2019: What Technology Matters for Older Adults

In 2018, technology utilization grew – so did frustrations.  While Internet and social media technology use has plateaued over all age ranges, Facebook still has captured only 41% of the 65+.  Pew’s data showed that smartphone ownership still has not overtaken cellphones among the 65+.   In early 2019, AARP Research published a technology survey taken in 2018 which showed ownership of smartphones growing to 65% of the 65+.  However, that same survey revealed low trust in online safety, and generally low trust in institutions to keep their personal data safe, a justified worry, given the number of data breaches that occurred during 2018.

Competitions among innovators were held and won.  2018 was a banner year for competitions in the age-related categories.  ElliQ from Intuition Robotics won Best of Innovation at CES 2018. Embodied Labs (a VR offering) won AARP’s innovation pitch in October and Wavelet Health won the Silicon Valley Boomer Venture Summit Business Plan competition. Ohmni Labs won the Global Startup Competition at Aging 2.0.   An Optimal Aging competition in Boston included several tech-enabled offerings as winners. RideRite, a bicycle handlebar designed by Virginia Tech students won a Stanford Longevity challenge.

Competition among Voice First tech giants were waged – did anyone win?  CES 2018 top competitor battle was between Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. Spoiler alert, it was even more wacko at CES 2019.  Market share numbers were tossed around toward the end of 2018. Some thought was given to including Apple’s Siri, not an overachiever at that time. And Sonos  (Best Sound) will likely appear in 2019 bakeoffs, along with the distant but scrappy Bixby.

The 10-year anniversary of the Market Overview of Technology for Aging in Place. This annually-updated report will be reviewed during the next few weeks for what has changed; what no longer matters; and what firms, including startups, may matter over the next year to the older adult market segments.  If you have thoughts – please bring them forward about any new offerings in the categories of communication and engagement, home safety and security, health and wellness, learning and contribution, dementia care, home care, and caregiving apps. And if you think categories are missing or no longer matter, please speak up!

category tags: 

Voice First/AI technology, Boomer-Senior Tech Business, Seniors

• 

from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/2019-what-technology-matters-older-adults

Technology Tool Tarnish – Facebook, Twitter, Google, and LinkedIn

Facebook is the company we increasingly love to hate – but boomers still ‘like’ it. Rant on. So much negative press, well deserved, about Facebook lately, including the lawsuit about knowingly duping children playing games. Then there was the Pew Research estimated number of deleted accounts (mostly young people) and no small deal, even a big security breach.  Clearly this is a company with management issues – and someday will either fail (unlikely), be broken up, or be regulated, even in the US, which has for some unknown reason done nothing to date, unlike privacy actions taken in Europe.   According to eMarketer, though, baby boomers are still big users – of the 76.4 million of them, 31.9 million are using Facebook. Hopefully not trying to stay connected to teens – who are departing for other platforms like Snapchat, according to eMarketer, including Snapchat. On the positive side, Snapchat is not yet owned by Facebook – which will be combining Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp into a single platform by 2020.

Twitter – is it relevant in the older adult market segment?  Is it relevant at all? So aside from US political tweets, which dominate our attention, Twitter itself is hardly a fact of life for Americans, and certainly not for older adults (though they may see plenty of tweets displayed on newscasts).  According to this recent informative summary about Twitter, 80% of its actual users are outside the United States; boomers and seniors are generally not interested, but heads of state are very interested (no kidding). And as all can see, political Tweets are reported minute by minute in the national TV broadcasts, so there’s no need to log on to see them. Sigh. But here’s head-scratcher – 75% percent of B2B businesses market on Twitter. One wonders – to whom? And do their customers see these Tweets? Not if the half-life of a tweet is 24 minutes.

