Reader and Opinionator Laurie Orlov wrote this Editor to advise her that Assured Living was most definitely alive and well in Best Buy-land. The Assured Living page presents a variety of services, starting with a personal monitoring service (video) for an older adult that starts with a fairly standard pendant PERS (two way) and also creates an in-home network of motion sensors for doors, windows, and furniture installed by Geek Squad. These sensors send activity to a control panel which tracks activity and wellness patterns (sic!–as we know it’s algorithms and rules in the software). Within about a month, the system will send real-time automated alerts if something is out of the ordinary. The video then promises the usual ‘deeper insights’ into wellness and potential issues with the older person.
What doesn’t sound like QuietCare circa 2006, down to the need for installation, are the Wi-Fi camera in the doorbell and the automated remote door locks, the tie ins with the Mayo Clinic and UnitedHealthcare.
We both speculated on the motion sensor set as being Lively Home (from GreatCall) –Laurie added possibly Alarm.com’s BeClose, which has supplied Best Buy in the past.
Assured Living is available only in limited markets (not listed) but you can get 10 percent off with AARP! But product packages go up to nearly $189.97 for a one time fee plus $29.99/month, not inclusive of that nifty doorbell camera and remote door locks.
One wonders if the reluctance of older adults to admit they need monitoring and consent to the installation is less than in 2006, when QuietCare’s and ADT’s sales people had difficulty overcoming the reluctance of a person living home on their own to be monitored by their (usually) child. Sometimes a sale would be made, the installer would come, and the installer would be shooed out after second thoughts. The genius of GreatCall was in making technology palatable to this market by assigning it a positive use, such as communicating with friends and direct personal safety, not someone minding her. Right now, the template is 2006 with a tech twist.
Drop in and visit Laurie Orlov on her Website We Like, Aging in Place Technology Watch. (She’s alarmed about chipping people too and frames it as more of a security and a moral issue than this Editor did, who prefers her chips to be chocolate and her cars to be driven by her alone.)
As to this Editor’s ghostly experience buying a TV in store, perhaps I should have invited a Best Buy rep over! Reader, former Marine flyboy, eldercare expert, and full time grandfather John Boden did and got a simple solution to an annoying problem. Read about it in comments on our prior article here.
Most Recent Comments