Criteria to evaluate IoT “SmartAging” devices

Posted on 25th July 2015 in aging, design, health, home automation, m-health

I haven’t been able to put a lot of time into fleshing out my “SmartAging” paradigm, which combines Quantified Self devices to change seniors’ relationship to their doctors into a partnership and give them incentives to improve their fitness, with smart home devices that make it easier to manage their homes through automation.

So here’s an attempt to move that along, a draft of (hopefully) objective criteria.  I’d love to hear your comments on additional criteria or changes to these, and hope to soon set up a formal system where seniors will evaluate devices in their homes using these criteria.

Smart Aging device evaluation criteria:

Ease of Use

  1. Does it give you a choice of ways to interact, such as voice, text or email?
  2. Is it easy for you to program, or allow someone else to do it remotely?
  3. Does it have a large display and controls?
  4. Is it intuitive?
  5. Does it require professional installation?
  6. Is it flexible: can it be adjusted? Is it single purpose, or does it allow other devices to plug in and create synergies?
  7. Does it complicate your life, or simplify it?
  8. Do any components require regular charging, or battery replacement.

Privacy, Security, and Control

  1. Is storage local vs. cloud or company’s servers? Is data encrypted? Anomized?
  2. Do you feel creepy using it?
  3. Is it password-protected?
  4. Is security “baked in” or an afterthought?
  5. Can you control how, when, and where information is shared?
  6. Will it work when the power goes out?

Affordability

  1. Are there monthly fees? If so, low or high? Long term contract required?
  2. Is there major upfront cost?
  3. Does full functioning require accessories?
  4. Minimum cost/maximum cost

Design/UX

  1. Is it stylish, or does the design” shout” that it’s for seniors? “Medical” looking?
  2. Is the operation or design babyish?
  3. Would younger people use it?
  4. Is it sturdy?
  5. Does it have “loveability” (i.e., connect with the user emotionally)? (This term was coined by David Rose in Enchanted Objects, and refers to products that are adorable or otherwise bond with the user.)

Architecture

  1. Inbound
    1. Protocols supported (eg. Bluetooth, BluetoothLE, WiFi, etc)
    2. Open or closed architecture
  2. Outbound
    1. Protocols supported (eg. WiFi, Ethernet, CDMA, GSM, etc)
    2. Data path (cloud, direct, etc)
  3. Remote configuration capability (i.e., by adult child)

Features and Functions

  1. Reminders
    1. Passive, acknowledge only
    2. Active dispensing (of meds)
  2. Home Monitoring
    1. Motion/Passive Activity Monitoring
    2. Environmental Alarms (Smoke, CO, Water, Temp)
    3. Intrusion Alarms (Window etc)
    4. Facilities/Infrastructure (Thermostat)
  3. Health Monitoring
    1. Vitals Collection
    2. Wearables Activity Monitoring
    3. Behavioral/Status Polling (How are you feeling today?)
    4. Behavioral Self-improvement
  4. Communications Monitoring
    1. Landline/Caller ID
      1. Identify scammers
    2. eMail and computer use
      1. Identify scammers
    3. Mobile phone use
  5. Fixed Personal Emergency Response System (PERS)
  6. Mobile Personal Emergency Response System (PERS)
  7. Fixed Fall Detection/Prediction
  8. Mobile Fall Detection/Prediction
  9. Telehealth (Video)
  10. New and Innovative Features
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McKinsey IoT Report Nails It: Interoperability is Key!

Posted on 30th June 2015 in aging, agriculture, automotive, cities, collaboration, communication, data, energy, environmental, Essential Truths, government, health, home automation, Homeland Security, Internet of Things, m-health, M2M, maintenance, management, manufacturing, mobile, open data, paradigm shift, real-time regulation, retail, sensors, smart cities, smart home, SmartAging, supply chain, transportation

I’ll be posting on various aspects of McKinsey’s new “The Internet of Things: Mapping the Value Beyond the Hype” report for quite some time.

First of all, it’s big: 148 pages in the online edition, making it the longest IoT analysis I’ve seen! Second, it’s exhaustive and insightful. Third, as with several other IoT landmarks, such as Google’s purchase of Nest and GE’s divestiture of its non-industrial internet division, the fact that a leading consulting firm would put such an emphasis on the IoT has tremendous symbolic importance.

