Does the Apple Watch do anything for you or your residents?
Today Apple announced their new Apple Watch into an already crowded field of sophisticated and not so sophisticated wearable technology. Here are some of the bullet points:
- The cost will start at around $349
- It will have a heartbeat sensor
- It will track activities
- Using it will also require the wearer to own a iPhone 5 or later device.
- The device can provide coaching/cueing to encourage higher activity levels by the wearer.
Wearables and Senior Living
It seems to me that today, with respect to senior living, wearables look almost very appealing. The ability to monitor heart rate and activity is really appealing. Problems remain:
- Will residents wear them?
- Will anyone build a device that has a reasonable cost?
- Can a device be built with a reasonable battery life?
- How do we use the collected data to the benefit of residents and the community?
A late addition just for fun. Samsungs response to the Apple Annoucement
Steve
While this very anticipated product will undoubtedly fulfill the younger, early adapters desire to have the latest and greatest Apple product, I don’t see older adults in those lines. The immediate barrier is that you have to own an iPhone 5 or later device. The natural question is, how many older adults own one? Secondly, the price. Older adults are price conscious and the price point is not cheap relative to normal watches. On the other hand, young people don’t wear watches anymore (can hardly tell time by them, incidentally because there are so many digital devices and computers that render them useless) so it will be interesting to see if they start wearing them again because it’s the latest and greatest. But back to our older adults, if they won’t buy the myriad of technology based products out there, I don’t see this one flying off the shelves either. I think there is a deep wariness embedded in this demographic about being “tracked” and this one joins that long line. I think in part, they find it insulting. This will be an interesting product to watch evolve in the marketplace.
There are already watch style devices that track many more things than just heart rate in the senior market. This might be popular with other age groups, but I don’t see this gaining traction at all with the elderly.