Challenges and Limitations of Intelligent Ambient Assisted Living Environments

As a result of changing demographics, residing and being cared for in one's own familiar environment versus in an institutionalised inpatient setting is becoming the more attractive alternative for an ever increasing portion of the population. Despite its tremendous market potential, the AAL (Ambient Assisted Living) branch is still on the cusp of a mainstream breakthrough. A lack of viable business models is considered almost unanimously to be the greatest market obstacle to a broad implementation of innovative AAL systems. This paper highlights possible explanations for this deficit and shows why the AAL community has yet to arrive at joint solutions based on a unified AAL reference platform. Furthermore, this paper describes the enormous potential of AmI and AAL, as the first real opportunity for their success is provided through universAAL and AALOA.