Microwaves Sensing Your Health?

This struck me at first as being even more interesting than it actually seems to be:  Detect what machines you are using. And derive some health measures from behavior.   It turns out I had just placed a large long russet potato in the microwave, and hit the 'potato' button, and for the first ten minutes the display said 'sensing', then it changed to 'cooking' as it proceeded to create a soft potato.  Was this something like that?   Well, no it seems, but it made me think more along those lines.   Can more derived from the sensing?  No plans to crawl into the microwave. 

" ... Sapple, a system developed at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, analyzes in-home appliance usage to better understand health patterns, using just radio signals and a smart electricity meter.

What can your microwave tell you about your health?
An MIT system uses wireless signals to measure in-home appliance usage to better understand health tendencies.   Rachel Gordon | MIT CSAIL

For many of us, our microwaves and dishwashers aren’t the first thing that come to mind when trying to glean health information, beyond that we should (maybe) lay off the Hot Pockets and empty the dishes in a timely way.

But we may soon be rethinking that, thanks to new research from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). The system, called “Sapple,” analyzes in-home appliance usage to better understand our health patterns, using just radio signals and a smart electricity meter.

Taking information from two in-home sensors, the new machine learning model examines use of everyday items like microwaves, stoves, and even hair dryers, and can detect where and when a particular appliance is being used.

For example, for an elderly person living alone, learning appliance usage patterns could help their health-care professionals understand their ability to perform various activities of daily living, with the goal of eventually helping advise on healthy patterns. These can include personal hygiene, dressing, eating, maintaining continence, and mobility.

“This system uses passive sensing data, and does not require people to change the way they live,” says MIT PhD student Chen-Yu Hsu, the lead author on a new paper about Sapple. “It has potential to improve things like energy saving and efficiency, give us a better understanding of the daily activities of seniors living alone, and provide insight into the behavioral analytics for smart environments.” ... ."   ... '