Every year the Global Wellness Summit releases an annual trend report that looks at how approaches for human health and mental wellbeing are evolving. And, for the longest time, the smart home has been on just about everyone’s radar as its own mega-topic for how it plays into evolving trends of human health and wellness.
In fact, the wellness real estate sector is perhaps the fastest-growing wellness market of all: now worth $398 billion and forecast to grow to $887.5 billion by 2027.
That doesn’t mean what a wellness-focused smart home looks like has stayed the same, however. While the role a smart home plays has remained largely consistent since it has first arisen, the technology that defines that role has changed considerably.
So while it should come as no surprise that the smart home has once again made it into this year’s 10 Wellness Trends for 2024 by the Global Wellness Summit, what might surprise you is how it has stepped up from being a harbor for wellness-focused amenities and is now pushing for a whole home healthcare revolution.
But why, you may ask? Let’s look into it.
Home Healthcare is a Natural Extension of the Smart Home’s Capabilities
Wellness amenities have been a fixture in homes for a while now, from meditation dens to private spas, with smart home technology greatly accentuating their function over time. With these solutions more commonly centered around fostering mental health, it wasn’t until the pandemic that the home’s role in physical health really took off in the public eye.
Indoor air quality, water quality and everyone’s favorite bombshell category, lighting, all became popular trends and later common fixtures when designing for a wellness-focused smart home, and even then, people were quick to point out that it was only a matter of time before healthcare became a significant focus in smart homes.
Sure that may stem from an inability to say no to any question asking what the smart home can and can’t do, but, largely, it makes sense. If you’re already structuring the home to try and be as beneficial to human health as possible, why not just have it so that it can play a direct role in the upkeep and monitoring of an occupant’s health?
Technology Installation Experts Are Already Exploring the Possibilities
Home healthcare is nothing new as a concept, however, as it relates to current trends in smart homes, it is a more recent development. You may have seen us talk about a little bit with Best Buy and how they’re turning their attention to home healthcare with their Geek Squad services being used to install such equipment in homes. But integrators have been getting in on the trend as well.
In speaking with CE Pro editor-in-chief Arlen Schweiger in March 2024, Kyle Steele of Global Wave Integration disclosed he had formed FutureCare Solutions Group, a sister brand dealing exclusively in home healthcare solutions, back in 2023, and since opening, had worked in 13 facilities installing home healthcare equipment.
According to Steele, the entire impetus for the new brand came from a client who, after having 600 devices installed in their home, also wanted to be able to track health and wellness data. While Steele had been eager to deliver, he noted that at the time (2010) the technology wasn’t quite there yet.
The Pandemic Served as a Massive Catalyst for Home Healthcare
Cut to today and AI and machine learning has vastly improved a common feature like fall detection to avoid any potential false positives. Consumer-grade monitoring equipment has become far cheaper and more accurate than it used to be. And security developments within the cloud have made it far more secure to transmit and store sensitive health data digitally.
In the next five years, 45% of healthcare services are expected to be delivered at home, and we have the COVID-19 pandemic as the main catalyst for this push across the industry.
As COVID lockdown procedures settled in and emergency cases flooded hospitals, telehealth usage spiked to 38 times pre-pandemic levels as doctors were unable to meet with patients. At the same time, the emergence of newer, cheaper, and more secure technologies has made home healthcare far more feasible than it once was.
That demand in remote health services which started during the pandemic has in turn kicked off an explosion of funding in digital health technology, which has helped bring us to where we are today in terms of capabilities in home healthcare.
Smart Textiles Represent the Next Evolution Sensor Technology
At the bleeding edge of smart technology trends you also have smart textiles – which will finally have a presence at CEDIA Expo this year, and whose role in home healthcare is one that has been dreamed of for a while now.
Depending on how they are used, either in furnishings like chairs, flooring, or even clothing, smart textiles can act as sensors that can gather real-time biometric information from homeowners, such as heartbeat, pulse, or general activities.
By simply interacting with their environment, users can gather vital information about their health and either use that to alter their lifestyle habits or transmit it to healthcare professional, drastically reducing the number of in-person visits by having access to potential warning signs to treat patients before catastrophe strikes.
Home Healthcare Also Supports Aging-in-Place Trends
The important takeaway is this has been seen as a boon for both patients and doctors in a lot of cases, as patients with less severe conditions can receive outpatient care from the comfort and convenience of their home while greatly reducing the workload of health practitioners who are already largely overworked and are only going to become more overworked as time goes on.
There’s a massive concern among experts that as Baby Boomers enter their twilight years, the American healthcare system might not be able to keep up with their requisite care. However, one thing that many aging Baby Boomers have stated is their desire to age in place, or live out their lives in a regular household versus moving into a care facility where they feel as though they may receive subpar care at overinflated costs.
Home healthcare has largely been floated as an answer to this. For those who need regular health monitoring for a non-life threatening condition, home healthcare represents a cheaper less invasive option of care. For those with higher-risk conditions, it can provide monitoring for potential warning signs outside of regular check-ups, lowering the chances of a health-related catastrophe.
The sad truth is that we simply don’t have the housing infrastructure to accommodate an elderly population. Most homes nowadays are designed with younger single families in mind and while that has been fine for some time, we are left with housing stock in deep need of upgrades.
At CE Pro, we’ve discussed the potential smart technology has in developing aging-in-place solutions, but why stop there? If pros are already looking at ways to improve quality of life within the home for elderly or handicapped residents, isn’t home healthcare just the logical next step in really securing an occupant’s quality of life.
Looking Towards the Future in Smart Home Health and Wellness
This doesn’t mean the home as a high-tech health hub is going to be realized within the year. There’s a lot of ironing out of details that needs to take place before this thing takes off (like what do the cybersecurity requirements need to be for this sort of data). What this does mean, however, is that a lot of the major pieces have started to fall into place for it to become a big reality.
Not only are new technologies driving innovation in the space, but patients and professionals alike are largely interested in seeing home healthcare develop into a more robust and established means of delivering healthcare. This trend represents the next evolution when it comes to healthcare as much as it does the wellness-focused smart home.
—By Nick Boever, web editor of CE Pro, a sister publication of KBB.
