a minimally intrusive monitoring system that utilizes electricity consumption as a proxy for wellbeing

The purpose of this work was to test the hypothesis: \'Off-the-shelf domestic electricity meters can be utilised to assist in monitoring the wellbeing of elderly people\'. Many studies have shown that it is, in theory, possible to use domestic electricity consumption to determine \'activities of daily living\' but the availability of systems for actual use is very limited. This work followed the Design Science Research Methodology to create a Java application running on the Google App Engine cloud service that interfaced with both electricity meters and voice and text services. The system was implemented and tested over a three month period with one older person and their carer. Results demonstrated that the technology readily succeeds in meeting the study\'s initial objectives. The need for more sophisticated decision logic was apparent and a method to determine whether a home is currently occupied is likely to improve the ability to create more timely alerts.