Google – is it a verb or a monopoly – and what is ‘Truth'?  By now, you have seen a bit of controversy over ranking search results in favor of Google’s partners, over the right to be forgotten, or other anti-competitive behavior or privacy issues. To catch up, read about the antitrust complaint from DuckDuckGo. But is there really an alternative to Google, now that it has become a verb?  Go Google that – or go the extra inch and create a shortcut to DuckDuckGo or Microsoft Bing. Take a look at a not-so-brief history of Google issues or read through the angry view of Yelp’s CEO Jeremy Stoppelman.  It is intriguing that the term ‘fake news’ is associated with politics – ironically spawning websites to rank news source credibility. In fact, fake, overstated, or manipulated information is the lifeblood of the modern Internet. Forrester once said that the Internet Changes Everything but today, it should be Absolutely Anything Changes the Internet.

LinkedIn -- has it ruined the recruiting industry -- and given Microsoft too much control?  It certainly altered the task of finding qualified candidates -- they're on LinkedIn and may be bombarded with job possibilities/noise. Because internal recruiters are on LinkedIn (using its own recruiting platform), because of more job openings than there are people to fill them, dependency on it has grown.  And in reality, does LinkedIn have any serious competitors? Microsoft paid $26 billion for LinkedIn and then bought GitHub for $7.5 billion -- have they cornered the market on developer recruiting and software innovation?  And consider that LinkedIn (and Twitter!) lead the subject of social recruiting. 

Some skepticism is in order.  We can always second-guess the so-called ‘information’ served up to us on the Internet. But how many of us take advantage – and check multiple sources or use multiple search engines?  We wait and watch the flap in the EU, hoping that some subset of privacy protection will extend to us – not just a box you must check acknowledging that “This site uses cookies” to help track what you have viewed.  We are able to Clear Cookies on our web browsers, but how many of us do?  Having to re-enter information is an inconvenience. We like the fact that browsers remember who we are and our last interaction.  Rant off.

category tags: 

social media, computers, internet and social networking

• 

from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/technology-tool-tarnish-facebook-twitter-google-and-linkedin

Technology Tool Tarnish – Facebook, Twitter, and Google

Facebook is the company we increasingly love to hate – but boomers still ‘like’ it. Rant on. So much negative press, well deserved, about Facebook lately, including the lawsuit about knowingly duping children playing games. Then there was the Pew Research estimated number of deleted accounts (mostly young people) and no small deal, even a big security breach.  Clearly this is a company with management issues – and someday will either fail (unlikely), be broken up, or be regulated, even in the US, which has for some unknown reason done nothing to date, unlike privacy actions taken in Europe.   According to eMarketer, though, baby boomers are still big users – of the 76.4 million of them, 31.9 million are using Facebook. Hopefully not trying to stay connected to teens – who are departing for other platforms like Snapchat, according to eMarketer, including Snapchat. On the positive side, Snapchat is not yet owned by Facebook – which will be combining Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp into a single platform by 2020.

Twitter – is it relevant in the older adult market segment?  Is it relevant at all? So aside from US political tweets, which dominate our attention, Twitter itself is hardly a fact of life for Americans, and certainly not for older adults (though they may see plenty of tweets displayed on newscasts).  According to this recent informative summary about Twitter, 80% of its actual users are outside the United States; boomers and seniors are generally not interested, but heads of state are very interested (no kidding). And as all can see, political Tweets are reported minute by minute in the national TV broadcasts, so there’s no need to log on to see them. Sigh. But here’s head-scratcher – 75% percent of B2B businesses market on Twitter. One wonders – to whom? And do their customers see these Tweets? Not if the half-life of a tweet is 24 minutes.

Google – is it a verb or a monopoly – and what is ‘Truth'?  By now, you have seen a bit of controversy over ranking search results in favor of Google’s partners, over the right to be forgotten, or other anti-competitive behavior or privacy issues. To catch up, read about the antitrust complaint from DuckDuckGo. But is there really an alternative to Google, now that it has become a verb?  Go Google that – or go the extra inch and create a shortcut to DuckDuckGo or Microsoft Bing. Take a look at a not-so-brief history of Google issues or read through the angry view of Yelp’s CEO Jeremy Stoppelman.  It is intriguing that the term ‘fake news’ is associated with politics – ironically spawning websites to rank news source credibility. In fact, fake, overstated, or manipulated information is the lifeblood of the modern Internet. Forrester once said that the Internet Changes Everything but today, it should be Absolutely Anything Changes the Internet.  

