Housekeepers

Automate home operations with assistants to maintain and enhance quality of life

The goal is to support three user roles for managing a smart home through a web interface, with options to automate task generation, allocation, scheduling and execution based on the available resources, the overall capacity of the smart home ecosystem, and residents’ priorities.

Users can monitor the robots, agents, and people acting as housekeepers while maintaining control. The application can also be synced with external smart city agents. Analytics provide insights from near real-time and historical data. A professional maintainer or housekeeper can be synced to receive and execute assigned tasks. A home administrator (owner/renter) can set up the system and preferences and monitor overall capacity and efficiency, identifying opportunities for improvement and optimization. A resident (simple user) can view the housekeepers’ behavior, participate in home management operations, and provide input when needed.

The concept is about a smart home maintenance and task management system.

Agents inspect the home, collect data from sensors and devices, and take calendar events into account. Robots with inspection capabilities may collect data as well. Humans (users) may also enter data. Agents identify potential issues, assess severity and priority, and generate tasks. Resources like energy capacity and money are also taken into account. Tasks are assigned to robots based on their capabilities. They can also be assigned to humans (professionals) or other external to the house agents, like community level agents. Each task is either executed immediately or scheduled for a more appropriate time. Tasks that require human action remain open until a home administrator approves or dismisses them.

The home’s well-being can be described along three main axes:

(1) inspect and identify (detection): the ability of current systems and processes to inspect the home and identify issues that require attention,

(2) daily function (continuity): the ability to keep day-to-day operations running, and

(3) maintain and update (improvement): the ability to maintain this level of operation and update it whenever possible to enhance the home’s functionality and the residents’ quality of life.

An overall efficiency score can reflect the system’s outcome regarding the household operational performance.