Research and development in the area of Ambient Assisted Living has been undertaken for many years. The aim of Ambient assisted Living is to manage the risks due to aging and living alone so that the older person can remain in their familiar home environment longer. Despite the many years of research and development there is apparently only limited uptake in the real world. Some researchers have suggested that insufficient focus on user needs, focus on the technology not the user, little concern for ethical issues in deployment, and lack of user-centered system design are causes for the limited uptake. These and other reasons should be understood else it is likely that when further systems are developed they too will not be accepted. Subsequently, the aim of the present research is to explore the issues that affected the uptake of the Assistive Technology and Ambient Assisted Living systems that are currently in Australian homes. Due to privacy concerns and commercial confidentiality issues, this has proven difficult, so an innovative approach is being used to obtain data. Some preliminary information has emerged from the ongoing data gathering that indicates that specific Assistive Technology is being used but little consideration has been given to Ambient Assisted Living. This appears due to differing perceptions of usefulness. To improve the perception of Ambient Assisted Living systems usefulness we are developing simple devices that target specific needs raised by potential users. Through using such devices, appreciation of the usefulness of comprehensive home Ambient Assisted Living systems may increase. The devices are specifically low-cost to encourage trial and are designed with a user-centered approach that incorporates important earlier researchers’ findings regarding older people and technology.