This embodiment of the invention consists of an apparatus or
home appliance unit embodied in a hardware entity running an
embedded software program connected to a
server computer via a phone line or high-speed internet. At home, the apparatus communicates with an optional set of
medical health monitoring devices such as but not limited to,
blood pressure monitors,
blood glucose meters, and
pulse oximeters using wired or
wireless communications methods in order to perform wellness measurement. The illustrated embodiments of the invention provide a novel
user interface on the
home appliance to make the
system accessible to people with disabilities. The simple
user interface is designed to be accessible to people who are blind or deaf or people who cannot use their hands and require an alternative interface device such as a sip & puff controller. For the
hearing impaired, the interface duplicates all speech and informational sounds with text or graphic cues. For the Blind, a Rotary knob provides tactile and
audio feedback as the user navigates the
system options. As every
clockwise or counter-
clockwise rotation of the knob brings a new option into focus, the user feels the click of the knob, and hears several audio cues including an audible click, a unique musical chime and a spoken description of the selectable option. For people who cannot use their hands to rotate the knob, alternative input controller devices, (such as a sip & puff controller) are supported through wired (such as but not limited to
USB) or
wireless (such as but not limited to
Bluetooth, Zigbee IEEE 802.15.4, Z-Wave, Wi-Fi) connections. The home unit can further monitor wellness activity of the
care recipient by pegging the number of times the
care recipient passes by a infra-red motion sensor. The filtering of the latter information and subsequent integration over time and comparison with historical counts per
unit of time within a 24 hour period can determine the normal activity pattern for the
care recipient over the previous 24 hours.