Executive Insight: Smart Home Technology For Aging In Place

Most adults over 55 desire to “age in place,” which essentially means continuing to live at home as they age. Today’s smart home technology, in various ways, is helping them to do so.

What must you know about the latest technologies that can reach this crucial demographic? Not long after this year’s CEDIA Expo, TWICE spoke with Daryl Friedman, CEDIA’s global president and CEO, about opportunities in this market.

CEDIA’s definition of “aging in place,” Friedman said, is “an older individual being able to stay in their home… comfortably and safely, without having to move to a nursing home or an assisted living facility.”

Cutting-edge tech can do quite a few things to help those aging in place, whether it’s voice-control technology for staying connected with loved ones or products that help seniors with their daily tasks. The tech can also help them out in emergencies, as it’s come a long way from the “I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up” days of the LifeCall commercials from the late 1980s.

What were the big takeaways from CEDIA Expo, when it comes to smart home tech for that niche?

“There’s monitors and sensors. And I think the overarching key and where this is going is unobtrusiveness, essentially,” Friedman said. “So the senior citizen who’s living alone doesn’t want to be monitored. They don’t want to have a camera on them. This sort of unobtrusive sensor concept, I think is where this is going- fall detection, threshold detection, things like that.. is going to be an interesting future approach for dealing with aging in place.”

“What we’re finding is that a lot of people have wearables, watches, or something like that,” Friedman added. “But, an older person might forget it. The battery might not be charged. It might be left in a drawer. So we really want to make this, where [if they’ve fallen], they don’t have to crawl in a door to get the device or the activation that something in the house will notify 911 that they’ve fallen or notify a family member if that’s their desire. So I think that’s… the next big move on this kind of technology.”

There are also enhanced versions of more traditional products.

“I think you have all the appliances that a senior citizen would use, like an oven or even their bed. These newer smart models can notify somebody if the oven’s been left on, for example. So if an oven is on for five hours, or if an oven is even on and we know the individual isn’t cooking anymore, like the senior person may not be making their own meals, but has an oven in their apartment. If that oven is on for an hour, that could be a problem. So maybe a family member is notified, maybe 911 is notified,” he said.

“If something unusual is happening in sleeping patterns, even the bed can monitor things now, such as sleep quality, or if they’re on their bed in the middle of the night, things like that. So I think all those safety features are going to create an environment where either the family member or the emergency provider can actually get to them pretty quickly.”

Regarding communication products, Friedman noted that many smart speakers are now two-way.

“I think one of the biggest safety concerns for a senior citizen is loneliness,” Friedman said. “It’s not a medical, a physical issue, but it’s an emotional issue that can be detrimental. So having that kind of connection to other people.”

We also asked Friedman about product innovation coming out of the pandemic.

“I think there are two factors that have kind of accelerated the pace,” he said. “One is what you just mentioned, which is the pandemic made everyone realize that their home is their central place of safety that anything can be done in the home and that their home is their home for everything. And so that’s certainly spurred a lot of innovation,” he added.

“I think one other factor that you’re seeing in this particular space in terms of innovation is just the statistics. We’re in a situation now where [there are about] 77 million people in the US over the age of 60. More than three-quarters of people over 50 want to stay in their homes and stay in place. And so to some extent, the market speaks, right? The demand is there. And the aging population is creating more of a demand.”

When reflecting on this year’s CEDIA Expo, Friedman first said, “Everybody’s talking about AI…in the home, it’s got such great potential for analyzing what’s going on in the home, but also for understanding you better and anticipating your needs better.”

One company using those technologies is FutureCare Solutions Group, the California-based CEDIA company founded by Kyle Steele, who also founded Global Wave Integration. FutureCare was incorporated in 2012, but its product finally came to market this year.

“Based on our clients and needs, and even my own family, we started a future care solutions group based on one home in Malibu, where we had over 600 components in the home, and she kind of gave me carte blanche to do whatever I wanted,” Steele told TWICE. Steele started by trying to use existing technologies, such as hacking an old Microsoft Kinect camera to set up passive fall detection. But more recently, AI has made a big difference.

“It wasn’t till my product manager called me well over a year ago that he discovered ChatGPT. And his words were, ‘I think I discovered fire’ and I was like, you absolutely did. From there, we leaned in hard into the software side of things. And, we actually had a real solution that we’ve now deployed into 30 locations this year. So after what 12 years or so of working on development, we finally gone live.”

The result is a hub called FutureCare Home Kit.

“It has Wi-Fi and cell. It’s got battery backup. In the base kit, we have five sensors, there are two threshold sensors. So we can do entry, detecting when people come and go for a wander detection.”

“The way I use it, I have it on my medicine cabinet. So that’s how we do medication adherence. And then, FutureCare Home Kit comes with three other wellness sensors that can detect light, temperature, and motion. And we give it a deeper context using our AI back end.”

Steele says the system is “device-agnostic,” and integrates with Apple, Amazon, and Google systems.

What is the ask from seniors when it comes to products like FutureCare Home Kit?

“I think staying truly connected to their loved ones. You know, solo agers, a lot of families are concerned about their parents aging in place,” he said. “Current and future caregivers will be taking care of their kids and their parents at the same time, they’re going to be the ones using the mobile app.”

FutureCare Home Kit is offered at a one-time payment of $499, with a $79-a-month subscription. A fall detection sensor is offered for an additional one-time payment of $279.

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