McKinsey report — The IoT: Mapping the Value Beyond the Hype

My favorite finding:

“Interoperability is critical to maximizing the value of the Internet of Things. On average, 40 percent of the total value that can be unlocked requires different IoT systems to work together. Without these benefits, the maximum value of the applications we size would be only about $7 trillion per year in 2025, rather than $11.1 trillion.” (my emphasis)

This goes along with my most basic IoT Essential Truth, “share data.”  I’ve been preaching this mantra since my 2011 book, Data Dynamite (which, if I may toot my own horn, I believe remains the only book to focus on the sweeping benefits of a paradigm shift from hoarding data to sharing it).

I was excited to see that the specific example they zeroed in on was offshore oil rigs, which I focused on in my op-ed on “real-time regulations,” because sharing the data from the rig’s sensors could both boost operating efficiency and reduce the chance of catastrophic failure. The paper points out that there can be 30,000 sensors on an rig, but most of them function in isolation, to monitor a single machine or system:

“Interoperability would significantly improve performance by combining sensor data from different machines and systems to provide decision makers with an integrated view of performance across an entire factory or oil rig. Our research shows that more than half of the potential issues that can be identified by predictive analysis in such environments require data from multiple IoT systems. Oil and gas experts interviewed for this research estimate that interoperability could improve the effectiveness of equipment maintenance in their industry by 100 to 200 percent.”

Yet, the researchers found that only about 1% of the rig data was being used, because it rarely was shared off the rig with other in the company and its ecosystem!

The section on interoperability goes on to talk about the benefits — and challenges — of linking sensor systems in examples such as urban traffic regulation, that could link not only data from stationary sensors and cameras, but also thousands of real-time feeds from individual cars and trucks, parking meters — and even non-traffic data that could have a huge impact on performance, such as weather forecasts.  

While more work needs to be done on the technical side to increase the ease of interoperability, either through the growing number of interface standards or middleware, it seems to me that a shift in management mindset is as critical as sensor and analysis technology to take advantage of this huge increase in data:

“A critical challenge is to use the flood of big data generated by IoT devices for prediction and optimization. Where IoT data are being used, they are often used only for anomaly detection or real-time control, rather than for optimization or prediction, which we know from our study of big data is where much additional value can be derived. For example, in manufacturing, an increasing number of machines are ‘wired,’ but this instrumentation is used primarily to control the tools or to send alarms when it detects something out of tolerance. The data from these tools are often not analyzed (or even collected in a place where they could be analyzed), even though the data could be used to optimize processes and head off disruptions.”

I urge you to download the whole report. I’ll blog more about it in coming weeks.

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Apple & IBM partnership in Japan to serve seniors a major step toward “Smart Aging”

Posted on 1st May 2015 in aging, collaboration, data, government, health, Internet of Things, m-health, mobile, paradigm shift, Quantified Self, seniors, smart home, SmartAging

As Bob Seger and I prepare to turn 70 (alas, no typo) on Wednesday (as long as he’s still singing “Against the Wind” I know I’m still rockin’) my thoughts turn to my “Smart Aging” paradigm, which combines Quantified Self devices that can change our relationships with doctors into a partnership and give us encouragement to do more fitness activities and smart home devices that make it easier for seniors to run their homes and avoid institutionalization.

That’s why I was delighted to read this week about Apple (obligatory disclaimer: I work part-time at The Apple Store, especially with “those of a certain age,” but am not privy to any of their strategy, and my opinions are solely my own) and IBM teaming with Japan Post (hmm: that’s one postal service that seems to think creatively. Suspect that if one B. Franklin still ran ours, as he did in colonial days, we’d be more creative as well…) to provide iPads to Japan’s seniors as part of Japan Post’s “integrated lifestyle support group” (the agency will actually go public later this year, and the health services will be a key part of its services).

Apple and IBM announced, as part of their “enterprise mobility” partnership that will also increase iPads’ adoption by businesses, that they will provide 5 million iPads with senior-friendly apps to Japanese seniors by 2020.  IBM’s role will be to develop app analytics and cloud services and “apps that IBM built specifically for elderly people .. for medication adherence … exercise and diet, and … that provide users with access to community activities and supporting services, including grocery shopping and job matching.”

