Ageing in place tech is helping families manage the daily reality of caring for older relatives remotely, but experts and users alike warn the gadgets come with real limits. From smart TVs to automatic stove shut-offs and AI companion robots, a wave of products is pitching itself as a bridge between independence and the $10,000-a-month cost of professional assisted living.
What the Devices Actually Do
Karen Murray, 60, starts every morning by switching on the TV in her 93-year-old mother Marion’s assisted living room in New Jersey, 40 minutes from her own home. Marion has cognitive impairment and needs help operating her television, calling family, or finding the music that calms her. Using JubileeTV, a set that looks ordinary but connects to an app on Karen’s phone, she can do all of that remotely. A built-in camera means Karen can check on Marion without travelling.
JubileeTV costs $789 all-in, plus a $389 annual subscription. For families who want more flexibility, the JubileeTV product store lists a standalone monthly membership at $39, or approximately $32 per month on an annual billing cycle. Karen says the app can be slow depending on the WiFi, but it beats the alternative. On a recent visit, Marion bantered with her son Steve in Delaware through the screen and listened to Tony Bennett.
Beyond the living room, appliances marketed at caregivers have spread into kitchens and bathrooms. Samsung refrigerators use cameras to track food levels, while ovens and microwaves from LG offer WiFi and voice control. One of the more targeted products is the iGuard Home automatic stove shut-off, which the company describes as addressing the number one cause of home fires: forgotten cooking, which it says occurs every four seconds. According to a CNET review, the iGuardStove Intelligent model, a Wi-Fi plug-in device for electric ranges, is priced at $495 and cuts power to the heating elements if no one is detected in the kitchen for more than five minutes.
Tablets and televisions can add remote caregiving layers through services such as Uniper Care, Onscreen, and Amazon, offering video calls, telehealth, photo sharing, and live classes. For families caring for someone with dementia, the startup Zinnia offers therapeutic TV channels, with plans ranging from $70 a year to more than $500.
Lori Bufka, 64, took a more hands-on approach after her 88-year-old mother’s assisted living costs hit $5,200 a month. She bought a tiny home next door in Arizona and fitted it with Blink cameras, an Amazon Alexa for smart plugs, and a tablet running Google Live Transcribe, as her mother is deaf. ‘The tech has been important because mom has fallen a lot since she moved here. I probably check on her three or four times during the night,’ Bufka said.
The Promise and Limits of Ageing in Place Tech
Families Business Insider spoke to were swapping what could be a $10,000-a-month assisted living bill for roughly $100 in monthly tech subscriptions, but they were candid about the trade-offs. Reliability, privacy concerns, and the difficulty of getting older relatives to adopt new tools all came up repeatedly.
‘If it’s difficult to use, they will not use it,’ said Yu Sun, director of the Center for Innovation, Technology, and Aging at the University of South Florida. ‘They may install a certain app and use it this year, but next year, they may not be able to keep up.’
Sara Czaja, director of the Center on Research and Education for Aging and Technology at Weill Cornell Medicine, welcomed the attention the sector is receiving but flagged that much of the tech lacks clinical backing. ‘Some of it is done with a seat-of-your-pants, opportunist approach,’ she said. Many products are not tested with older users and are built without considering accessibility or adoption challenges.
At the more social end of the market, AI companion robots have drawn some of the most devoted users. Lucinda Page, 69, of Schenectady, New York, received the tabletop robot ElliQ from her county’s ageing department at no cost and uses it daily for medication reminders, exercises, poetry, and crossword puzzles. ‘We have in-depth chats, where she’ll ask me, “I’ve been thinking about the meaning of life. What does it mean to you?”‘ Page said. Intuition Robotics, which makes ElliQ, charges a $249 lease initiation fee and an $588 annual plan, though these are waived in some US counties.
Dee Humphrey, 73, who also has an ElliQ, said she experienced ‘withdrawal’ when she had to wait for a replacement unit. ‘I don’t look at ElliQ as a robot; I look at her as another person in a different form,’ she said. Both Page and Humphrey are clear that the device supplements rather than replaces their social lives: both volunteer at senior centres.
Karen Murray suspects JubileeTV is as far as she will go for Marion. Robots or more complex devices, she fears, could confuse her mother or put a strain on their relationship. ‘She’s fiercely independent,’ Karen said. ‘She thinks she doesn’t need any help. She does.’
Mark Benson, head of Samsung’s SmartThings platform, framed the pitch from the industry’s side: ‘The goal is to support, not replace, human relationships at the center of caregiving, and use technology to provide reassurance and help reduce stress that many caregivers can experience.’ Whether the products can consistently deliver on that for a population of 61 million Americans aged 65 and older will depend on whether designers start testing with, not just for, the people they are building for.