Table of Contents

Introduction

This week marked a turning point in the evolution of our project. Following an insightful meeting with our supervisor — and now with the valuable addition of our co-supervisor, Tiago Lourinho — we took a moment to re-examine the core of our solution.

Until now, our efforts had revolved around tracking the elderly within the home, particularly through real-time location updates. However, based on the feedback we’ve gathered from both stakeholders and experts, we realized that continuous location tracking outside the house might not offer the most valuable insights.

Most of the time, elderly individuals remain within the safety of their homes. So instead of focusing on where they are, we’ve shifted our attention to what they’re doing — or not doing. We are now embracing a more refined strategy based on monitoring relevant events in the domestic environment.

This new approach centers around detecting patterns of activity and inactivity — such as lying down, getting up or opening a door. These seemingly small actions, when interpreted correctly, can offer early warnings of behavioral changes or health risks, helping caregivers intervene before a situation escalates.

Technical Alignment with the New Vision

Choosing the Right Components

With this new direction in mind, we dedicated this week to deepening our technical understanding and identifying the most suitable components for this updated model.

We explored technologies that would allow us to build a solution that is not only reliable and discreet, but also energy-efficient and easy to integrate. Some of the key features we focused on were:

• Low power consumption, essential for battery-powered devices

• Efficient communication using BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy)

• Sensors capable of detecting motion or interaction with the physical space — even in static elements like a bed or a sofa

• Simple integration with microcontrollers and gateways, allowing for a modular and scalable system architecture

This exploration helped us pinpoint the types of sensors and microcontrollers that are best suited for our updated goals.

Updating Our Component List

As part of this technical refinement process, we also updated our official list of components, ensuring that it now reflects our new monitoring-centered approach.

This revised selection was made with careful consideration of performance, autonomy, and reliability, while also being mindful of practical implementation constraints.

Every choice was made to serve a single purpose: creating a system that meets real-world caregiving needs, while being simple, efficient and robust.

Our Component List will continue to evolve as we begin testing, but it now provides a solid technical foundation moving forward.

At this stage, we are prioritizing a minimal yet functional setup, including:

• One or two MCUs (ESP32-S3 or NRF52840) to test wireless communication (BLE/Wi-Fi).

• A single MPU6050 sensor for initial fall detection trials.

• One Magnetic Door Sensor to validate basic event detection logic.

• A Raspberry Pi 4 with supporting components (power supply, microSD, USB cables) acting as the central hub.

• Basic prototyping equipment such as a breadboard, jumper wires and temporary enclosures for physical assembly.

Other items, such as additional sensors, batteries and enclosures, will be introduced in later development stages as the system becomes more complete and integrated.

Regrouping with Partners

A Meeting on the Horizon

Finally, we made the decision to reschedule our technical meeting with external partners, particularly the team at the Volunteer Fire Department (who we affectionately refer to internally as the “firefighter boys”).

Our goal is to present this newly refined approach, focused on smart monitoring, and gather their input on how applicable it would be in real-world caregiving scenarios.

We’re looking forward to receiving their feedback next week, as we believe their on-the-ground experience will provide meaningful insights that can further shape and validate our system.

Week Recap

Week by week, our project becomes more grounded in realistic, technically feasible, and socially impactful decisions.

This week was all about reframing our vision, diving deeper into technical decisions and aligning our strategy with real-world caregiving challenges. With our focus now clearly set on domestic monitoring rather than location tracking, we made strong progress in both defining our goals and preparing the groundwork for the next steps.

As we move ahead, the emphasis will be on:

• Prototyping with selected components

• Testing assumptions with partners and potential users

• Continuously refining our system design

It’s exciting to see our ideas take shape — not just as concepts, but as a solution that could truly make a difference.

Stay tuned — there’s much more to come!