The overall goal is to use the iPads and apps to connect seniors with healthcare services and their families.  I can imagine that FaceTime and the iPads’ accessibility options will play a critical role, and that current apps such as Lumosity that help us geezers stay mentally sharp will also be a model.

According to Mobile Health News, the partnership will offer some pretty robust services from the get-go:

“If seniors or their caregivers choose, they can take advantage of one of Japan Post Groups’ post office services, called Watch Over where, for a fee, the mail carriers will check in on elderly customers and then provide the elderly person’s family with an update. 

“In the second half of this year, customers can upgrade the service to include iPad monitoring as well.After Japan Post Group pilots the iPads and software with 1,000 seniors for six months, the company will expand the service in stages.”

Lest we forget, Japan is THE harbinger of what lies ahead for all nations as their populations age. 20% of the population was already over 65 in 2006,  38% will be in 2055.  As I’ve said before in speeches, the current status quo in aging is simply unsustainable: we must find ways for seniors to remain healthy and cut the governmental costs of caring for them as they grow as a percentage of the population.  As Japan Post CEO Taizo Nishimuro (who looks as if he’s a candidate for the new services — y0u go, guy!) said, the issue is “most acute in Japan — we need real solutions.”

IBM CEO Ginni Rometty said her company will take on a 3-part mission:

“First, they’ll be working on ‘quality of life apps,’ both by building some themselves and by integrating others, all of which will be aimed at accessibility first. The key target will be iOS, since it’s a mobile-first strategy in keeping with our changed computing habits. Second, they’re working on developing additional accessibility features not yet available, and third they’re helping Japan Post with the service layer required to deliver this to the elderly.”

Sweet! — and it reminds me of the other recently announced IBM/Apple announcement, in that case with J & J, to build a robust support structure for Apple’s new open-source ResearchKit and HealthKit platform to democratize medical research.  The IoT ain’t nothin’ without collaboration, after all.

Cook, according to TechCrunch, put the initiative in a global context (not unlike his environmental initiatives, where, IMHO, he’s become THE leading corporate change agent regarding global warming):

“Tim Cook called the initiative ‘groundbreaking,’ saying that it is ‘not only important for Japan, but [also] has global implications. Together, the three of us and all the teams that work so diligently behind us will dramatically improve the lives of millions of people.’

“…. The Apple CEO talked about how the company aims to ‘help people that are marginalized in some way, and empower them to do the things everyone else can do.” He cited a UC Irvine study which details how remote monitoring and connection with loved ones via iPad help instill a sense of confidence and independence in seniors. He added that he believes what the companies are doing in Japan is also scalable around the world.”

It will be interesting to see exactly how the partnership addresses the challenge of creating those senior-friendly “quality of life” apps: as someone who’s on the front-lines of explaining even Apple’s intuitive devices to older customers, I can tell you that many seniors begin are really frightened by these technologies, and it will take a combination of great apps and calm, patient hand-holding to put them at ease.

As I enter my 7th decade, I’m pumped!

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Smart Aging: Kanega watch for seniors Kickstarter campaign ends today

Posted on 24th March 2015 in aging, data, design, health, Internet of Things, m-health, Quantified Self, seniors, SmartAging

“Independence with Dignity” is the motto for Jean Anne Booth’s Kanega Watch, which is in the last day of its Kickstarter campaign.

I’m not crazy about it, but in general I like what you see, and hope you get on board.  It addresses three major concerns for the elderly:

Kanega watchlike what I see, and hope you’ll get on board!  It’s designed to deal with three critical aging concerns:

  • falls
  • medication reminders
  • wandering.

I met the woman behind it at a conference in Boston last Summer, and even though the prototype at that point looked very unappealing, this looks more promising.

I’m in the process of creating a list of 10 objective criteria for evaluating devices and apps that fit with my “Smart Aging” paradigm shift, which combines Quantified Self devices to encourage healthy habits and change your relationship with your doctor into a partnership, and smart home devices, which make it easier to manage your home when elderly, so you can “age in place.”  Here’s how it stacks up against my criteria (which, BTW, are still in development — comments welcomed). Bear in mind that I haven’t seen current prototype, and the site doesn’t answer all of my questions. :

Is it easy to use?

