Smart homes for all – how does BCI help us interact with our home?

Smart home technology is really important for paralysed people. It is very important that smart homes enter the mass market so that the costs of domestic devices decrease, making these systems cheaper for patients. Being able to interact with your home and coordinate its devices using your brainwaves has long been imagined in the realms of science.

But an international group of scientists is already working on a project called SM4all. This project is an embedded middleware platform for pervasive and immersive environments, developing smart homes for all, but with a special focus on the elderly, disabled and chronically ill.

The project looks to impact the lives of those with limited or no physical movement through the use of brain computer interface (BCI) technology. For people who are totally or partially paralysed, this technology and its applications could represent a great step forward in performing simple actions autonomously. 

For instance, if a person wishes to take a bath, the home’s services would collaborate with the individual’s request and the bath would be filled with water that is 37C, the temperature in the bathroom would be raised and the wardrobe in the bedroom opened in order to provide easy access to the bathrobe.

To respond to the unique needs of the user, sensors and services that continuously adapt depending on the user’s habits and specific environment are required. By adding, removing or composing services offered by sensors and devices, SM4all aims to improve the dynamicity of its system, allowing it to be customised more readily.

Read more on sm4all-project.eu