Wearable Devices and IoT as Enablers of Assistive Technologies

In assistive technology scenarios, this paper investigates how wearable devices may be used as smart solutions for accessing computers. We focus our attention on a smartwatch available on the consumer market; by using an open source middleware, based on low cost embedded systems, we propose to develop custom apps to process data from smartwatch's resources (e.g., sensors) and send them to a Linux single board computer. The latter component plays a critical role because it converts received data into raw input signals for a connected computer by emulating a standard mouse or a keyboard. Since the process requires no software installation on the target device, the user with a disability benefits from a single personalized equipment to control a wide range of computer devices, including traditional personal computers, tablets and smartphones. Additionally, the embedded system accesses the Internet and it takes advantage of the container-based virtualization technology to customize on demand its behaviour according to user's needs and preferences.