  1. Does it give you a choice of ways to interact, such as voice, text or email?
  2. Does it give you reminders?
  3. Is it easy for you to program, or allow someone else to do it remotely?
  4. Does it have a large display and controls?
  5. Is it intuitive?
  6. Does it require professional installation?
  7. Is it flexible: can it be adjusted? Is it single purpose, or does it allow other devices to plug in and create synergies?

YES: voice-activated, rather than requiring buttons. No programming.


Does it protect privacy & security?

  1. Is storage local vs. cloud or company’s servers? Is data encrypted? Anomized?
  2. Do you feel creepy using it?
  3. Does it protect against exploitation by scam artists (such as identifying callers)?
  4. Is it password-protected?
  5. Is security “baked in” or an afterthought?

NO CLUE.


Does it complicate your life, or simplify it?

YES: doesn’t require a smartphone to function, and is voice-activated rather than using buttons.

Does it protect privacy and security?

NO CLUE.

 

Is it affordable?

  1. Are there monthly fees? If so, low or high?
  2. Is there major upfront cost?
  3. Does full functioning require accessories?

IFFY: You can get one by contributing $279 to the Kickstarter campaign. If that’s the retail price, it’s a little pricey, but lower than the Apple Watch base, $349, and probably a good price considering the value added services . Didn’t see anything about a monthly fee for the fall reporting & response service.

Does it stigmatize and/or condescend?

  1. Is it stylish, or does the design” shout” that it’s for seniors?
  2. Is the operation or design babyish?
  3. Would younger people use it?

NO: it doesn’t have a stigmatizing button, & uses a familiar form factor (watch).

Does it use open or proprietary standards?

NO CLUE.

 

Is the information shareable if you choose to do so?

NO CLUE.

 

Can you learn something from it to improve your life and empower yourself?

  1. For example, does health data encourage you to exercise more, or eat better?

NO: doesn’t give you feedback, measure your activity, etc.

Does it help you do something you couldn’t do before?

  1. Does it create a new range of services that were simply impossible with past technologies?

YES: The wandering alert (offers directions home) is new. Otherwise, just does some things such as medication alerts and calling for help that other devices have done.

Is it sturdy?

YES.

 

Does it have “loveability” (i.e., connect with the user emotionally)?

(This term was coined by David Rose in Enchanted Objects, and refers to products that are adorable or otherwise bond with the user)

YES: it has a Siri-like voice, which you can name, which gives reminders about taking meds and gives you directions home if you wander.
I’d give it about a 5 out of 10: I wouldn’t call this a must have — I’d like a little more of a multi-purpose tool that combines smart home and Quantified Self functions — like the Apple Watch (again, disclaimer that I work part time at Apple Store — but don’t have any proprietary info.) The watch is a little too clunky looking for me (prefer the Jony Ive-aesthetics of the Apple Watch), but it looks promising — and doesn’t require coupling to a smartphone, which is befuddling to a lot of seniors.

Kickstarter backers will begin receiving their Kanega watches in February 2016, with general market availability in summer 2016. The site doesn’t say anything about price.

Only a few hours left to join the Kickstarter campaign!

Yeah, I couldn’t figure out the names either. Turns out it’s from Cherokee: “Unalii” is “friend”, and “Kanega” is “speak.”  You learn something every day….

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Apple ResearchKit will launch medical research paradigm shift to crowd-sourcing

Posted on 11th March 2015 in aging, collaboration, data, Essential Truths, health, Internet of Things, m-health, open data, paradigm shift, privacy, Quantified Self, security, seniors, SmartAging

Amidst the hoopla about the new MacBook and much-anticipated Apple Watch, Apple snuck something into Monday’s event that blew me away (obligatory disclaimer: I work part-time at The Apple Store, but the opinions expressed here are mine).

My Heart Counts app

Four years after I proselytized about the virtues of democratizing data in my Data Dynamite: how liberating data will transform our world book (BTW: pardon the hubris, but I still think it’s the best thing out there about the attitudinal shift needed to capitalize on sharing data), I was so excited to learn about the new ResearchKit.

Tag line? “Now everybody can do their part to advance medical research.”

