philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Aging in Place Technology Watch – Excerpts from the 2017 Update Technology Market Overview

...this business for boomers and beyond has been estimated by some to grow to $20 billion by 2020 or even $30 billion by 2017.  The larger market will be based on growing boomer awareness and aging. It will be strikingly different from today – fueled the growing availability of in-car technology, mobile PERS health integration, wearable fitness and health devices, in-home ‘Voice First’ IoT hubs and smart phone apps. In particular:

Voice-first interfaces will dominate apps and devices. We are still downloading apps, that era may end. Instead we will be experimenting with personal assistants or AI-enabled voice first technologies (Siri, Google Home, Amazon Alexa, Cortana) which can act as mini service provider interfaces – find an appointment, a ride, song, a restaurant, a hotel, an airplane seat.

Internet of Things (IoT) replaces sensor-based categories.

Niche hardware will fade away – long live software and training. ...we will see software that will make hardware platform choices hidden or irrelevant.

Tech-enabled home care pressures traditional homecare providers – or does it? Can $200 million of VC investment be wrong – or premature?

“Health Tech” replaces “Digital Health,” begins acknowledging aging. In a recent MobiHealth News webinar, founder Brian Dolan observed that Digital Health as a category was being replaced in 2016 and beyond with the term Health Tech. This sensible change reflects the disappearance of some investment money for the mHealth, cHealth (for Connected) and the other ‘xHealths’ in favor of institutional technology (and budgets) for hospital/health systems, medical practices, and related IT departments.

Robotics and virtual reality will continue -- as experiments. The press loves to write about robots and seniors (see Brookdale). Still at the anecdote stage, widespread use of care-related robots in the home or in senior living communities hasn’t happened. Instead, robotic pets are growing in popularity in senior communities and private homes – limited care, nofeeding required, plus the possibility of a comfort to seniors who feel isolated or may have dementia. During 2016, virtual reality experiences entered the experiment ring of another Brookdale senior living via an MIT startup that plans to charge a subscription fee for usage.

See the full story here: https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/excerpts-2017-update-technology-market-overview?