Progress of Advanced Devices and Internet of Things Systems as Enabling Technologies for Smart Homes and Health Care

Abstract

In the Internet of Things (IoT) era, various devices (e.g., sensors, actuators, energy harvesters, etc.) and systems have been developed toward the realization of smart homes/buildings and personal health care. These advanced devices can be categorized into ambient devices and wearable devices based on their usage scenarios, to enable motion tracking, health monitoring, daily care, home automation, fall detection, intelligent interaction, assistance, living convenience, and security in smart homes. With the rapidly increasing number of such advanced devices and IoT systems, achieving fully self-sustained and multimodal intelligent systems is becoming more and more important to realize a sustainable and all-in-one smart home platform. Hence, in this Review, we systematically present the recent progress of the development of advanced materials, fabrication techniques, devices, and systems for enabling smart home and health care applications. First, advanced polymer, fiber, and fabric materials as well as their respective fabrication techniques for large-scale manufacturing are discussed. After that, functional devices classified into ambient devices (at home ambiance such as door, floor, table, chair, bed, toilet, window, wall, etc.) and wearable devices (on body parts such as finger, wrist, arm, throat, face, back, etc.) are presented for diverse monitoring and auxiliary applications. Next, the current developments of self-sustained systems and intelligent systems are reviewed in detail, indicating two promising research directions in this field. Last, conclusions and outlook pinpointed on the existing challenges and opportunities are provided for the research community to consider.

Soft Modular Glove with Multimodal Sensing and Augmented Haptic Feedback Enabled by Materials’ Multifunctionalities

“…The corresponding data, schematics, and photos of each step are labeled accordingly in Figure 6b, 6c and 6d. Briefly speaking, step (1) shows recognition of user A's contact motion of grabbing the cup (Figure 6b(ii)) and roughness detection (Figure 6b(iii)), as well as detection of temperature from the cup with hot water (Figure 6c(iii)). Step (2) illustrates the feedback of user A's information about the interaction with the cup on user B's glove via direct (Figure 6b(ii)) and augmented pneumatic feedback (Figure 6c(iii)) and thermal feedback (Figure 6b(iii)).…”

“…Nowadays, our society is a densely communicated network formed by numerous connections between the real world and cyber spaces and eventually established the concept of “metaverse”, which features with delivery and feedback of diverse information. Especially under the current 5G and IoT (Internet of Things) infrastructure, the boost of communication technologies can bridge all the terminals together via advanced human machine interfaces (HMIs). − As a foundation to achieve seamless linkage, multimodal sensors and haptic feedback systems for both humans and machines are experiencing significant attention in terms of the development of more intelligent wearable and portable devices. − …”

“…The design of finger and palm modules ensures the tunability and the wearing comfort. With the aid of those multiple functions and the ML techniques, as well as the IoT infrastructure, the smart perception can eventually be established through(1) intelligent sensing of motions and external stimulus and (2) offering various stimulations with comprehensive information. By merging all of these features, we can have one step further toward the seamless and harmonic coexistence among humans, machines, and the virtual world and benefiting different areas, such as medical care, education, social networking, and industrial productivity.…”

A low-cost air quality monitoring system based on Internet of Things for smart homes

“…A statistically significant association was found between short-term exposure to high air pollution and increased risk of COVID-19 infection in 120 cities in China [52]. At the present day, thanks to the reduction of hardware costs, everyone at home has at least one high-tech device that supports the quality of life [51]. In general, exposure to air pollutants constitutes an important risk factor for health.…”

Graphene‐based dual‐function acoustic transducers for machine learning‐assisted human–robot interfaces

“…Human-robot interface (HRI) based on smart electronic devices has become a research hotspot for realizing artificial intelligent robots. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] The HRI can be realized by different approaches, ranging from the conventional typewriting screens to the recently studied speech recognition, 8,9 gesture recognition, 10 tactile sensors, 11,12 or electronics skins. 13 The use of speech as a tool for HRI could be more efficient and convenient as it is the most common media for people's daily communication and does not require transitional information conversion, not to mention that it may also contain other abundant information such as emotion, age, or identity.…”