Every year, the Global Wellness Summit releases an annual trends report that looks at how approaches to human health and mental wellbeing are evolving, and for a long time now, smart homes have captured just about everyone's attention as their own big topic for how they impact evolving trends in human health and wellbeing.
In fact, the wellness real estate sector is perhaps the fastest growing segment of the wellness market, currently valued at $398 billion and projected to grow to $887.5 billion by 2027.
But that doesn't mean the wellness-focused smart home remains the same: while the role it plays has remained largely the same since its inception, the technology that defines it has changed significantly.
So it’s no surprise that the smart home was once again named one of the Global Wellness Summit’s top 10 wellness trends for 2024 this year, but you might be surprised to learn that the smart home has moved beyond being a hub for wellness-focused amenities to now be driving a home healthcare revolution.
But you may be wondering why this is so. Let's find out.
Home healthcare is a natural extension of the capabilities of the smart home
From meditation rooms to private spas, wellness amenities have long been a fixture in the home and have been greatly enhanced over time by smart home technology. These solutions have typically focused on promoting mental health, and it wasn't until the pandemic that the home's role in physical wellness gained public attention.
Indoor air quality, water quality, and everyone's favorite bomb category, lighting, all became popular trends and later commonplace features in health-focused smart home design, and even back then, it was quick to point out that it was only a matter of time before healthcare would become a key focus for the smart home.
Sure, some of this comes from a reluctance to say no to questions about what a smart home can and can't do, but to a large extent it makes sense: if you're already designing your home to be as beneficial to human health as possible, why not design it to play a direct role in maintaining and monitoring the health of its occupants?
Technology implementation experts are already exploring the possibilities
While home healthcare is not a new concept, it is a relatively recent development in relation to the current trend of smart homes. You may have heard us talk a little bit about Best Buy's focus on home healthcare, including using its Geek Squad service to install such devices in homes. But integrators are also getting in on the trend.
Speaking with Arlen Schweiger in March 2024, Kyle Steele of Global Wave Integration revealed that the company founded FutureCare Solutions Group, a sister brand specializing in home healthcare solutions, in 2023 and has been involved in the installation of home healthcare equipment in 13 facilities since its launch.
Steele said the impetus for the new brand came from a client who, after installing 600 devices in their homes, wanted to be able to track their health and wellness data as well. Steele was eager to make this happen, but noted that at the time (2010), the technology wasn't there yet.
The pandemic was a major catalyst for home medical care.
AI and machine learning are now significantly improving common features like fall detection and avoiding potential false positives, consumer monitoring devices are much cheaper and more accurate than ever before, and security developments in the cloud have made it much safer to transmit and store sensitive health data digitally.
Over the next five years, 45% of healthcare services are expected to be delivered from home, with the COVID-19 pandemic cited as a major catalyst for this move across the industry.
As COVID lockdown measures took hold and emergency patients flooded hospitals, doctors were unable to see patients in person, so the use of telehealth soared 38 times higher than before the pandemic. At the same time, the advent of newer, cheaper, and safer technology has made in-home care much more feasible than before.
The demand for telehealth services that began during the pandemic, in turn, sparked an explosion of funding for digital health technologies, helping to position us as we are today in terms of at-home healthcare capabilities.
Smart textiles represent the next evolution of sensor technology
Also at the forefront of smart technology trends are smart textiles, which will finally be unveiled at this year’s CEDIA Expo and have long been dreamed of for their role in home healthcare.
Depending on how they are used – in furniture such as chairs, flooring and even clothing – smart textiles can act as sensors that can collect real-time biometric information from homeowners, such as heart rate, pulse and general activity.
By simply interacting with their environment, users can gather important health information that can be used to make lifestyle changes or sent to medical professionals, significantly reducing the number of face-to-face consultations by providing access to potential warning signs and treating patients before catastrophe occurs.
Home medical care also helps with home care for the elderly
Importantly, in many cases, this is seen as a benefit to both patients and physicians: less severely ill patients can receive outpatient care from the comfort and convenience of their own home, while at the same time significantly reducing the workload of an already highly overworked and increasingly overworked healthcare workforce.
There's great concern among experts that the American health care system may not be able to keep up with the care baby boomers need as they reach their later years, but many older boomers say they would rather spend the rest of their lives and retire in their homes than move into nursing homes, where they perceive the high costs and poor quality of care.
Home health care has been widely proposed as a solution to this problem. For people who don't have life-threatening illnesses but who need regular health monitoring, home health care offers a cheaper, less invasive care option. For people with high-risk illnesses, they can be monitored for potential warning signs outside of regular checkups, reducing the chance of health-related catastrophe.
The sad truth is that we simply don't have the housing infrastructure to accommodate an aging population. Most modern housing was designed with young, single-person families in mind, and that was fine for a while. But the housing stock remains in need of major upgrades.
At CE Pro, we've discussed the potential of smart technology in developing in-home solutions for seniors, but is that enough? If experts are already looking at ways to improve the quality of life at home for elderly and disabled residents, isn't home health care the logical next step to actually ensure quality of life for residents?
Looking to the future of health and wellness in the smart home
This doesn't mean that your home as a high-tech wellness hub will become a reality this year—there's a ton of fine details to work out before this plan gets off the ground (like what the cybersecurity requirements are for this kind of data?)—but it does mean that a lot of the key pieces are starting to fall into place for this to become a bigger reality.
Not only are new technologies driving innovation in the field, but patients and professionals alike have a strong interest in home healthcare evolving into a stronger, more established healthcare delivery vehicle. This trend, along with the health-conscious smart home, represents the next evolution of healthcare.
The question to be asked now is how does it fit into the business of CE professionals? Will we see more companies partnering with healthcare organizations like Best Buy? Or will we see more private ventures like Steele's FutureCare Solutions Group? It's a pioneer game at this point, as both the models of care and the models of business have yet to be fully fleshed out. But whoever you are, keep this in mind: exciting things are about to happen.