Balance@Home

Project Dates: From April 2009 to March 2013

Project Leader: Prof. Patrick Olivier

Staff: Prof. Philip Blythe, Dr Martyn Dade-Robertson, Dr. Christian Kray, Prof. Paula Moynihan

 

The aim of this project is to help European citizens to obtain consumer solutions for hassle-free guidance towards a balanced lifestyle regarding meal planning and preparation and personal choice. We explore methods for inferring eating habits in an unobtrusive way, and seek to use this information to provide situated feedback on meal planning and preparation, as well as creating pervasive kitchen technology that will help to underpin this advice.

The research for the project takes place in the Ambient Kitchen and Experience Lab at Philips Research in Eindhoven, as these research facilities represent a real-world environment. We will also take advantage of the geographical distance between ourselves and our partners at Philips Research to explore the role of social networking in sharing cooking experiences and the promotion of balanced eating habits.

We are adopting a User-Centred Development approach in order to develop successful solutions, meaning the starting point for each of our developments will be the insights of the groups we intend to use it, and testing prototypes with users during further developments. The three groups we are specifically looking at are single-person households, two-person households, and families with young children.