The other new announcements might improve your quality of life. This one might save it!

As Senior VP of Operations Jeff Williams said in announcing the kit,  the process of medical research ” ..hasn’t changed in decades.” That’s not really true: as I wrote in my book, the Quantified Self movement has been sharing data for several years, as well as groups such as CureTogether and PatientsLikeMe. However, what is definitely true is that no one has harnessed the incredible power of the smartphone for this common goal until now, and that’s really incredible. It’s a great example of my IoT Essential Truth of asking “who else could use this data?”

A range of factors cast a pall over traditional medical research.

Researchers have had to cast a broad net even to get 50-100 volunteers for a clinical trial (and may have to pay them, to boot, placing the results validity when applied to the general population in doubt).  The data has often been subjective (in the example Williams mentioned, Parkinson’s patients are classified by a doctor simply on the basis of walking a few feet). Also, communication about the project has been almost exclusively one way, from the researcher to the patient, and limited, at best.

What if, instead, you just had to turn on your phone and open a simple app to participate? As the website says, “Each one [smartphone] is equipped with powerful processors and advanced sensors that can track movement, take measurements, and record information — functions that are perfect for medical studies.” Suddenly research can be worldwide, and involve millions of diverse participants, increasing the data’s amount and validity (There’s a crowdsourcing research precedent: lot of us have been participating in scientific crowdsourcing for almost 20 years, by installing the SETI@Home software that runs in the background on our computers, analyzing data from deep space to see if ET is trying to check in)!

Polymath/medical data guru John Halamka, MD wrote me that:

“Enabling patients to donate data for clinical research will accelerate the ‘learning healthcare system’ envisioned by the Institute of Medicine.   I look forward to testing out Research Kit myself!”

The new apps developed using ResearchKit harvest information from the Health app that Apple introduced as part of iOS8. According to Apple:

“When granted permission by the user, apps can access data from the Health app such as weight, blood pressure, glucose levels and asthma inhaler use, which are measured by third-party devices and apps…. ResearchKit can also request from a user, access to the accelerometer, microphone, gyroscope and GPS sensors in iPhone to gain insight into a patient’s gait, motor impairment, fitness, speech and memory.

Apple announced that it has already collaborated with some of the world’s most prestigious medical institutions, including Mass General, Dana-Farber, Stanford Medical, Cornell and many others, to develop apps using ResearchKit. The first five apps target asthma, breast cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and Parkinson’s disease.  My favorite, because it affects the largest number of people, is the My Heart Counts one. It uses the iPhone’s built-in motion sensors to track participants’ activity, collecting data during a 6-minute walk test from those who are able to walk that long. If participants also have a wearable activity device connecting with the Health app (aside: still don’t know why my Jawbone UP data doesn’t flow to the Health app, even though I made the link) , they are encouraged to use that as well. Participants will also enter data about their heart disease risk factors and their lab tests readings to get feedback on their chances of developing heart disease and their “heart age.” Imagine the treasure trove of cardiac data it will yield!

 A critical aspect of why I think ResearchKit will be have a significant impact is that Apple decided t0 make it open source, so that anyone can tinker with the code and improve it (aside: has Apple EVER made ANYTHING open source? Doubt it! That alone is noteworthy).  Also, it’s important to note, in light of the extreme sensitivity of any personal health data, that Apple guarantees that it will not have access to any of the personal data.

Because of my preoccupation with “Smart Aging,” I’m really interested in whether any researchers will specifically target seniors with ResearchKit apps. I’ll be watching carefully when the Apple Watch comes out April 24th to see if seniors buy them (not terribly optimistic, I must admit, because of both the cost and the large number of seniors I help at The Apple Store who are befuddled by even Apple’s user-friendly technology) because the watch is a familiar form factor for them (I haven’t worn a watch since I got my first cell phone, and most young people I know have never had one) and might be willing to use them to participate in these projects.

N0w, if you’ll excuse me, I just downloaded the My Heart Counts app, and must find out my “heart age!”

 

Doh!  Just after I posted this, I saw a really important post on Ars Technica pointing out that this brave new world of medical research won’t go anywhere unless the FDA approves:

“As much as Silicon Valley likes to think of itself as a force for good, disrupting this and pivoting that, it sometimes forgets that there’s a wider world out there. And when it comes to using devices in the practice of medicine, that world contains three very important letters: FDA. That’s right, the US Food and Drug Administration, which Congress has empowered to regulate the marketing and research uses of medical devices.