Some skepticism is in order.  We can always second-guess the so-called ‘information’ served up to us on the Internet. But how many of us take advantage – and check multiple sources or use multiple search engines?  We wait and watch the flap in the EU, hoping that some subset of privacy protection will extend to us – not just a box you must check acknowledging that “This site uses cookies” to help track what you have viewed.  We can Clear Cookies on our web browsers, but how many of us do?  Having to re-enter information is an inconvenience. We like the fact that browsers remember who we are and our last interaction. Rant off.

category tags: 

social media, computers, internet and social networking

• 

from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/technology-tool-tarnish-facebook-twitter-and-google

InnovAge Orientation PACE | LIFE

Updated 1/17/19

from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBcCDFDMIu4

InnovAge LIFE in Action

Living Independently for Elders (LIFE) is known nationally as the Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE).

from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=befaHQ4r0PI

InnovAge PACE in Action

In some communities, like Philadelphia, PACE is known as Living Independently for Elders (LIFE). To watch the InnovAge LIFE in Action video, click here: https://youtu.be/befaHQ4r0PI

from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMt-OFpCWTU

Consider: Aging in a Virtual World

Once upon a time, in a language far, far away…We used terms like long distance, remote, and telepresence to describe services and experiences that were taking place somewhere else. We were guided on how to cope with these remote processes where we were not present to manage or experience. And for the care recipients being managed, they were unable to communicate issues with their on-site, 'real' experience. Consider dementia care and the still startling lack of cameras in these settings – despite family willingness to pay. These limitations seem so yesterday in terms of experience and equipment.  Even a telepresence player like Beam threw in the towel and referred to the world it now navigates as ‘virtual.’   So take a longer look into this virtual world as it relates to care of older adults:

• Virtual caregiver nurse.  Last month a startup launched with $35 million of funding to create a virtual caregiver nurse, targeting the labor shortage in private duty care. But way back in 2013, a virtual coaching app for long-term caregivers, Virtual Healthcare Neighborhood for professionals in 2014, the concept of a virtual nurse and a virtual nurse caregiver assistant.

• Virtual dementia tour. This is a training program developed by Second Wind Dreams that can help family and professional caregivers better understand what it is like to have dementia. It is now offered in senior living communities for families of residents with Alzheimer’s, as well as in home care.

• Virtual reality for seniors. Made visible, so to speak, by two MIT graduate students, it caught media attention and spawned training programs, VR initiatives for pain management, possible remote diagnostics, more headset vendors, and now perhaps fading general buzz at CES 2019 – still device dependent, but still gaining some interest as a tool for seniors and for training caregivers.

• Virtual senior living.  Attempting to bridge the gap between living at home and in a senior living community, CCRCs like Life Enriching Communities offer coordinated services for seniors still at home for a small fee. Also called virtual retirement communities, this concept also morphed into virtual villages and became the so-called   village movement, now part of the Village to Village Network.

• Virtual senior center. The Senior Center without Walls was one of the early (2004) programs for seniors who could not leave their homes but could participate by telephone.  Today the Dorot University without Walls offers a 10-page catalog of courses and the Senior Center without Walls program spans 38 states. The Virtual Senior Center (or VSC) was started in New York in 2010 when Selfhelp and Microsoft introduced video technology for homebound seniors to meet online with other seniors and participate in tech-enabled activities. The program was piloted in San Diego and Chicago, and studied for its positive impact by LeadingAge CAST. 

[NOTE: If you are reading this in email, please read it on the website: Aging in Place Technology Watch]

category tags: 

VR/AR technology, Seniors, Family caregivers, Home Care, home health care

• 

from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/consider-aging-virtual-world

Ten Technology Offerings From CES 2019

Bright Lights, thick smoke, constant walking and avoidance maneuvers.  After taking a year or two off, returning to CES is a chore and a revelation – it clearly is the major event for new technology announcements. gadgets, yes, too many smart wearables, including underwear, too many near misses of being run over by gangs of oblivious young guys staring at their phones. If there was a key trend in all of this racket, Sleep has become a tech obsession, the uptake of Digital Health is almost here, new variants of companions and assistants were pervasive, including Google Assistant inside everything and Amazon voice devices everywhere.

