With economic advancement and the progress of science, technology, and medical treatments, human life expectancy is continuing to grow. Indeed, the global aging population is increasing year by year, which has become a topic of close attention by many countries
[1][2][3]. With the change in society and the change in the concept of procreation in Taiwan, its population growth has slowed down, and its national fertility rate has decreased year by year. In addition, the prevalence of late marriage and the rise in average life expectancy have significantly changed the age structure of Taiwan’s population
[4]. The social problems of aging span not only the needs of the elderly’s welfare, but also economic, medical, and family issues. Secondary issues relate to the elderly’s life, leisure and entertainment, well-being, and psychological and social adaptation, which the government and society should pay attention to and properly plan for
[5][6][7].
According to data from that same survey report on seniors
[15], about 76% of Taiwan’s 55-year-old citizens believe that their physical and mental health is in an ordinary or even good condition. The statistical data also show that “health care group activities” have the highest participation rate, and “leisure and entertainment group activities” are also those they often participate in, regardless of whether the elderly population is aged 55 to 64 or aged 65 or older. This means that Taiwan’s seniors have a strong demand for leisure and healthcare activities. On the other hand, the proportion of seniors over 65 who need nursing, maintenance, or care services is only 17%. Although the physiological function of elderly people will inevitably decline, their psychological pursuit of respect, attention, and companionship will not disappear with age but will continue to increase
[18]. With the progress of medical treatment and technology, the maintenance of elderly people’s physiological functions is also improving. It is expected that the number of elderly people over 80 years old in Taiwan’s elderly population will continue to increase.
2.2. Recreational Sport and Golf Croquet
Leisure comes from the Latin word “Licere”, which means free time or free activities after getting rid of productive labor
[19]. Leisure sports refer to those in which participants freely choose to engage for their own fun during leisure time. Such sports include physical exercise and recreational sports
[20][21]. Leisure sports emphasize personal will and self-development, the pursuit of health and physical development, and achieving the purpose of relaxation. More importantly, one can obtain internal satisfaction from sports
[22].
With the transformation of society, machines are replacing human beings in various tasks, the number of working hours of human beings has gradually decreased, and the amount of free time has increased. Therefore, how to arrange appropriate rest and life outside work has increasingly attracted public attention. After entering the elderly age group, individuals mainly participate in physical leisure activities (such as aerobics or walking), intellectual leisure activities (such as chess), religious leisure activities (such as charitable activities), and social activities (such as volunteering). If the number of leisure, recreational, educational, and sports courses can be increased and some opportunities can be provided to participate in voluntary services for seniors, then this will fill their spare time and give them the opportunity to participate in society. The most important thing is to help them establish a correct self-awareness so that they will not think that they have lost their usefulness in society
[23].
Activity or exercise forms a health guide designed for the human body. If an individual does not engage in a certain degree of activity or exercise, then muscle strength will gradually decline with both age and the aging phenomenon, resulting in a drop in activity, which will increase the possibility of accidents in seniors and relatively increase the risk of chronic diseases
[24]. Croquet is very suitable for seniors to participate in and reduce various chronic diseases
[25][26]. For them, participation in croquet can help develop interpersonal relationships and interactions after retirement. It is a low-intensity sport, has fitness and social functions, and is quite suitable for the elderly. By participating in croquet, seniors can gain the recognition of their peers and temporarily get rid of unhappiness with this game. Depression and anxiety can thus be effectively relieved
[23][27].
Croquet originated in France. It is a recreational activity that can be participated in by many people, and it can help with mind power
[28]. However, it is also subject to some restrictions, including limitations in field size. Golf croquet originated in Japan and drew lessons from the traditional British croquet sport that rose in the 14th century. At that time, it provided children with a means of entertainment, but it was not accepted by them; instead, it was loved by seniors. It is an indoor sport aptly suitable for seniors
[29][30].