“Oddly, not once in any of the announcement of ResearchKit did we see mention of premarket approval, 510k submission, or even investigational device exemptions. Which is odd, because several of the uses touted in the announcement aren’t going to be possible without getting the FDA to say yes.”

I remember reading that Apple had reached out to the FDA during development of the Apple Watch, so I’m sure none of this comes as a surprise to them, and any medical researcher worth his or her salt is also aware of that factor. However, the FDA is definitely going to have a role in this issue going forward, and that’s as it should be — as I’ve said before, with any aspect of the IoT, privacy and security is Job One.

 

 

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I’ll be on “Game Changer” Radio Today @ 3 EST Talking About IoT

Posted on 12th November 2014 in aging, collaboration, data, Essential Truths, Internet of Things, M2M, management, open data, paradigm shift, Quantified Self, security, seniors, strategy

Huzzah!  I’ll be a guest on Bonnie Graham’s “Coffee Break With Game Changers” show live, today @ 3 PM to discuss the Internet of Things. SAP Radio

Other guests will include David Jonker, sr. director of Big Data Initiatives at SAP, and Ira Berk, vice-president of Solutions Go-to-market at SAP, who has global responsibility for the IoT infrastructure and middleware portfolio.

Among other topics that I hope to get to during the discussion:

  • The “Collective Blindness” meme that I raised recently — and how the IoT removes it.
  • The difficult shift companies will need to make from past practices, where information was a zero-sum game, where hoarding information led to profit, to one where sharing information is the key. Who else can use this information?
  • How the IoT can bring about an unprecedented era of “Precision Manufacturing,” which will not only optimize assembly line efficiency and eliminate waste, but also integrate the supply chain and distribution network.
  • The sheer quantity of data with the IoT threatens to overwhelm us. As much as possible, we need to migrate to “fog computing,” where as much data as possible is processed at the edge, with only the most relevant data passing to the cloud (given the SAP guys’ titles, I assume this will be of big interest to them.
  • The rise of IFTTT.com, which means device manufacturers don’t have to come up with every great way to use their devices: use open standards, just publish the APIs to IFTTT, and let the crowd create creative “recipes” to use the devices.
  • Safety and security aren’t the other guy’s problem: EVERY device manufacturer must build in robust security and privacy protections from the beginning. Lack of public trust can undermine everyone in the field.
  • We can cut the cost of seniors’ care and improve their well being, through “smart aging,” which brings together Quantified Self fitness devices that improve their care and make health care a doctor-patient partnership, and “smart home” devices that automate home functions and make them easier to manage.

Hope you can listen in.  The show will be archived if you can’t make it for the live broadcast .

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Apple Watch: killer app for IoT and lynchpin for “smart aging”

Posted on 9th September 2014 in aging, health, home automation, Internet of Things, m-health, marketing, Quantified Self, seniors, smart home, SmartAging, wearables

Wow: glad I put up with all of the tech problems during the Apple product launch today: the Apple Watch was worth it! It really seems as if it will be the killer device/app for the Internet of Things consumer market, and I think it may also be the lynchpin for my vision of “smart aging,” which would link both wearable health devices and smart home devices.

The elegant, versatile displays (it remains to be seen how easy it will be for klutzes like me to use the Digital Crown and some of the other navigation tools) plus the previously announced Health and Home Apps that are part of iOS 8 could really be the glue that brings together Quantified Self and smart home devices, making “smart aging” possible.

Activity AppIt will take some time to learn all about the watch and to see what apps the “Watch Kit” spawns, but here are some immediate reactions:

  • sorry, but I think it could kill the Lechal haptic shoes before they get off the ground: why have to pay extra for shoes that will vibrate to tell you where to go when your watch can do the same thing with its “Taptic Engine”?
  • I think I’ll also ditch my Jawbone UP, as much as I love it, for the Apple Watch: the video on how the Activity and Workout apps will work makes it look incredibly simple to view your fitness data instantly, vs. having to open an app on your phone.
  • (Just dreaming here): if they can pull off that neat “Milanese Loop” band on one of the versions that clamps to itself, what about not just a heart beat monitor, but a band that converts into a blood-pressure cuff? Guess that wouldn’t be accurate on the wrist, anyway, huh?
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Wearables: love these new shoes that tell you where to go!

