Abstract

Objectives: Smart technologies raise high expectations to change people’s life. However, the challenge is not only to develop smart technologies, but also to integrate these technologies into peoples’ life. In order to check for the usage of new technological developments, such as CARIMO – an ICT-based fitness system – we investigate peoples’ actual usage behaviour. Automatically generated usage data enable seamless monitoring of system usage. They provide information about how often the trial participants use devices and functions of the CARIMO-system. By investigating frequency and type of use, we will determine whether CARIMO has been frequently used and for which purposes.

This paper will give first insights into the take-up of the CARIMO system by the trial participants in Austria and Italy. Usage data will be compared over time.

Methods: Usage data have been recorded automatically using the open source software Matomo (https://matomo.org/). The data have been collected for the users’ tablet application and their fitness bracelets in an eight months field trial. In total, about 100 trial users participated in Austria and Italy. We use descriptive statistics to evaluate usage data by user type, by device and by function of the CARIMO system.

Results: Overall, the CARIMO system was very well accepted by the home care service users in both countries. First results indicate that the overall usage of CARIMO in Italy was lower than in Austria. Home care service users in Austria used CARIMO approximately twice a day, whereas users in Italy used it once a day. It is interesting that the usage of CARIMO remained nearly constant in Austria over the entire test period – usage decreased slightly only over the last month of the field trial. In Italy the usage was lower at the beginning (summer months), increased in October and remained stable until the end of the test.

Results also indicate that the two main CARIMO functions ‘fitness’ (the fitness program and activity recording) and ‘entertainment’ (internet, games and online newspapers) have frequently been used by the home care service users.

Conclusion: First results show that the CARIMO-fitness system has frequently been used in both countries. Reasons for lower system usage in Italy could be a slightly older test group and limited time resources of caregivers for system support. The usage results for the fitness program and the fitness bracelet are promising with respect to possible health impacts. Both differences in usage as well as possible impacts of the fitness program are subject to further analysis.