The findings of the first living lab project show that in order to test technical-assistance systems with elderly people at home, a pre-evaluation in a “true” laboratory is necessary. For this purpose, the FHS St.Gallen University of Applied Sciences opened the AGE-Lab at the Startfeld Innovation Centre in St. Gallen. The AGE-Lab and the living labs make it possible for manufacturers of AAL technologies to test their solutions before launching them on the market.

In the past 12 years, more than EUR 1 billion has been invested for research and development of assistance systems for elderly people in their daily lives (Active Assisted Living, or AAL). “Despite high investments, many of these innovations have so far met with little success on the market,” says Urs Guggenbühl, who, together with Beda Meienberger, heads the Competence Centre for AAL at the FHS St.Gallen. He says that there are many possible reasons that might prevent the dissemination of these solutions, such as inadequate operability of the technical solutions, stigmatisation as a result of unsuitable design, or high purchase and operating costs.

Urs Guggenbühl notes that the LivingLab 65+ concept at the FHS St.Gallen provides a decisive advantage here: “As we are including elderly people in testing AAL solutions in their private household environment, the systems can be developed and modified in accordance with actual needs and desires.”

Living lab method tested

In an initial project, AALiving Lab@home, a typical AAL system available on the market was tested in 20 private residences of elderly people over a period of six months. After having been given a detailed introduction about the AAL system, the test subjects were asked about the usability and acceptance of the installed AAL system three times during the testing phase by means of interviews and questionnaires. At the same time, the most important technical incidents were documented and registered. Since the project involved the first implementation of a living lab exclusively in the home environment, one of its objectives was to scrutinise and improve the living lab method, including with respect to the sustainable operation of our LivingLab 65+ project in the future.

The project showed that a technical product should first be pre-tested before being installed in the households. Initial functional tests should be conducted in a laboratory and, if necessary, in two to three households. Thereafter, the findings gained in this way should be funnelled into an improvement loop (industry partners). After making adjustments, field testing can be conducted with a larger number of private households. This phased approach is advisable because it enables a system’s significant malfunctions to be corrected in advance so that field testing can be conducted as efficiently as possible with a larger number of households. The research questions and hypotheses must be established by the project team prior to the start of field testing, and the three levels of data collection (qualitative, quantitative and automated data collection) must be coordinated in order to be able to obtain optimal results and a coherent picture. Based on these findings, the AALiving Lab@home process was readjusted, and the technical AGE-Lab was established for the purpose of pre-evaluating and preparing the technology for field testing.

Testing room, development room, research room

The AGE-Lab is located at the Startfeld Innovation Centre at Lerchenfeldstrasse 3, 9014 St. Gallen. The Innovation Centre offers a highly creative environment for inspiration and the development of the AGE-Lab, a number of ICT start-ups whose expertise can be extremely useful for the AGE-Lab, a co-working space, conference rooms and a kitchen for common use, as well as high-speed Internet. The AGE-Lab primarily serves as the testing room for the operation of the LivingLab 65+ project. In addition, the AGE-Lab also serves as the development room for developing new AAL technologies/solutions, as the demonstration room for presenting potential applications, and as the research room for collecting and analysing living lab data. The Startfeld Innovation Centre also offers a platform for finding a home for innovative start-ups and SMEs in the area of AAL.

As part of the national innovation network AGE-NT and the associated Active Assisted Living Cluster, as well as in connection with the current project “IBH LivingLab AAL”, the LivingLab 65+ project is to be expanded throughout Switzerland and in the area around Lake Constance (Germany and Austria) to include approximately 150 residences of elderly people (i.e. private households and supervised forms of living in institutions). In addition to various research projects in the area of technical assistance for elderly people at home and in daily life, the LivingLab 65+ project also plans to test marketable AAL products and services in the actual, everyday living environment of elderly people.