Posted on 2nd September 2014 in aging, design, health, Internet of Things, m-health, mobile, Quantified Self, seniors, SmartAging, wearables

Wow! What if you were blind, and instead of a white cane, your shoes gave you directions? Or, even for people with no disabilities, you were navigating a strange city, and instead of having to constantly check Google Maps, your shoes showed the way? Pretty neat!

Lechal sensor shoe

Check out the snazzy new Lechal shoe from India’s Ducere Technologies.

The shoe, also available as an insert that can go in your own plain-vanilla shoes, was invented by two young US-educated Indian entrepreneurs, Krispian Lawrence and Anirudh Sharma, who had a vision (ooops!) of using technology to help the visually impaired.

It’s billed as the “world’s first interactive haptic footware” (bet your mom would be shocked if she knew you were wearing haptic footware, eh?).  When synched to the Lechal smartphone app, it vibrates to tell you which way to go.

And the water-resistant, breathable and anti-bacterial shoes have other features: “For those with 20/20 vision or near they are still useful – they can also calculate routes, steps taken, distance covered and calories burn to monitor workouts.”

I can see these as a critical tool for seniors as part of my “smart aging” paradigm as well, especially for those with dementia or Alzheimers.

As with other Quantified Self devices, you can share your walking and other data with friends via the device.

Here’s a cool feature: it claims to have the “world’s first interactive charger”: it gives audio feedback if you snap your fingers, and beeps to tell you the progress of charging, and the charger can be used as a fast charger for most phones, cutting down on the number of chargers you have to ride herd on.

Oh, BTW, Ducere gets extra points in my book because they don’t take themselves too seriously. To wit, “The technology that powers the shoe is embedded in its sole (pun intended).”

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Wearables/fitness apps & devices market heats up with Google Fit pending launch

Posted on 8th August 2014 in aging, health, Internet of Things, m-health, marketing, open data, privacy, security, seniors, SmartAging, wearables

Google appears set to give Apple’s pending Health app a run for its money with the forthcoming launch of the Google Fit tools. The competition should really benefit consumers and health care (Google has already released the developer’s kit). In announcing the kit, Google said the new tools will provide:

“… a single set of APIs for apps and device manufacturers to store and access activity data from fitness apps and sensors on Android and other devices (like wearables, heart rate monitors or connected scales). This means that with the user’s permission, you can get access to the user’s fitness history — enabling you to provide more interesting features in your app like personalized coaching, better insights, fitness recommendations and more.”

The releases only cover local storage of data, with cloud storage to follow.  As Forbes notes, that’s where the competition with Apple will be fierce:

“Google Fit will integrate with a number of solutions from Google. Your Android powered smartphone or tablet is the obvious first point of contact, but you should also consider Google Fit’s potential integration with Google Glass and the Android Wear smartwatch program. All of these devices can use their sensor suite to gather and relay health data.”

As with Apple Health, Google wants developers and device manufacturers to settle on its standard as the hub for collection and integration of health and fitness data, while it may not be in the individual company’s best interests to commit to a single proprietary standard. As Forbes‘ Ewan Spence predicted, it’s unlikely that any end users are going to change platforms for their devices just because of new health apps and devices.

I guess it would be inappropriate to refer to any potential “killer apps” that could sway anyone in this category, eh?

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Internet of Things interview I did with Jordan Rich

Posted on 17th July 2014 in aging, health, home automation, Internet of Things, m-health, M2M, management, manufacturing, marketing, mobile, privacy, Quantified Self, retail, security, seniors, smart home, SmartAging, strategy, supply chain, wearables

Didn’t realize this had run several weeks ago, but here’s an introduction to the IoT (based on my SAP “Managing the Internet of Things” i-guide) that I did with Jordan Rich of WBZ Radio, who’s also my voice-over mentor.  The examples include the GE Durathon battery plant, “smart aging,” Shodan, the SAP prototype smart vending machine and Ivee. Enjoy!

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