Big Tech is finally seeing the dollar signs seniors represent

Big announcements from Apple on Tuesday – no more emergency anti-hacking updates. Apple is out with some shiny new phones and stuff of secrets.

One thing it announced is a new feature in iOS that takes care of how we walk or our gait. The idea is that it will be able to tell if anything has changed in a senior’s gait that could give an early warning of a fall.

Dominic Endicott is a partner and director at Northstar Ventures, which invests in Age Tech. He said Apple has already put a feature in their watches that can detect if you’ve fallen and help you call 911. The following is an edited transcript of our conversation.

Apple is demonstrating a prototype of what the Walking Steadiness feature (courtesy of Apple) contains.

Dominic Endicott: That other function really predicts the likelihood that you might fall at some point in the future. So it’s not like you’re about to fall, but your gait would mean this is an impending problem. And how to deal with that is probably a problem, isn’t it? For example, because you don’t want people to be afraid to do things and stop their activities because they may be more likely to fall. I think on a broader level the fundamental problem is that people live in houses that are not fit for their purpose, in streets that are inaccessible, and now we are trying to find a solution [this] with some technology solutions. We as a society should really think more about how to build walkable neighborhoods where people are walking, biking and being more active all the time. It is actually a better method. But since we don’t have that, that’s at least a really good technical solution.

Jed Kim: When it comes to technology and the elderly, it may be stereotypically difficult for them to get used to. Why is it so difficult for tech companies to make these things user-friendly?

Endicott: Well I think they focus on ease of use and by designing for everyone they are actually making great products for everyone, including the elderly, right? So I think they actually do a much better job than, say, non-tech companies. That being said, I think part of it is that older people tend to be slower to adopt new things, so just wait and see. They are often very budget conscious, and if a new product requires a new subscription it can hold them back – that’s the economic model. Even people who have a lot of net worth can be quite wealthy in relation to [owning] an expensive house, but they are often kind of tight on cash or are just very conservative in their mindset so they tend to be slower to adopt.

But with COVID-19 it was very interesting that, for example, many seniors jumped on Zoom, often paid for by someone else. So they didn’t have to pay to have cross-generational conversations with their grandchildren and children, and they are learning. They may not be as intuitive as a 15 year old, but they learn pretty quickly. I’ll give you my example: in my family, my mother, who is around 80, plays bridge online seven days a week and is very, very good. And you know, a year or two ago she was playing offline. She went to the local bridge club. I think the adaptability of people of all ages is not about whether they can or not, it may often be because, as you say, the product was not designed for them, including in some cases the pricing model.

Kim: Yes, it reminds me of my father. We taught him how to play some board games online and he played against bots. And he did that the longest. And the language that came out of him was shocking!

Endicott: Exactly exactly.

Kim: And how valuable is the age tech market? For example, is there a dollar number?

Dominic Endicott (Courtesy Endicott).

Endicott: Well, I think the aging tech market is potentially huge, right? So you think of people over 50 [years old] own about three quarters of the total assets. And so there is a huge market, as AARP estimated in the US, that is easily $ 8 trillion. Globally, it could be $ 20 trillion. So it’s a huge, huge market in terms of total spending. I would argue that 95% of the age tech side of this really comes from the big tech firms, and it’s been pretty hard for venture capital to really gain a foothold, in part because older people are not tapping into the new consumer markets. They are not the early adopters. Also because many buyers of products for example Medicare, Medicaid, the [National Health Service] in the UK they are very slow buyers.

Kim: So what does it mean for this market to mature that Apple is adding this to its iOS?

Endicott: Well, I think what I saw two or three years ago is that the strongest players in age tech are already the established players and that if new companies fail to break out, they will increasingly dominate the Market. I think the other prediction I would make is that the largest customer base for many mainstream companies are the elderly. You will lose more and more of your mindset and your wallet, to the apples and the Amazons and the Airbnbs. For example, when you think of Airbnb, it started out as a kind of millennial product. But if you look at the fastest growing range of hosts, it is increasingly the elderly because they all have houses, but even more so, the number of guests is growing even more among the elderly. The over 60s are a very exciting group for Airbnb. So I think if you look at every tech company, they’ll likely turn into an aging tech company, but they’ll do it in a way that is very quiet. Because again, you’re not going to position yourself as an age tech company, but I think a lot of them will.