Self-service increasingly matters in unexpected health categories. As with nearly every ‘service’, we want to serve ourselves, no matter what. One day soon, onset of a stroke can be detected (Celloscope) when your smartphone watches your face droop as you read your email. A robotics company, Intuition Robotics, launches its cognitive AI Q’ for 3^rd party companies to use as a digital companion agent, for example, in a car. In subsequent posts, others will be noted from the exhibit hall books, but for now, here are 10 other new companies/new offerings in alphabetical order from CES 2019 with content from the press releases/sites of the companies:

CarePredict Home. "CarePredict, the leading digital health company that provides preventive healthcare solution for senior adults announced today the launch of their direct-to-consumer product, CarePredict Home, at CES 2019, the world’s largest consumer technology show. CarePredict was the first-to-market to use machine learning, smart wearables, and unique kinematics to quantify daily activities performed by older adults and predict health conditions including increased fall risks, depression and urinary tract infections (UTIs.) After proven success in several senior living communities across North America and Japan, CarePredict will drive their technology’s use for in-home senior care."  Learn more at Care Predict.

Essence Umbrella and Care@Home Communicator. "Essence, the leader in IoT-enabled connected-living technologies, announces the release of Essence Umbrella, a two-way, voice-communication personal emergency response system (PERS) designed to help organizations, schools, and universities keep staff and students safe. The Care@Home Communicator leverages voice recognition technology to give seniors access to emergency response by using the most seamless interface of all – their voices – from anywhere in the home. It’s supplemented by the emergency pendant advanced (EPA) fall detector for use both in the home or on-the-go, which automatically notifies emergency personnel in the case of a fall, opening a two-way communications channel directly with a trained EMT.” Learn more at Essence.

EyeQue Vision Tracker. “EyeQue®, the leader in smartphone at-home vision tests, today announced the EyeQue PDCheck™ – a fast, convenient, and highly accurate method for measuring your pupillary distance (PD), a number critical in obtaining great-fitting eyeglasses, yet often not included in an eyeglass prescription. PDCheck uses a patented method, combining a unique set of eyeglass frames and a smartphone app to capture PD instantly. The EyeQue VisionCheck is the world’s first automated optical refraction device built for consumers to measure and track their refractive error and order eyeglasses with the results.”  Learn more at EyeQue.

Leeo Ping. “Leeo Ping is a sensor enabled service that helps reduce the challenges of independent living, at home or in a community. Ping enables family, close friends and caregivers to create a private mutual aid network, a trusted circle. With the Leeo Ping service and Leeo Smart Alert platform, you and your trusted circle are safer and more connected. It’s easy for all ages to create a trusted circle to watch out for each other. “The Leeo Ping trusted circle provides at-a-glance traffic light status of you and your loved ones whether at home or away”, said Johnson Agogbua, Leeo CEO. “Combined with Leeo Smart Alert nightlight, you and those you care about can be safer and more connected.” Learn more at Leeo.

Nuheara. "Nuheara is transforming the way people hear by creating game-changing hearing solutions that are accessible and affordable; the firm is pleased to announce the launch of IQbuds MAX™, a ground-breaking premium hearing product. IQbuds MAX™ will become the flagship product of the innovative IQbuds™ range. Building on all the features currently available with IQbuds BOOST™, IQbuds MAX™ has triple the hearing capability (utilizing three microphones on each ear), five times the processing power and a world first Hybrid Active Noise Cancelation system." Learn more at Nuheara.

