IBM gives sensor-based in-home behavioral tracking a self-driving car ‘spin’ in the UK with Cera Care

May 30, 2019 | by

In-home behavioral tracking of older adults, which was a significant portion of telecare circa 2007 up until a few years ago, may be getting a new lease on life. The technology in this round is the same as what guides self-driving vehicles–LiDAR or Light Detection and Ranging, which uses laser light pulses to map images of movement and surroundings. 

In this model, IBM Research will use the LiDAR information and their machine learning to establish normal patterns and also to observe behaviors that may indicate a potentially dangerous condition or situation. The LiDAR pilot will be in 10-15 households in the UK starting in June. IBM is partnering with early-stage UK home care company Cera Care on the reporting and linking with care staff on alerts on changes in behavior that may predict a more acute condition. 

Many of the privacy issues that dogged predictive behavioral telemonitoring via networked infrared motion sensors, as well as in-home cameras, are present with LiDAR monitoring. Unlike 2007, five states have ‘nanny cam’ laws that prohibit cameras within skilled nursing facilities without patient consent (Senior Housing News) Another issue: expense. LiDAR sensor setups cost up to $1,000 each, and at least one per room is needed. Far cheaper setups are available from the Editor’s long-ago former company, QuietCare, if one can still purchase them for the home from Care Innovations; Alarm.com, UK’s Hive Link, and Google may get into the act with their Nest connected home tech.

Senior housing may open up a new market for LiDAR, which is wilting in the autonomous vehicle (AV) area as it’s proven to be rather buggy on real roads with real drivers. Certainly the housing and care market is growing and destined to be huge, with over-60s growing from 900 million in 2015 to 2 billion worldwide in 2050, while for-hire caregivers are shrinking by the millions.  Business Insider, Reuters

Best Buy update: ‘Assured Living’ assuredly up and running. And was this Editor’s in-store experience not typical?

September 14, 2018 | by

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.

Tunstall Americas introducing Vi+ telecare home monitoring

August 3, 2016 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Big-T-thumb-480×294-55535.gif” thumb_width=”150″ /]We don’t hear much from Tunstall Healthcare in the US other than their traditional/mobile PERS business (formerly AMAC‘s). That may be changing with their introduction (finally) of the Vi+ telecare home unit. It has medical alert, fall detection (via ‘intelligent pendant’) and integrates with home monitoring an array of what they call ‘Virtual Sensors’–motion and other sensors to monitor activity in the home, including wireless sensors for fire, flood and gas leaks. They do make a point of having an integral ambient temperature sensor which will alert their response center if an unsafe high or low temperature is detected.

Other than the press release, no information on Vi+ is on the Americas website yet, including pricing. (Vi without the sensor array has been sold for some time.) Vi+ is marketed in most Tunstall countries in Europe, Australia and New Zealand. The fact sheet from Ireland is representative of Vi+ in most markets.

It’s interesting that Tunstall Americas has chosen to enhance their PERS/call center services with sensors, versus entering the hotter telehealth area. Sensor-based activity/danger monitoring is hardly new. (more…)

Telecare innovator Lively acquired by GreatCall (updated)

December 5, 2015 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Lively-sensors-600×327.png” thumb_width=”150″ /]GreatCall, which markets the popular Jitterbug simple phones and ancillary safety/security services (5 Star, mPERS) targeted to older adults, has acquired the assets of home activity personal monitoring system Lively. According to GreatCall’s press release, Lively’s technologies will be integrated into GreatCall products. These include a tastefully designed brace of self-installed in-home motion sensors, which made quite a splash when introduced in 2012, and a fairly stylish mPERS watch introduced last year. From the announcement, it’s easy to deduce that Lively was largely inactive despite partnerships led by Care Innovations: the press release on both Lively and GreatCall’s site was issued from GreatCall only and not joint contact; Lively’s last round of funding was in 2013 (only $7.3 million total, another Series A to B casualty) and there are no Lively employees transitioning to GreatCall for the good reason that there are none left (Mobihealthnews). No word on founder Iggy Fanlo’s next plans save a squib on LinkedIn saying that hardware was hard and his next move would likely be in software. With last year’s sale of AFrame Digital (with no further word from the purchaser) and BeClose now Alarm.com Wellness (not a surprise as it was built on an Alarm.com platform), as we close the year it is further confirmation that it is No Country for Small Players in digital health. Photo: Lively.

Update: Tart take from seasoned Aging Tech business observer Laurie Orlov on Lively’s rise and fall, with additional history. Her POV is that as attractive as Lively’s concept was, its business strategy should give pause to the Silicon Valley investor and entrepreneur crowd thinking this is just another kind of direct-to-consumer hardware-service sell, the long payout of any tech in this field and the opposed short time frame of VCs. It’s also not like there haven’t been a few predecessors fallen on the field, either. Aging in place tech firm Lively is out of business – what can we learn?