Living Laboratories

Building our two SmartHomes was only the beginning of our SmartHomes project. In fact, it was the easy part!

Now, we are working to make the homes into living laboratories where new technologies can be researched and developed (or current technologies can be adapted) to serve the needs of individuals with developmental disabilities (and related conditions) so they can remain independent. Achieving this goal will also have the added benefit of making services far less costly.

Our hope is to partner with a variety of organizations to provide research data that will help us to learn more about what works and what doesn’t.

For example, in October 2010, members of Imagine!’s SmartHomes team met with researchers from Colorado WIN Partners to discuss some of their findings from their year-long study involving residents of the Bob and Judy Charles SmartHome in Boulder. The researchers were looking at how the technology in the SmartHome was impacting the residents’ lives.

Click here to see a white paper with details from this inaugural in-depth research study on our SmartHomes.