Numera. "Numera PERS-4200X console together with compatible PERS wearables and home sensors form the Numera Home Safety Hub suite of products combines information from sensing devices like CO and smoke detectors, motion detectors, and window-door sensors with alerts from wearable personal emergency response devices in a single PERS (Personal Emergency Response Solution) console for seniors or others needing support while living alone." Learn more at Numera.

Ohmni Labs. “Ohmni is a fresh approach to telepresence that’s designed specifically for homes and families. Ohmni makes it natural and effortless to join in and share experiences like cooking with mom, family dinner, movie night or game day with dad -- across any distance. The team at OhmniLabs studied families around the world and found that these "shared experiences" were what people missed most since standard video chat was too cumbersome to enable these richer interactions.” Learn more at Ohmni Labs.

Philips Cares.  Philips launched Philips Cares in the U.S. to help family caregivers be there for their aging loved ones, easing and enriching their aging journey by leveraging digital technology. Whether caring for a loved one or for themselves, Philips Cares Aging & Caregiving service is a digital experience that enables people to easily form and activate a care circle of trusted family and friends, access meaningful insights into their loved one’s wellbeing and receive notifications about care.  Now through the care circle, caregivers can stay informed and connected through the Philips Cares digital experience. Learn more at Philips.

Welt Wellness Belt. Powered by Samsung, Samsung's smart belt looks indistinguishable from a standard belt, but contains an array of sensors packed into the back of its buckle and a micro USB port for charging on its side. Measures the time of sitting relative to the total wearing time. Acceleration sensors inside the buckle pass a dedicated algorithm, which estimates the sitting time by measuring the inactivity time every 30 minutes. WELT's unbelievable battery life allows you to stay in style without having to charge constantly. Charged through a micro USB port, one full charge lasts for more than 45 days (varies by usage). Intuitively organized into one screen, there is no need to stress your brain over raw data that isn’t meaningful. WELT does the analysis for you and provides health insights and warnings so you can focus on staying active. Learn more at Amazon.

Widex Battery Free Hearing Aids. WIDEX EVOKE featuring WIDEX ENERGY CELL technology will debut at CES as the world’s first battery-free* hearing aid. Available the summer of 2019, this new technology is built on the revolutionary WIDEX EVOKE platform to provide superior sound quality, while liberating users by leveraging the benefits of WIDEX ENERGY CELL technology. “With WIDEX EVOKE featuring WIDEX ENERGY CELL technology, the world will finally get to see its first hearing aid powered by fuel cell technology,” said Jeff Geigel, President, Widex USA. “Most hearing aids today use batteries or battery chargers connected to power outlets. Our new hearing aid will require neither. This is exciting new technology that will be hassle free for the user while providing superior sound quality and app control that makes the hearing aid easy to manage in any setting.”  Learn more at Widex.

category tags: 

hearing loss, vision and vision technology, CES 2019, PERS, Mobile PERS, Family caregivers

• 

from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/ten-technology-offerings-ces-2019

Real Seniors lack essential technology – Consider an Older Americans Technology Act in 2019

When Pew stops tracking senior adoption, does that imply a market saturated? Rant on. h overall among seniors, last reported in 2016) – and the most recent data cited on Internet use, seniors were quoted in a 2016 survey, 44% of responders did not use the internet. Of those that do, older adults aged 65+ said they had little to no confidence in their ability to use electronic devices to perform online tasks.  Let’s think about their non-confidence (not broken down into the 65-74) and the 75+ who are the Real Seniors. 

Does that fear imply lack of training? Or too much media reporting about scams, breaches, and identity theft – most of which is difficult to detect and nearly impossible to prevent? Who knows, since Pew appears to be largely done – after all, they note, 89% of Americans are online and they do not survey all questions each time. AARP published a survey last year that included responders in their 70s -- we stay tuned for the next update.

