Glickman and his colleagues hope they can expand the market by addressing some of the flaws they saw in earlier senior monitoring systems. They were expensive; complicated, sometimes requiring professional installations; or invasive, some including video cameras or requiring seniors to wear something around their neck at all times.
By contrast, Lively’s service is designed to be simple. The kit comes with six sensors and a hub device that are already paired when users open the box. The hub includes a built-in cellular data connection, so users don’t have to worry about connecting it to their home network or to the Internet. Basically, all they have to do to set it up is attach the sensors to refrigerator doors or medicine cabinets and plug in the hub.
Glickman and his colleagues intentionally left out a camera and designed the system so that it doesn’t provide fine-grained details of seniors’ activities. It can’t tell what they’re eating or what pills they’re taking, and it doesn’t keep track of their movements outside the home.
Perhaps most importantly, Glickman and his colleagues priced the service relatively cheaply. The system costs $149 plus a $20 monthly subscription fee. By contrast, similar systems can cost $400 or more with monthly charges starting at $50.
For Sturdivant, the system has been well worth its cost.
“The monthly service price is fine for the peace of mind that it gives me,” she says.
©2014 San Jose Mercury News (San Jose, Calif.)
Distributed by MCT Information Services
