From home appliances to telemedicine, smart city project offers next-generation living

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From home appliances to telemedicine, smart city project offers next-generation living

The Eco Delta Smart City in Busan [K-WATER]

The Eco Delta Smart City in Busan [K-WATER]

 
BUSAN — The first thing Lee Seo-jin, a 24-year-old resident of Korea’s first full-scale smart city project, does when she wakes up in the morning is turn on the lights with a voice command — “Smart, turn the lights on.”
 
She turns on the television, once again with voice command, and watches the morning news. The TV then notifies her that the oven has finished reheating the lasagna she placed inside it 20 minutes ago and that the washing machine will finish its cycle in 10 minutes.
 
Sitting on the couch, Lee checks her smartphone to see what food she has in the fridge and what's close to expiring. She’s also notified that a parcel has been delivered and is waiting for her in a designated area.
 
This is simply the day-to-day goings-on for Lee and the other residents who will be living at Eco Delta Smart City, a 2.2-trillion-won ($1.8 billion) government-funded smart city project, for the next three year. It is being operated in partnership with major companies such as Samsung C&T and Samsung Electronics.
 
The project designated a southwestern corner of the port city of Busan as the testbed for health care, robotics, smart farming, environmental and safety technologies.
 
The project, which accommodates 54 households, has been filled with the latest connected home appliances, urban technologies to better residents’ quality of life and residents willing to live for free for the next three years in exchange for their data.
 
Of the 2.2 trillion won, the government will fund 1.5 trillion won and raise 760 billion won from the private sector.
 
The Busan Eco Delta Smart City [YOON SO-YEON]

The Busan Eco Delta Smart City [YOON SO-YEON]

 
Residents completed moving in on Jan. 15. During their stay, which can be extended up to two more years, they will only have to pay for the maintenance costs of their homes, such as electricity and water.
 
Instead of rental expenses, they will provide their data to the Korea Water Resources Corporation (K-water) through the Living Lab program — ranging from energy consumption patterns to health data, their home appliance usage and other behavioral information. They will also give their feedback on their lives in the project through interviews with K-water.
 
The data will be used by K-water to provide more convenient living for Eco Delta residents in the short term and to draw a clearer picture of a future smart city in the long term.
 
There have been urban projects in Korea related to the idea of smart cities, but they either took place in existing towns or had one target area of study such as energy or transportation, even if they were newly built.
 
When the reporter visited the village on Jan. 20, technicians were making finishing touches on the self-driving surveillance robots that will patrol the streets.
 
The neighborhood was quiet on a weekday afternoon with residents either at work or school, but the cleanliness of the newly-built village filled with houses featuring solar-paneled roofs gave a peek into a future that could be just around the corner. 
 
 
All things connected
 
The Wellness Center is located inside the community center, where residents can take their information — body weight, blood pressure and so on — and have it sent to be monitored by a doctor at Kosin University Gospel Hospital. [YOON SO-YEON]

The Wellness Center is located inside the community center, where residents can take their information — body weight, blood pressure and so on — and have it sent to be monitored by a doctor at Kosin University Gospel Hospital. [YOON SO-YEON]

 
Connectivity and convenience take place in both small and significant forms of service in Eco Delta.
 
Advanced technologies are not only limited to appliances at home. Residents can also enjoy the fruits of the latest technology that allows them to take utmost care of their health through telemedicine facilities.
 
Located in the community center is a health care facility dubbed the Wellness Center, where residents can input their information — body weight, blood pressure and so on — and have it sent to be monitored by a doctor at Kosin University Gospel Hospital.
 
Residents will be provided with video consultations with the doctors inside a quiet room, and a nurse from the hospital will also be stationed at the center for emergencies.
 
In a quiet room inside the Wellness Center, residents can sit down for a video consultation. [YOON SO-YEON]

In a quiet room inside the Wellness Center, residents can sit down for a video consultation. [YOON SO-YEON]

The Wellness Center is located inside the community center. [YOON SO-YEON]

The Wellness Center is located inside the community center. [YOON SO-YEON]

 
The Korean branch of U.S. genetics analysis company Genoplan is also taking part in the project, so residents can avail of detailed analysis of their DNA after providing a sample of their saliva.
 
Through this genetic analysis, residents can find out general information such as their body type and blood sugar levels, as well as other detailed insights such as how fast their skin will age and whether they will experience hair loss early on in their lives.
 
DNA testing is wholly voluntary and up to two people from one household can apply for Genoplan analysis.
 
“I think it’s great that the genetic analysis will tell me things that I hadn’t known about myself,” Lee told the Korea JoongAng Daily. “Plus, it’s going to be so much easier for me to take care of my parents.”
 
Lee is a student at the department of civil engineering at Pusan National University who moved in to the Eco Delta with her parents and older sister, in December. With her heart set on a career in future urban planning, Lee said that the project seemed like the perfect opportunity for her.
 
A month into her experience, Lee said that she’s felt changes in her life thanks to high-tech home appliances.
 
The kitchen space within a model house at the Busan Eco Delta Smart City [YOON SO-YEON]

The kitchen space within a model house at the Busan Eco Delta Smart City [YOON SO-YEON]

 
“The biggest difference that I feel now is that I don’t have to get up from the bed when I want to turn the light off at night,” Lee said. “I can command it with my voice, which is actually more convenient than you think, once you get used to it.”
 