Are those who should care about this not doing enough? Here are questions to ponder moving into 2019 for those whose job, business, policy role, or non-profit organizational mission is to help seniors go online (you know who you are) to craft an Older Americans Technology Act:

• For seniors, why is there a problem with non-use?  Note the research from Michigan State cited in an AARP article: "Greater technology use was associated with better self-rated health, fewer chronic conditions, higher subjective well-being and lower depression." The study also found that technology use reduced feelings of loneliness. And let’s not forget how many services can be discovered and accessed online, including scheduled food delivery, transportation requests, buying tickets and signing up for local events. And have we mentioned online banking, accessing Social Security information, buying savings bonds – oh, and then there's healthcare access, including finding a doctor or benefiting from telehealth services? 

• Are there still senior centers or organizations that do not have high speed internet?   You know where they are – maybe they haven’t figured out the right source of grants, like, for example, Grantmakers in Aging? Senior centers are partially funded by the Older Americans Act – which also provides Meals on Wheels. But there is nothing in the Act (beyond partial funding of senior centers) that specifies professionally delivered training of seniors on technology use or supporting seniors in their usage.  This is a policy change and it's high time that the policy was changed.

• Why isn’t technology training of seniors required to be delivered by professionals?  Is it because it is viewed as non-essential because it is 'free'?  The Geek Squad isn’t free, so why is there no magnanimous donor group focused on helping seniors who could fund a regular visit of several Geek hours to a library, senior center or other community center who could help individual older adults during designated hours with their devices? AARP pays for training it offers in its regional workshops, which is free to participants.  Presumably organizations like OATS, expanding outside of NYC (but still reaching a small percentage of seniors), must use grants to pay trainers to do the offered training, which is free to attendees. This should be the standard of caring about seniors -- offer professional trainers combined with free training.

• But you ask, why isn’t 'volunteer' training good enough? Because at today's pace of technology change, it can't be. Read the list of Geek Squad services again.  Or look at another nationwide competitor, HelloTech (ads bash Geek Squad) or Bask or many paid services in various geographies. You hopefully get what you pay for. Free training may be well-intentioned – and it is appropriate in stores of carriers who provide the connectivity. But it is very expensive to stay current with the myriad of always-shipping new devices and OS variations and upgrades, required to keep a device secure. Add the difficulty (and costs) of getting an operational router, high speed internet printing from multiple devices, streaming from devices. 

• Smart phones for seniors: why can’t every Real Senior (age 75+) have one? And no, it’s not to read dumb text messages heads down and fall into a manhole – nor is it about the social media company that cannot be named. Smartphones are useful in so many ways that without one, day-to-day life and flexibility are circumscribed.  GPS turn-by-turn directions, research about what’s nearby when traveling, renting a car, checking reviews before eating in a restaurant or checking into a hotel, for starters.  And that doesn’t count emergency advice from WebMD or Mayo Clinic.  So that brings me to:

• Why isn’t there a senior discount to get a smartphone?  No, I am not talking about the cell phone plans.  Senior discounts are offered in at least 180 categories of services and products today, including cell phone plans. But what about a 50% discount on an iPhone or Galaxy S9 – to get them into the 21^st century with their grandchildren, assuming that other infrastructure is available to help them (in-store training, upgrade assistance, and on and on.) 

•  When will everyone have a voice-activated TV remote?  Voice-activation and control will surely be standard for smart TVs, but sites that cater to seniors aren’t sources for finding them.  Nor is there any apparent interest in re-engineering older remotes to support voice input. Why not?

Baby boomers cross 73 in 2019, becoming Real Seniors in 2 years.  They will likely live, on average, another 10-15 years or more.  For the next 18 years, the growth in the number of Real Seniors will continue.  Shortages of in-home care workers are worsening, new, hopefully tech-enhanced services are already forming. Senior living firms, meanwhile, are over-expanding to accommodate them, hopefully in communities with high speed internet and WiFi access everywhere. For all of the Real Seniors to be, now’s the time to tech-enable their future, don’t you think? Let’s not keep having this conversation for the next 18 years.

