This work introduces the design and assessment of a voice-controlled elevator system aimed at facilitating touchless interaction between users and hardware, thereby minimising contact and improving accessibility for individuals with disabilities. The research distinguishes three distinct deployment scenarios – on cloud, on edge and embedded – with the ultimate goal of integrating the entire system into a low-resource environment on a custom carrier board. An objective evaluation measured acoustic conditions rigorously using a dataset of 2900 audio files recorded inside a laboratory elevator cabin featuring two internal coatings, five audio input devices, and under four distinct noise conditions. The study evaluated the performance of two Automatic Speech Recognition systems: Google's Speech-to-Text API and a Kaldi model adapted for this task, deployed using Vosk. Additionally, latency times for these transcribers and two communication protocols were measured to enhance efficiency. Finally, two subjective evaluations on clean and noisy conditions were conducted simulating a real world scenario. The results, yielding 84.7 and 77.2 points respectively in a System Usability Scale questionnaire, affirm the reliability of the presented prototype for industrial deployment.

The population in the world is aging dramatically, and therefore, the economic and social effort required to maintain the quality of life is being increased. Assistive technologies are progressively expanding and present great opportunities; however, given the sensitivity of health issues and the vulnerability of older adults, some considerations need to be considered. This paper presents DigiHEALTH, a suite of digital solutions for long-term healthy and active aging. It is the result of a fruitful trajectory of research in healthy aging where we have understood stakeholders’ needs, defined the main suite properties (that would allow scalability and interoperability with health services), and codesigned a set of digital solutions by applying a continuous reflexive cycle. At the current stage of development, the digital suite presents eight digital solutions to carry out the following: (a) minimize digital barriers for older adults (authentication system based on face recognition and digital voice assistant), (b) facilitate active and healthy living (well-being assessment module, recommendation system, and personalized nutritional system), and (c) mitigate specific impairments (heart failure decompensation, mobility assessment and correction, and orofacial gesture trainer). The suite is available online and it includes specific details in terms of technology readiness level and specific conditions for usage and acquisition. This live website will be continually updated and enriched with more digital solutions and further experiences of collaboration.