Seniors Keeper Smart Door Lock

Press Kit

Unique Properties

Seniors Keeper is a smart door lock which connected with vital signs sensing devices, such as smartwatches. When elderly people encounter an emergency at home, it emits red light and projects fonts to call for help and automatically opens the door. When neighbours or rescue workers find out, they can communicate with the elderly through the microphone on the door lock to determine the elderly's situation and decide whether to enter the door to give help.

Dimensions & Packaging

The diameter of the door lock is 70mm and the height is 50mm.

Tags

Locks, seniors, smart devices, alarms, rescues, emergencies

Production Technology

The Seniors Keeper intelligent door lock uses a motor to drive the lock core, which can ensure that the lock can be automatically opened in case of internal locking. The hollow in the middle integrates LED lights, speakers and microphones, and in the centre is the fingerprint sensor. A simple projection device is installed in the side opening of the door lock, which can project the set text.

Design Challenge

One of the challenges of this project was the design of the use flow. When the elderly have an emergency and the rescue personnel arrive, do they open the door by using fingerprints, faces, temporary passwords or using documents? Although it can ensure the monitoring of people entering the door to a certain extent, the cost of learning in a short time is too high for people who do not know. Considering the security services in the apartment and the crime rate, we decided that the door locks would open automatically.

Project Duration

The project started in June 2023 and ended in January 2024 at University of Nottingham Ningbo China.

Operation Flow

In normal use, the old person can turn the knob counterclockwise to lock the door or unlock it by a fingerprint. After the induction device find the old person is abnormal, the door connected with it will unlock, go off and notify emergency contact, the LED light will flash, and the side will project “HELP!”. Rescuers can talk with the elderly through a microphone on the lock. If the elderly person permits help or does not respond, they can enter the door to give some help.

Research

The research type is analytical research. The subject were elderly people who lived alone. The methodology is to find hidden pain points by collecting and collating relevant data and news reports. Data mainly comes from official data, media and research websites. The result is that more than half of China's elderly live alone, and 40% live in apartments. Elderly people dying alone, injured at home will continue to increase, and the problem of rescuing them deserves more attention.

Inspiration

In China, the number of elderly people living alone is increasing, and more of them live in apartments. Furthermore, the standard mechanical lock cannot be opened with the key from the outside after being locked from inside. When the elderly can't open the door in an emergency at home, the neighbours can't find it in time, and the rescue team may need to spend a lot of time breaking the door, which will allow the elderly to enter a more dangerous situation.

Image Credits

Rukai Huang, Jiang Wu, Loïc Faulon, Xu Sun

Colors of Seniors Keeper Smart Door Lock