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Home monitoring tools can provide solutions for safety concerns and forgotten tasks, like taking medications.

Cutting-edge tech being developed uses infrared sensors linked to AI—instead of cameras—to monitor the home.

Studies of age-tech report reassurance and feelings of safety, but also privacy and technical concerns.

My cousin once told me she worried that our grandma sometimes forgot to feed her dog, Bonnie. I suspected the opposite problem—that Bonnie was getting second dinners because she looked like a furry black-and-white soccer ball. Either way, it would have been nice to know whether Grandma’s routine was changing, for both her sake and Bonnie’s.

It turns out I’m not alone in wanting information that will help my loved ones—and myself—age in place. Most older adults want to stay in their own homes. However, some need intermittent or continuous monitoring for safety and well-being.

Age-tech, also called gerontechnology, might offer solutions.

Who Might Benefit from Age-Tech

Monitoring technology can be useful for adults with mild cognitive impairment or mild-to-moderate dementia—and even healthy older adults. (Is there anyone over 30 who has not left the stove on?)

Problems Age-Tech Can Solve—or Prevent

Age-tech that keeps an eye on the home can keep human and furry inhabitants safe or make their lives easier. There are many problems =age-tech can watch for—and sometimes fix or alert others to:

Forgotten tasks: Taking medications, taking out the garbage, making meals, or re-making meals for Grandma’s rotund dog.

Dangers: Doors left unlocked, wandering, falling, or hot appliances left on.

Inefficiencies and wasted money: Forgetting to adjust the heater or A/C or overwatering the yard (my friend’s mistaken overwatering caused a messy basement flood).

The High-Tech Solutions

Many........

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