JultikaUniversity of Oulu repository

The purpose of this thesis is to design a new smart home for urban Chinese elderly people in home living environment. This new smart home design has to be integrated all the ICT solutions which based on a literature review was proposed and also with a functional back-end system for data collection, analysis and storage. The literature review phase of this study was to find out the existing problematic issues and solutions for urban Chinese elderly people in home living, upon comparison of two current Chinese smart home producers, it becomes clear that the current Chinese smart home may not completely meet the needs for home living urban Chinese elderly people. The design phase firstly introduces the ideas on conceptual model of new smart home design and then emphasises on involving all the ICT products, services and backend system into a real home living environment of urban Chinese elderly people. The evaluation of this research according to a scenario of how a general urban Chinese elderly people spends a day in this new smart home living environment and evaluate whether this smart home solve all the urban Chinese elderly home living issues and finally answer the research question. This research aims to show the future direction of new Chinese smart home design and may inspire the current Chinese smart home producers and help them improve their current smart home products.