Kim: Are there any improvements over what we already have that would be particularly helpful for the elderly?

Endicott: I think there’s a lot of ambient technology out there. For example, if we get back to the core of this discussion, which is about gait analysis, you can certainly use a phone, but you can also use environmental technology which could be some type of camera or something that could measure how you are walking. So you don’t have to think about taking a device with you and you could already measure whether there is a problem. You know, when you look at what the Dutch are doing, where they create beautiful bike paths everywhere, they are becoming more and more timeless, right? The people who ride bikes in Holland are of all ages. In the United States, on the other hand, they are often younger, very fit people, and even they are at high risk of death. And that’s why older people don’t do that, they don’t exercise.

So, for me, the real elephant in the room is both the city and home, and the suburb isn’t really designed for aging. And as more people get older, this becomes a bigger problem. And I think it’s just as bad for younger people too, right? The fact that kids don’t ride bikes to school means that very, very early in life you build up age problems that will hit you when you’re in your 60s and 70s. So we really need to take a step back as a society. And even like the new infrastructure plans, they are not fundamentally changing that. They just put more money into building more roads in an old model that didn’t work and hope it turns out differently. I don’t understand why it will be any different this time. I think there’s at least a nod in the right direction, but we’re still heavily dominated by traditional infrastructure models.

Kim: As for cycling, all I thought about was that at least where I am, I see a lot of older people cycling. And I think there is no way I will ride my bike on the street. It’s way too hairy. So here in Connecticut, at least, it’s the older people who are a lot fitter than me.

Endicott: Well, and I think that’s going to be the real disruption with electric bikes because electric cars are cool, but they don’t fundamentally change the paradigm, do they? Electric bikes do this because they are starting to replace trips you used to make by car that you are now doing with an electric bike, and you do a certain number of exercises that will expand your range. I mean, this is probably one of the best examples of a product where the really early adopters are the elderly because they see a lot of value, especially middle-aged folks who can expand their range in terms of the length of time they cycle, like many Years you cycle, whether you go uphill. I think this is a really good example of a product where the older market is really making it, not to say younger people aren’t using it, but they don’t need it that much.

Related Links: More Insights from Jed Kim

Would you like to learn more about the age tech industry and how it is evolving? At The Gerontechnologist you can keep track of things. This site is maintained by an expert in the field. We have a link to an interview Endicott did with her. He shares a lot about investing in the industry.

If you want to learn more about Apple’s walking stability feature, we have a few links on how The Verge and Men’s Health work. The Verge has a little more to do with the concern that people are afraid of a possible fall alarm. Hopefully it doesn’t deter people from staying indoors and sedentary, which could actually increase their risk. It’s a balance. Men’s Health suggests that having gait data available when and when it is time to speak to a doctor is helpful. Often times, this type of analysis requires special appointments and equipment.

Walking stability isn’t the only age-related health feature update in the new iOS. There’s also data sharing that many believe can make communicating with health care providers easier. But will seniors do that? AARP surveyed people aged 50 and over last year. They had concerns about the large collection of health data, which includes information gathered from medical offices, websites, apps, and devices, and that the data can be shared and sold with little supervision. Here’s a quote: “More than half (57%) say the potential risks of corporate data collection outweigh the potential benefits.”

When we finally spoke, Endicott mentioned electric bicycles as an example of how seniors are becoming tech-enabled. The e-bikes make longer bike tours easier and can help you uphill. We have links to some related articles. Bicycling.com cites a study that says that for people over 50, e-cycling can increase brain function more than normal cycling. Be careful anyway. A 2018 Guardian article looked at the increase in deaths from bicycle accidents in the Netherlands. It exceeded the number of people killed in cars, largely due to the increase in men over 65 who died in electric bicycle accidents.

Apple’s Other News … that happened. And yes, we will continue to talk about security on Marketplace Tech.

source https://www.bisayanews.com/2021/09/14/big-tech-is-finally-seeing-the-dollar-signs-seniors-represent/