senior does not appear in all the cameras for more than four hours or sleeps on the sofa for hours with no movement at all. This will trigger an alert to inform family members or send a nurse to check on the senior. 

In terms of privacy concern, only family members can view the videos. The nursing home only receives emergency alerts, and no third party can check this information.

In the future, we want to introduce more features to our AI-powered sensors. This could be sensors that monitor whether a senior has been in the toilet for too long, says our COO, as there have been many cases of slips and falls in toilets and many more high risk situations such as strokes.
‍

Bundled as a service

We sell the home products as a service in collaboration with nursing homes. For instance, once the sensors detect a fall, an alert will be sent to the family members and a nursing home, which will send someone to check on the senior.

We hope to help families whose children are working all day but are worried about their parents or grandparents at home.

“We’ve heard a lot of cases where the senior lies on the floor for five hours until the children come home because they cannot reach their panic button or phone. We are now introducing a non-intrusive and contactless method to track these incidents,” says our COO.
‍

To learn more of our Smart Home Care solution, contact us at sales@smartpeep.ai.