An experiment that includes elements of the Big Brother reality TV show -- replete with hundreds of electronic sensors as well as microphones and video cameras -- goes much further by bringing science to task examining how people use technology in their homes.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology's PlaceLab is a 950-square-foot one-bedroom condo in a condo complex in Cambridge, MA where volunteers -- with little actual contact with researchers -- put under the microscope virtually every aspect of their lives.

Volunteers -- singles, couples, and families of different age groups -- who agree to live in PlaceLab for varying periods can't escape hundreds of sensing components installed in nearly every part of the home.

The sensors develop user interfaces that help occupants easily control their environment, save resources, remain mentally and physically active, and stay healthy.

The sensors also monitor how people react to new devices, systems, and architectural design.

Among other efforts, PlaceLab research will be used to develop technology that recognizes patterns of sleep, eating, socializing, and recreation. Changes in these activities, particularly among the elderly, are often early indicators of emerging health problems.

The living lab will use biometric or wearable monitoring, examine air quality measurements and investigate the use of space.

Researchers say such lifestyle research is necessary to improve health care, especially remote health care technology that will allow physicians to monitor health signs from afar using glucose meters, electronic scales, and other equipment.

Most people prefer to age in place and stay in their own home when they retire, rather than moving to a nursing home or health care facility. More and more Americans are also spending more time at home working a home-based business or telecommuting.

PlaceLab also is one of a growing number of experimental homes or "X-Homes" that serve as prototypes offering a variety of glimpses inside the homes of the future.

One component of MIT's "Changing Places Home of the Future Consortium," ongoing research of the links between the home and places of healing, work, learning, and community, PlaceLab is investigating:

• What influences the behavior of people in their homes?

• How can technology be effective in the home context for long time periods?

• Can technology and architectural design motivate life-extending behavior changes?

• To what degree can measurements of activity in the home be quantified in a way useful for creating new computer applications for the home?

• How can technology be used to simplify the control of homes of the present and future, save resources, and improve health?

• What influences how people adjust to new environments?

• How do people learn in the context of the home?

• What new innovations for the home would most fundamentally alter the way we live our everyday lives?

MIT also plans a second living lab -- a fully functional single-family detached home -- used to demonstrate component- or modular-based building strategies and using those strategies to create easily configured energy- and resource-efficient homes and living spaces.

Published: October 12, 2004

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.

Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a contemporary digital news service that really hits home. The award-winning consumer journalist, originally from Wilmington, DE, is founder, publisher and executive editor of the bootstrap DeadlineNews Group, a Silicon Valley-based editorial content and consulting service specializing in residential real estate, consumer news and related editorial consulting services. The DeadlineNews Group includes the website, DeadlineNews.com, offering real estate editorial content and consulting services, and its back shop, the Deadline Newsroom, an open house on news that really hits home. Perkins obtained his formal journalism education from University of Delaware and a journalism boot camp, the Institute of Journalism Education at the University of California-Berkeley. He went on to 20 years of service as a daily newspaper journalist at the Wilmington, DE News Journal and San Jose, CA Mercury News. Perkins covered housing on the San Jose Mercury News reporting team which earned a General News Reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. He has also produced real estate, consumer and small business content for the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, RealtyTimes.com, Nolo.com, Better Homes and Gardens, the National Association of Realtors, Homestore/Move and Intuit/Quicken among more than three dozen publications. In addition to managing the DeadlineNews Group, Perkins most recently served as chief editorial consultant for Nolo's Essential Guide To Buying Your First Home, Nolo, and writes real estate television scripts for RealtyTimes.com.