455
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
1 collections
    2
    shares
      scite_
       
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: found
      Is Open Access

      Towards a Distributed Intelligent Home Based on Smart Furniture for China’s Aging Population: A Survey

      Published
      research-article
      Bookmark

            Abstract

            Population aging is one of the major challenges facing the world. In particular, the advent of China’s aging society caused by various factors will be a major threat to its future development. Therefore, serious measures need to be taken to achieve its demographic sustainability. Smart furniture can be considered as a novel subcategory of gerontechnology. One of the main outcomes of the EU-funded REACH project was a variety of smart furniture named Personalized Intelligent Interior Units (PI2Us) which served as the key component of a distributed intelligent home to promote the health and activity level of older adults. This outcome can potentially be a solution to mitigate the consequences caused by population aging. In order to understand the attitudes and opinions of Chinese older adults towards the relevant technologies, the authors conducted an opinion survey using the PI2Us as an example, which sampled more than 380 older adults in 26 out of 34 provincial-level administrative divisions of China. The survey showed that Chinese older adults in general have a highly positive attitude towards smart furniture and smart home technologies. Several other insights also can be revealed from the survey. Based on further analyses, the paper summarized why the elderly-oriented smart furniture and distributed intelligent home has the potential to thrive in China’s market soon. Finally, a three-year project action plan for implementing localized solutions in cooperation with a large Chinese furniture manufacturer was presented.

            Content

            Author and article information

            Journal
            10.54878/IJADT
            International Journal of Automation & Digital Transformation
            IJADT
            Emirates Scholar
            15 March 2022
            : 1
            : 1
            : 4-12
            Affiliations
            [1 ]Chair of Building Realization and Robotics, Technical University of Munich, Germany
            [2 ]Institute of Preventive Pediatrics, Technical University of Munich , Germany
            [3 ]Industrial Design College, Hubei University of Technology, China
            [4 ]dSports Medicine Laboratory, Guangxi Normal University, China
            [5 ]Department of Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands
            Author notes
            Correspondence: Rongbo Hu ( rongbo.hu@ 123456br2.ar.tum.de )
            Article
            10.54878/IJADT.3
            2cbaca89-68da-4a1a-aa6d-501a18375f69
            ©2022Emirates Scholar

            This is an open access article published by Emirates Scholar and distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY).

            History

            Applied computer science,Management,Industrial organization,Information systems & theory,Business & Corporate economics,Economics
            Chinese older adults, Survey, Smart furniture, Population aging, Gerontechnology, Distributed intelligent home

            Comments

            Comment on this article