[NOTE TO READERS:  If you receive this blog in an email, please click to see the full post on Aging in Place Technology Watch website where if you like, you can comment. Thanks.]

category tags: 

Seniors, seniors and aging policy, computers, internet and social networking, cell phones, smartphones

• 

from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/real-seniors-lack-essential-technology-consider-older-americans-technology-act-2019

2018-2019 look back and ahead at tech buzz, hope, and hype

Who can resist reflection when a year ends and 2019 begins? So much racket, so much of it driven by writers desperate for something to write about – and we’re not talking about the news. Lots of negative tech energy in 2018, including healthcare data breaches, Facebook’s loss of trust, ditto with Google and its much discussed anti-competitive positioning in search. The visibility of Facebook management issues and Google competitive quagmire may actually be good for consumers.  So what was interesting in 2018 that was great news, possibly intriguing or just plain worth noting prior to CES 2019, a cornucopia (or maybe just a plethora) of new tech and tech news? [Warning, more blog posts about CES next week while there].  A few topics that stood out:

• We can hear voice tech with all devices and for all people – especially for seniors. True, we are at the beginning of an adoption curve (hype cycle).  Remember Bladerunner in 1982 – the film demonstrated big innovations that we can now take for granted – electronic billboards, sigh.  But also talking to our devices, cars, headphones, and TVs – do something useful and even appealing, of surprising (and delightful) benefit for older adults. On the cusp of CES, remember last year’s Google Assistant-Amazon bakeoff, with 56 million smart speakers expected to ship in 2018.  Well, maybe make that 90 million.  A new number will emerge after the year ends – likely higher, given that many people buy more than one of the low-priced Dots or Minis.  Is the experience perfect – not exactly.  We aren’t always understood, the software may have bugs or the answer may not be correct.   But as the Voicebot.ai post notes, 2018 really was Phase One.

• Hearing technology got an upgrade and a lower price.  2018 was a big year for disruption in the hearing technology sector following a big change in regulatory terminology at the FDA and a win for consumers who may prefer self-service hearing tests, self-fitting of lower priced hearing aids, and self-service adjustments.  More to come in 2019, including changes in state regulations and seniors with hearing loss AND smartphones can benefit from making adjustments through the phone itself, including smartphone ringer heard with the worn hearing aids. Hearables have brought amplification to headphones and new types of earbuds. Expect to see much more about this from the FDA – and for older adults to hear better at a lower, self-service purchase price.

• The buzz about self-driving cars has faded since early 2018.  Go ahead and search – maybe in 2019, it will start it up again now that the closed community of The Villages is doing a trial (no posted results yet). Be warned by new research – self-driving cars faced with the moral quandary of who to hit may select the elderly over pets or children. But pending the next accident, the Senate in 2019 will pass a bill to, uh, speed testing up. Yet will people get into this media-hyped, Google-not-so-trusted these-days experiment and ride around without a driver or a backup driver?  How about in snow and ice?  And sleet, freezing rain, hail, drifts, whiteouts?  Shall we sum those up as winter?  Color the Canadians skeptical. 

• Virtual becomes a buzzword and MAY be transformative for seniors.  The word ‘Virtual’ has been around for decades in the tech industry. Virtual reality games used special glasses -- and then in 2010 along came better glasses and overdrive after CES in 2018. Some great experiments were run that could help older adults following the 2017 media hype about Rendever and senior living testing. Brookdale published an article in October 2018 -- but are they really rolling them out? Or just trying to look cool?  Getting a dose of reality would be nice – what about this McKnight’s article about a VR course? And browse a long list of articles, including VR in dementia care. As with all tech, this may be approaching the hype cycle ‘peak of inflated expectations.’ Coverage is light on deployment, and questions remain if this really takes off in 2019. Consider issues like management of devices from resellers, administration of inventory in senior living, training of staff, step-by-step guide for what works, replacement cycles or charges to residence.  For starters.

[NOTE TO READERS:  If you receive this blog in an email, please click to see the full post on Aging in Place Technology Watch website where if you like, you can comment. Thanks.]

category tags: 

Voice First/AI technology, hearing loss, dementia care, cognitive decline, VR/AR technology, vehicle/transportation technology-services

• 

from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/2018-2019-look-back-and-ahead-tech-buzz-hope-and-hype