hearables/hearing technology

In the tech innovation world, a decade is both a long and short time.  In 2014, AARP’s Health Innovation @50+ sponsored a report, Challenging Innovators: Matching Offerings to the Needs of Older Adults.  It was published in June of 2014 in conjunction with a Venture Summit event run by Mary Furlong and Associates. This was exactly a decade prior to this year’s What’s Next Longevity Venture Summit. 

Refresh required.  Each year, the Technology for Aging Market Overview is revised in January of the new year.  This year, that revision is being published right after CES 2024, which featured multiple offerings of possible utility to older adults, especially those with physical limitations.  The purpose of the document, however, is to aggregate and review trends from 2023 that shape 2024, technology changes that matter, and offer, by category, a sampling of products, services, and sites of relevance to the older adult market.  As such, the report is intended for those businesses (for-profit, non-profit) and services that want and need to serve the older adult segment.

The show is over, the press dispersed, the awards won.   CES 2024 is over, with 135,000 attendees, and AI as the story of the show, and according to AARP, offering the promise of better aging and even helping to fix the caregiving crisis.  These assertions have been made before, of course. Consider 2020, right before the start of COVID-19. Or CES 2019, when Google Assistant was everywhere and today, when it appears to be ‘going down the tubes.’  In tech, nothing is forever.  CES can provide an opportunity to put a new face, new version, on products that appeared previously (see Nobi and Zibrio Advantage below.)  CES 2024 brought ten offerings of new tech for older adults into view.  And from the same show, here are 8 more:

The press releases signal a busy time in Las Vegas.  Viewed from afar, drowning in press releases, it is clearly a nearly fully revived CES 2024. With 130,000 attendees it’s down a bit from 2020’s peak of 175,000. From electric motorcycles and low-profile automobile antennas, the unfolding TV to robotic pool cleaners and lawn mowers and construction, it sounds like it was a noisy place. Some folks think this is a consumer show, but that was the long-ago Consumer Electronics Show. So many entrants in the AgeTech, accessibility and health categories seek visibility and possible global reach.

CES 2023 is, as the sponsors say, a wrap. Smaller by half (100,000) than in olden times, there were plenty of new tech offerings there. AARP sponsored an entire large area for its AgeTech Summit – talks and displays of new tech for an older adult market, cataloguing participants in an online directory. CTA Foundation (as part of CES and Eureka Park) sponsored its Accessibility Contest which featured tech for people with vision, hearing, or physical limitations. In other wrap-up non-surprises, entrepreneurs are shifting to the enterprise for funding, or that the digital health user experience is key to senior uptake. Meanwhile, AARP’s new trends report indicates that smartphone adoption has jumped, potentially over 80% for those aged 70+, no surprise given the 3G sunsetting and the need to replace old cellphones. Here are 10 new offerings of interest, all information from the company’s website or news articles:

So many really want to help older adults – yet so often ‘help’ can be elusive.   Look at the ludicrous amount of time it took to officially enable buying hearing aids over the counter. Look at the ten years or more between the first wave of useful sensor tech for seniors (2005 with GrandCare Systems) until the newer collection of offerings. And not least, look at the shortage of workers in the care industries and the obvious but elusive pay raise that would match the market of possible workers. Given the persistent (if perhaps wrong-headed) belief that 'aging in place' at home is the goal and that AgeTech is the solution, this should be the year in which pay is revisited and tech is deployed.  Or make that next year, since this year is winding down. Here are the blog posts:

Taking stock of 2022 in AgeTech. We are approaching end of the year – it has been a good one for emerging technologies that can help older adults, today commonly known as AgeTech.  The timing is right – as 56 million Americans are now aged 65+, looming older population growth has awakened the sleeping giant. The investor and technology market, historically known for tech ageism, is beginning to wake up to the AgeTech opportunity. Why? As an aging population grows, the supporting labor force for aging services, both in communities and for in-home care, simply isn’t there, lured away by better pay across multiple sectors. What technologies can help mitigate this growing labor crisis in the senior care (home care, home health care, senior living, long-term-care) services market?