On December 15, 2010 eight new competence centres were established in Slovenia. The Biomedical Engineering Competence Centre, as one of them, initiated five research-and-development projects. The System Software Laboratory was involved in important research activities of the project entitled Connected Home Devices in Support of Independent and Healthy Living.

Competence centres follow the Finish and West-European research examples. Propulsive, successful enterprises and research groups are linked in joint projects. The Slovenian competence centres were mainly funded by the EU Commission. Seven priority areas were intensively researched during last three years. Many original ideas were investigated and the most promising are going to be industrialised and marketed in new products and services.

The Biomedical Engineering Competence Centre links up five enterprises (Fotona, Gorenje, Iskra Medical, Instrumentation Technologies, and Optotek) and seven research institutions (Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science of Maribor, Faculty of Electrical Engineering of Ljubljana, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of Ljubljana, “Jožef Stefan” Institute, University Medical Centre of Ljubljana, Institute of Oncology and University Rehabilitation Institute Soča of Ljubljana).

Four partners joined the Connected Home Devices in Support of Independent and Healthy Living project: Gorenje, System Software Laboratory and Electro-Optic and Sensor Systems Laboratory from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science of Maribor, Iskra Medical and University Rehabilitation Institute Soča of Ljubljana. The main project objective was to investigate and develop intelligent components and devices that can appear as parts of household appliances or in standalone solutions embedded in living environments. The devices monitor user’s health and physical condition in an automated and unobtrusive way, which aids to prolonged independent and quality living.

We demonstrated the project achievements at different occasions and wrote about scientific and economic impacts in high-ranked publication. The obtained project results certify we fulfilled all the expected and planned research and development goals. Video demos are also available for a set of unobtrusive sensors in the

• - fridge handle,
• - optical sensor in bed,
• - a camera behind a semitransparent mirror,
• - measuring the electrocardiographic signals by an oven handle,
• - intuitive control of devices by using hand gestures and
• - intelligent footware.