SENSORMIND INDEPENDENT LIVING:KEEPING OLDER people safe in their own homes is a big worry for families. Due on the market in a few months' time is a new, 24/7 monitoring system that could help.

The brainchild of IT professional Siobhan King-Hughes, Sensormind Independent Living is a web-based monitoring system that uses a network of discreet motion sensors throughout the home connected to a central monitoring and emergency response service.

The cloud-based system works by picking up movement patterns and analysing them to create a picture of what is “normal” behaviour for the user. If the system detects something unusual such as someone not returning to their bedroom having gone to the bathroom in the middle of the night, it automatically creates an alert.

Conventional monitoring systems such as neck pendants depend on the older person being able to contact them for help.

The development of the system came about when King-Hughes found herself worrying about the safety of older family members when she was not with them. With a background in research with multinational IT blue chips such as Microsoft and Oracle, she set about applying tele-technology to create an assisted-living product that would be simple to install and non-invasive. The older person does not have to interact with the system in any way or learn any codes or passwords to use it.

Simplicity for the user is key to the Sensormind hub, which plugs into a conventional power socket with no need for a broadband or phone connection. The complexity lies in both the design of the hardware and in the algorithms that process and analyse the data. The cost of the system has yet to be finalised but users will pay an up front fee and monitoring charge thereafter.

Because the system is web-based it is possible for family members to log on and see the activity level at any time. This is designed to reassure them that their relative is safe even if they don’t answer a check-up telephone call.

“With our system someone would never end up lying on the floor for hours or even days before being found. There are competing products out there but nothing like Sensormind which takes things to a much more sophisticated level. Even if someone tried to copy us we are well ahead of the posse with an in-depth knowledge of the home signal field,” King-Hughes says.