Golf croquet combines fun and brainstorming. It integrates the training of feet, hands, and concentration into an activity so that participants can also stand around, chat, and walk happily and naturally. Golf croquet requires more attention and better control, and the rich colors on the scoring carpet improve the willingness to participate. The score matrix in Figure 1 is 13 grids, indicating different scores. The score is doubled when the ball falls at the selected number. Scores can also be negative. The arrangement of competition activities can make everyone more aware of the importance of cooperation and fully open the door to group activities where people are able to laugh and enjoy time with others.
Figure 1. Schematic diagram of golf croquet.
2.3. Internet of Things and Companion Robot
From the perspectives of science and technology, the maturity of IoT technology, and the rapid development of AI, the use of AIoT emerging technology combines AI and IoT to improve the quality of life of seniors and has attracted greater attention
[31][32][33][34][35]. IoT means that electronic devices can be connected to the Internet through network infrastructure
[36]. The device has a variety of sensors, which can collect and integrate information anytime and anywhere to assist people’s lives
[37][38]. In recent years, IoT has been used more and more widely, covering a variety of different application fields. Among them, Qian et al.
[39] used ambient assisted living (AAL) and a healthcare monitor (HM) in combination with AI and IoT to systematically help seniors live a more relaxed and better life in terms of methodology and application scenarios. Abdi et al.
[40] found that some emerging technologies (such as AIoT) may solve the elderly’s basic self-care and medical care needs, but there is still a gap in their potential use in some nursing fields. Research results have provided the industry with some clear challenges and obstacles to improving the adoption of emerging technologies by the elderly, such as robots and virtual/augmented reality (AR/VR). The integration of IoT and mobile phone devices can effectively solve the difficulties of limited storage space and insufficient computing processing capacity of devices at low power consumption, strengthen the development of the entire IoT technology space, and achieve effective management in terms of reliability, computing performance, security, and confidentiality
[32][34][41][42].
With the progress of science and technology, people expect robots to be close to human life and provide more diversified services. Various service robots have begun to flourish, which try to integrate into human life with different roles. In elderly care, the development of many machine pets and machine dolls, which can interact with the elderly, really helps ease their psychological loneliness and lets them feel the value of being needed again
[43]. Companion robots have evolved from mental commitment robots to therapeutic robots that provide psychological and spiritual healing effects for the elderly, relieve their stress and loneliness, offer psychological healing functions for patients with dementia, and improve their mental health and quality of life
[44]. Studies
[45][46][47][48][49] also showed that if you want to improve the quality of life of seniors, then you can use home-based robots to achieve the goal and also effectively reduce the burden of caregivers.
The rise of AI in recent years, especially natural language processing technology, has gradually matured and become widespread. Voice assistants combined with IoT technology have already entered many homes. Users can use their voice to perform functional tasks or information queries through a voice assistant, which can even be applied to the biomedical field, including disease diagnosis and life assistance
[50]. Many research and development projects also try to combine robots and natural language processing to develop robots that can talk naturally. For example, Zenbo (as shown in
Figure 2), a robot developed by ASUS, is a companion robot that combines the cloud natural language processing engine.
Because Zenbo has a variety of functions, it can cover the basic needs of seniors in daily life and company
[51]. Compared with general robots, Zenbo’s price is more reasonable, which increases its popularity for general families or nursing institutions. Therefore, this study uses Zenbo as an auxiliary research tool to deeply explore the application of companion robots and demand analysis of an elderly family home motion system.
2.4. Mobile Application and Scoring System
The vigorous development of smartphones and wireless networks allows users to easily access the information they want and need through mobile technology anytime and anywhere. It has created diversified mobile application systems, changed the way people communicate, and improved social interactions. Therefore, more middle-aged and seniors are using mobile phones to take, upload, and share photos or use social software to communicate with friends and relatives. They are enjoying the convenience brought by information technology. According to the Ofcom
[52] report on adults’ multimedia use and attitudes, 28% of the elderly aged 75 or above used tablet computers in 2018, or an increase of 15% over 2015. In 2020, 77% of the elderly over 65 used the Internet at home. According to the same survey results, the Internet use rate of the age group 65 to 74 increased from 52% in 2011 to 83% in 2019. This means that seniors are narrowing the generation gap in technology use, and they are not only using their computers but also expanding to mobile phones and tablets
[53].
