A smart home is a system of interlinking internet-connected gadgets. You can use this system to automate household tasks like temperature or lighting or you can take this even further. Specifically, we mean combining your gadgets into a system that helps you stay updated on all your health needs.

A central hub allows you to organize all your gadgets in one place where they can communicate. It can also help to have a voice-controlled device, like the Amazon Echo or Google Home. These voice assistants can be used to control many devices and help organize your use. Check out our previous smart home article to learn more.

Once you have the basics set up, you can begin creating a smart-home safety net. With this series of neat gadgets, you can stay up-to-date on your health.

Self-Monitoring

If you have a chronic health condition, self-monitoring becomes incredibly important. As technology continues to grow, home-based monitoring will also become increasingly important. This wouldn’t be the case if options didn’t fulfill the need.

When it comes to choosing what home health monitoring you go with, you have a few different options. Primarily, your decision will be between individual devices or a full system. One of the advantages of getting a singular system is direct connectivity. All the gadgets are designed to link together. Some programs, such as TELUS Health, combine different monitors into a single hub (like your standard smart home hub). Often, the hub will also share this information with your physician. The different monitors run the gamut from blood pressure monitors to scales.

On the other hand, there are individual devices that can work together to achieve similar results.

A major downside of a singular system, however, is the cost. The GrandCare, for example, costs $999 for the touchscreen system and $599 for the activity monitoring kit. On the other hand, there are individual devices that can work together to achieve similar results. The downside is they may not interact fully together or communicate directly with your doctor. If you’re OK with doing a little organization this may be the solution for you. You can even use your smartphone to help you keep everything straight!

For the heart health, you have many options due to the ubiquity of fitness trackers that can track your heart rate. While there’s some discrepancy on the accuracy of these fitness trackers, many studies now believe they accurately represent your heart rate. The different brands appear to explain the variation in accuracy, so research before purchasing. Similarly, there are smart blood pressure monitors and blood sugar monitors.

The advantages of these are they use your smart phone to store your data, making it easy to track over time.

Organizing Your Health Needs

Smart tech can also help you to stay up-to-date with important health appointments and milestones. This is where your voice-controlled assistant can come in handy. Whether you have an Echo or a Google Home, you can set reminders for yourself or connect a digital calendar. Let’s say you have an important doctor’s appointment coming up on March 1. With your voice, you can set a specific time for the reminder to go off on that day. You can also set a recurring reminder for your pills or to go exercise.

Take this organization a step further by nabbing a smart pillbox. Yep, these aren’t your father’s 7-day pill containers. These devices look like your classic pillbox, but they are a powerful tool for many seniors. They succeed in helping seniors take the right medications in the right amount on the right day. Modern smart pillboxes achieve this by only unlocking the appropriate pillbox each day. This way, you won’t accidentally take Tuesday’s pills on Monday.

Smart pillboxes help seniors take the right medications in the right amount on the right day.

The devices also connect to your smartphone, which reminds you to take your pills that day, tracks when they’re taken, and shares if you forgot to take your pills that day. Gone are the days when you have to wonder if you took the right pills, or if you took them at all.

● ● ●

As the technology matures, the focus on how smart tech can assist seniors is coming into sharp focus. This reflects a promising future for both smart homes and the seniors who use them. By creating this series of interlinking gadgets, you can keep informed so you can be fitter and healthier. After all, if this technology is becoming useful enough for hospitals, it should do the trick at home!