Reuse, recycle – finding a new purpose?  Ah, the cacophony of self-quantification. As we rage against our inactivity and sloth, fitness gadgets have become the rage. One could have a Body Media arm band (“know your body, change your life”), a Fitbit on a waistband, a NikeFuel (“the ultimate measure of your athletic life”) or a Jawbone UP (“know yourself, live better!”) on a wrist, or a Pebble on a shoe from a corporate wellness program. To date, none of these offerings are applied (by the companies) to the world of seniors for passive activity encouragement or tracking.  Soon all of these, like Fitbit, will have APIs for writing new apps – soon someone will see and seize the opportunity to connect a simple and wearable device to senior market, and perhaps more in the senior market will connect caregiving apps like Philips CarePartners Mobile to information from their in-market devices like Lifeline with AutoAlert.

The more tech is commercialized, the more researchers ignore it. It’s so interesting and fun to read about research that is going to help seniors, don’t you think? Reporters love to write it, readers love to read it.  Someday, they say and readers agree, there will be tech that will finally help us age in our own homes. A recent AARP Bulletin offered up an article about living laboratory research into ‘possibilities’ for improving our capabilities for independent living/aka aging in place. We can feel good that work goes on at Orcatech, at Mayo Clinic, and MIT's Age Lab.  And many others have researched the same exact categories previously, as noted in 2008 in one of the very first blogs on this site. As always, the researchers interviewed offered no observations about whether there were commercial versions that were viable for consumers, and really, no acknowledgement of commercial vendors at all. Guess that’s not the point of research.