SINGAPORE — For years, pre-school teacher Doris Oo had been calling her mother — who suffers from high blood pressure and diabetes — during her lunch break to ensure all was well at home. But these days, she no longer has to make the calls, having installed the Smart Elderly Monitoring and Alert System (SEMAS) in her flat.

The system consists of a set of motion and door sensors designed to study the living habits of seniors who are living alone and monitor their movements. It is able to establish one’s current location, duration spent in the toilet and sleeping patterns.

SEMAS takes two weeks to establish a proper profile of a person and any deviation from it results in a beeping sound being emitted from the system. Within a minute, an SMS notification will be sent to a senior’s caregiver.

Ms Oo’s mother, 78-year-old Mabel Chen, took part in the Housing and Development Board’s (HDB) SEMAS pilot last year. The system was tested in 12 rental flats in Woodlands, Yishun, Clementi and Marine Parade between June and November that year.

The HDB later conducted a survey and found that 10 out of 12 households found SEMAS to be elder-friendly and easy to use. Eight households felt their privacy had not been compromised by the system.

For Mdm Chen, it took a few weeks to get used to the system. “When I heard this (beeping) sound at first, I forgot where it was coming from. I thought it was the TV. I checked everywhere,” said the Yishun resident.

Mdm Chen added that the portable panic button, which comes with the system, also gives her greater peace of mind, as she can use it to alert her daughter during an emergency.

Smart technology enhances the safety of elderly residents and offers their children greater peace of mind, said HDB’s chief executive officer Cheong Koon Hean yesterday in reference to SEMAS. It is part of the Smart HDB Town Framework unveiled last September.

Four small and medium enterprises (SMEs) had each been awarded a Capability Development Grant from SPRING Singapore to develop and test their systems for the pilot.

While participants did not have to pay for the pilot, Ms Oo, 50, said she would be willing to pay up to S$20 a month for the technology in future.

The HDB, which is ready to provide the necessary digital infrastructure, is further studying whether the system should be made available to suitable flats in future.

However, for this to happen, the SMEs would first have to work out a business model for such a system.

TCAM Technology, which created the prototype in Mdm Chen’s house, said it would be keen if the HDB calls a tender for the SEMAS project. If that does not happen, the company plans to introduce its own system to the commercial market, said founder Tan Shuang Maan.

Prices would vary, depending on the add-ons to the system, but a basic set would cost below S$1,000, he said.