Home security technology used to be about keeping people out of a home. Now, families are using it to keep loved ones safe within their homes.
According to new research by Alarm.com, 7 in 10 adults with parents aged over 60 are unable to visit them as often as they'd like to. In a post-COVID world families are feeling even more helpless when it comes to care options for older family and loved ones.Increasingly, these families are relying on modern technology to stay connected.
Adult children often end up worrying about their parents' physical and mental wellbeing. Often as parents age and get older they are concerned that isolation from other people can even begin to turn loneliness into depression. Because life often prevents children from being with their parents' as regularly as they would like they often end up worrying.
Wellness from Smart Space is a suite of smart, proactive technology that helps families stay connected to loved ones in their own homes. When visits or phone calls aren't possible—or aren't enough—it gives families a new way to know that a parent or family member is safe and well.
Wellcam: a new way to connect and talk
The Wellcam is a specialized security camera with two-way audio that makes it easy to talk to each other. Up to 10 family members can access the Smart Space account associated with their loved one's Wellcam, which ensures that someone will always be available if their parent needs to talk. This technology allows children to check in with their parents easily through the smartphone app.
With a Wellness account you can have virtual visits with your loved ones where you can drop in to get a quick glance at how Dad is doing. You can receive notifications when Wellcam detects activities at certain hours. You can see an automatic highlight reel of the day's images that you can share with your siblings and talk about.
Another bonus is that your loved one can press a callout button on Wellcam to contact family members if they need immediate assistance. It's like a Personal Emergency Response System (PERS) device that doesn't need to be worn, and comes without the stigma that some of those devices project.
Sensors keep you connected to important everyday activity
Contact and motion sensors are simple devices that discreetly register activity throughout your loved one's home. They let you know that your loved one is up and about and taking care of themselves, and can provide alerts when your parents leaves home, arrives, or receives a visitor.
You can place a contact sensor on nearly anything: the refrigerator, pillboxes or medicine cabinets, or even the shower door, giving you a non-intrusive way to know that your loved one's day-to-day essentials are taken care of. Know that your loved one is showering, taking medicine and eating: activities that are essential for their wellbeing and your peace of mind.
Contact sensors are a non-intrusive way to ensure that you'll catch anything unusual which could be an indicator of a larger issue. Now, you can step in, talk about what's happening, and take measures to prevent a more serious problem from occurring.
Bed and chair sensors let you know about sleep and exercise
Specialized, pressure-activated sensors can be placed under mattresses and chair cushions to discreetly monitor sleep habits and exercise throughout the day.
While this seems like a fringe benefit they are incredibly useful.
Bed and chair sensors can help you identify an increasing sedentary lifestyle or nighttime safety issue. Connected to the Alarm.com platform through your Smart Space account, they can provide a summary of daily activity and alert you if your loved one's activity patterns start to change.
Intelligent technology is the key to it all
Besides speaking with and seeing your loved one, being alerted to unusual activity is one of the most important connections that technology can give us when it comes to the people we care about.
Think of the Check Engine light in your car and how it alerts you to emerging engine issues. Equipped with that awareness, you can take action before a problem becomes an emergency. Over the long term, these prompts help you take better care of your vehicle. The technology we're building gives you similar capabilities to protect the people who matter most to you: your family.
Are you interested in Wellness by Alarm.com for a loved one?
Available exclusively from Smart Space and other certified Alarm.com service provider partners, Wellcam and Wellness by Alarm.com can be installed in your loved one's home as an extension of your own home's security system.
Simply visit the Wellness page on the Smart Space website and download the pricing brochure. Then contact a service representative at Smart Space to setup a phone appointment or a site visit.