An IoT-Aware Architectural Model for Smart Habitats

Internet of Things (IoT) is a set of massively emerging technologies that aim to make our lives better. One of the most suitable application domains is healthcare and wellbeing, where IoT technologies can enhance living environments (ELE). IoT applications are deployed into an IoT ecosystem, which is supported by a specific architecture. The usual IoT architecture model has three different layers (Acquisition, Network and Application), where all the different IoT elements are organized. This architecture has been designed for general purposes, but the deployment of IoT healthcare applications supported by this architecture model exhibits important drawbacks. In particular, this architecture model does not consider IoT devices coexisting with wearables devices, which hinders the design of smart habitats. In this paper we present an IoT-aware architectural model for smart habitats with special emphasis on healthcare domain. The new architecture adds a fourth layer to the traditional IoT architecture, describing the software artefacts and tips needed to support context-aware habitats through the interaction between wearable computing devices and IoT devices. The main goal of the IoT architecture presented is to enhance living environments for elderly people.