When asked to choose the next most convenient thing, Lee chose the TV, which “tells us when our laundry is done or when the oven’s finished with cooking.”
 
Both things Lee cited were thanks to Samsung Electronics’ appliances and voice recognition system.
 
The electronics manufacturer supplied 15 products ranging from tablet PCs to refrigerators, washing machines, TVs and air purifiers. All products can be controlled using the SmartThings smartphone app, which also takes care of the lighting and heating in each of the homes. And of course, it recognizes voice commands.
 
Samsung Electronics and Samsung C&T are participating as major partners in the project. Samsung C&T constructed 37 houses while Shindongah Engineering & Construction built the other 19.
 
For the design of the village, GS E&C, Samoo Architecture & Engineers and Unsangdong Architects Cooperation took part.




An evolving city


The Eco Delta Smart City in Busan [K-WATER]

The Eco Delta Smart City in Busan [K-WATER]

 
The essence of the project lies in the fact that it will be shaped by the residents’ participation in the Living Lab. Much of the plans for Eco Delta will depend on what data K-water receives and how it makes use of their findings.
 
Throughout their three-year stay, the residents are required to give detailed feedback about their lives.
 
Six households have been chosen as community leaders to facilitate healthy communication between K-water and the other residents, and will also be taking the lead in many of the projects' events.
 
“Citizen participation is very important in smart cities,” said Lee Jung-hoon, a professor at the Graduate School of Information at Yonsei University.
 
“The data that is created from the smart city is important, but not as much as data that’s interactive and evolves with citizen participation. The quality of a service can only grow with more people pitching in their ideas, and that’s what needs to happen with Eco Delta Smart City.”
 
Smart city projects have already been conducted in existing neighborhoods, especially in European cities such as Amsterdam, which asked residents to collect noise data from the city in order to tackle sound pollution.
 
Helsinki, in another example. It conducted a Living Lab project from 2013 to 2021 to collect and connect the information from the neighborhood of Kalasatama to build a digital twin — a digitized replica of the area — with the aim of making a more convenient place for people to live.
 
But the case of Busan, where a whole new village has been built from scratch is quite unique, according to Lee. The devices and technologies may be off the shelf, but it’s still a big feat to gather them altogether to be used at once.
 
“The project allows for us to use all the finest technologies together and see what happens when we utilize them in people’s everyday lives,” Lee said. “The Living Lab will help the companies realize what they need to improve, and that’s what makes the testbed worthwhile.”
 
A similar project is under construction in Japan by Toyota dubbed Woven City. The Japanese automaker aims to build a connected city using cutting-edge technology. It broke ground last year and is currently under construction.




Baby steps


The Eco Delta Smart City village [YOON SO-YEON]

The Eco Delta Smart City village [YOON SO-YEON]

 
The village does need some work here and there, as would be the case for any newly-commenced project or a newly-built village.
 
One thing that Lee pointed out was the inconvenient public transport system. The project is located far from downtown Busan and there is only one bus that comes to and from the nearby subway station.
 
“There’s only one fried chicken franchise that delivers to our house,” Lee also jokingly, added.
 
Such limitations will naturally resolve themselves over time when surrounding apartment complexes are built and the neighborhood becomes more developed.
 
But for the nuisances that can be dealt with within the village, K-water will take the constant feedback from the residents and address their needs, a spokesperson said.
 
The collection of personal data did not irritate Lee much, and she is not alone in that sentiment. All residents had agreed to providing their data for research purposes before moving in to the village.
 
“I trust that the government will do their best to protect it and that the data will be used for good purposes,” Lee said. “My parents were more worried about the fact that the village wouldn't be equipped with surrounding infrastructure, like a nearby hospital or transportation.”
 
Three thousand households applied for the 54 spots in the village, proving people’s willingness to provide data in exchange for comfortable, convenient and affordable living.
 
Koreans in general tend to be more open to providing their data than other countries, especially citizens in the United States.
 
According to a 2020 survey by the Presidential Committee on the Fourth Industrial Revolution, 86.6 percent of Koreans were willing to give their data to a third party — including both the government and private sector — if it were to improve the data industry. Ninety percent of interviewees felt that digital services using big data made their lives more convenient.
 
However, in a 2020 survey by data firm Privitar, only 27 percent of interviewees in the U.S. said they were willing to share their personal information for health care advancements and research.
 
Another 2019 study by Pew Research Center showed that 66 percent of U.S. adults felt that the potential risks of data collection by the government outweighed the benefits. In the same survey, 81 percent of respondents felt that private companies collecting data had more harmful potential than benefits.
 
There isn’t much data to be discussed yet, since the Living Lab just started on Jan. 24.
 
But proper utilization of resident data is one of their top priorities, according to Lee Sung-yun, a senior manager at Smart City Project planning team at K-water.
 
The more identifiable the data is, the more valuable and at the same time harmful it is to the provider. But the less identifiable means the data is more prone to becoming meaningless.
 
“We understand that it will be tricky balancing between anonymity and the value of the data,” Lee said. “We are going to work out the details as we go along, but it is our utmost priority to protect people’s privacy and make sure no issues arise.”
 

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BY YOON SO-YEON [yoon.soyeon@joongang.co.kr]
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