Elderly home monitoring growth drawing new players to the market, says ABI Research
Press release, October 14; Alex Wolfgram, DIGITIMES [Wednesday 15 October 2014]
Over the next five years, a new generation of elderly home care services will drive wearable device shipments to more than 44 million in 2019 up from just six million in 2013. In 2014 alone, shipments of wearable devices linked to elderly care systems will more than double over those in 2013, according to ABI Research.
Growing adoption comes as tech savvy families increasingly turn to home monitoring offerings for assurance their aging parents and family members are safe and well. In addition, new offerings are boosting and extending a market that has long been the territory of dedicated, "Help! I've fallen and I can't get up"-type personal emergency response systems. A host of niche players including BeClose, GrandCare Systems, Independa and others have all emerged to capitalize on a combination of market demand and the potential to leverage connected devices and systems.
In the past few months alone, one start-up, Live!y, has revamped and re-launched its offering to include a watch that offers activity tracking alongside personal emergency response services, while AT&T has added elderly care monitoring to its Digital Life smart home package. These players reflect how device manufacturers and service providers alike are increasingly targeting the elder care market and doing so with more feature rich offerings.
Aging populations, dispersed families, and a preference for independent living are all trends that will support the increasing adoption of home monitoring offerings but development of the technologies and their availability will also play a significant role. "The sports and wellbeing monitoring market has already drawn Samsung, Google, and Apple into developing devices and platforms to capture health and activity data. These will increasingly be extended to serve specific markets, primarily elderly care or aging in place applications," said Jonathan Collins, principal analyst at ABI Research.
Home monitoring devices and services are progressively appealing to consumers that want a more detailed and less intrusive system than traditional personal emergency response offerings. "In addition, smart home, home security providers, and others see the potential to add value to their offerings by including aging in place monitoring to their service bundles," said Collins.
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