Make Remote Monitoring Simple
Evermind has a cool idea and product that in my mind can make remote monitoring simple and less intrusive, tracking deviations from everyday activities such as making coffee, watching TV, or turning on lamps.
Details are still scarce since the company has just secured funding to commercialize the product, but I see real potential as long as the cost of the device and monitoring service is reasonable. Watch the video below for more information or read the funding announcement at MEDCITY News.
So What’s New?
Smart home technologies, like the X10 lamp module pictured above, have long been used to control devices, anticipate needs, and make tasks easier or automatic.
As I described in Smarter Homes for Home Healthcare, I was still working at IBM as a market strategist when our family moved from Dallas to Austin. Because I was studying home automation and exploring a large-scale opportunity for the company, when I built our new home, I used it as a living laboratory. I figured if my technophobic wife warmed to the benefits, then others might too. She did, mostly, and I learned a lot. The local paper even wrote a two-page feature article on my house, Home Automation Station. But that was 1997, and I retired two years later to become a Digital Home consultant.
If you read the article about my home, you’ll see that I used off-the-shelf X10 products to send commands to devices over the 110-volt AC power lines. What’s new about Evermind’s device is the ability to monitor current used and then communicate changes to a service that compares that against a daily routine. It can be a gentle and nonintrusive way to monitor seniors, so I wish them well and will watch their progress.