In the “Demand and Impact of the Elderly Consumers” report for the middle-aged and the elderly, AT Kearney
[54] pointed out that the elderly have high acceptance of mobile technology, 69% of seniors use the Internet and mobile phones at the same time, and mobile technology has brought changes and influence to the lives of seniors. A report on the use of smartphones published by InsightXplorer
[55] explained the use of applications and browsers/web pages on smartphones. Regardless of the content type, the overall use rate of Apps is higher than that of browsers/web pages, and the availability of local services and specific information is higher than that of browsers. According to Dennison et al.
[56], mobile phones have become an important way to spread healthy behaviors. The development of Internet mobile technology has promoted a rapid rise in fitness Apps, which are third-party application(s) of smartphones or wearable devices that can help users record fitness data, guide sports learning, and lead healthy lifestyles
[57]. Thus, more and more scholars are continuously investing in research related to fitness or sports applications
[58][59][60][61]. Under such consideration, people can effectively and immediately manage their own health conditions and make health management plans using mobile Apps.
Most intelligent sports systems are mainly targeted at young people, and their category is also biased toward running or cycling records and fitness teaching. This may motivate people to try to mimic observed activity patterns, resulting in more or fewer sports activities depending on the sports behavior of their peers. Products similar to this research include the golf practice system, which focuses on an evaluation of swing strength and golf trajectory
[62][63]. Clubs on Strava
[64] form the largest online social network in the field, connecting millions of runners, cyclists, hikers, walkers, and other active people. Franken et al.
[65] found Clubs on Strava influence people’s running behavior. A sports partner’s excellent results will motivate another follower or friend to keep exercising
[64]. There are few indoor sports intelligence systems for multi-person interactive seniors, so it is very important to discuss multi-person online sports systems suitable for seniors.
This system is part of a new patent application (No.: TWM602930). As the basis for the score of golf croquet, it uses a sensing plate and image recognition device (as shown in Figure 3) to determine the path and final stop position of the croquet after hitting. The score is recorded and displayed in the App software. The “Smart Golf Croquet System” App in Figure 4 includes five functions: login, select ball, swing ball, score, and leader board. It also can automatically sort the scores and list the rankings, so as to reduce the number of judges, scorers, and other staff. A smaller venue can also be used. This system improves the original restrictions and also records the muscle groups and fitness conditions used by users in the process of use because the App software of this system contains an image recognition function module and storage area that can identify and store at least three hitting paths. Thus, the base point of hitting can be set in advance with assistive devices. Rehabilitation therapists suggest that three hitting points be determined for fixed muscles. The hitting path, the position of the ball, and scoring are recorded at the same time, and so specific muscle rehabilitation or fitness status can be evaluated.
Figure 3. Ultrasonic sensors plate and image recognition device.
Figure 4. An App for the auto scoring system for golf strike back ball.
In smart golf croquet, there are four main items: smart scoring system, smart club, robot, and App. The intelligent scoring system mainly uses the camera that shoots the scoreboard, then loads the differential image recognition at the backend, and finally reads the score out loud. The smart club will have installed a shock, pressure, and accelerometer sensor, and an Arduino processor will process the data. The robot has an intelligent voice and camera system. Usually, the elderly is not an ideal age group for using electronic products and can operate this system only by speaking. Furthermore, the App screen can be directly displayed on the robot’s screen. The last part of the App integrates the data of previous scoring and clubs for display. Next, multiplayer connection is the most important part, so that players can play together online without being disturbed by space factors.