Senior Living Smarts

Senior living is a bastion of innovation with home builders. From artificial intelligence (AI) conversational software integration to a voice-enabled community to "IQ Homes," housing for this buyer group is being smartened up.

Smart home technology may be the key for delivering improved health, safety, and lifestyle benefits to residents, while helping caregivers and staff in their daily work, according to Senior Housing News, which cites national home builder Lennar as a prime example for how to succeed in the sector in three ways.

While Lennar doesn't build senior housing, it is integral to senior living as the nation's largest builder, and because it made history with the first full home environment to receive WiFi certification from the Wi-Fi Alliance, and has teamed up with Amazon to be completely WiFi certified with its entire portfolio, about 250,000 home sites, and 1,300 residential communities in 49 markets in 21 states.

2018 was a landmark year of growth for senior living smart home potential. 2019 is shaping up as the year the promise is delivered. And senior living providers looking for models of execution can look at their peers, as well as the largest home builder in the nation.

The notion that today’s seniors are uninterested in smart technology is as antiquated as rotary phones. Despite a lag behind younger generations, today’s senior is growing increasingly comfortable with this technology. Pew Research Center shows that the percentage of people 65 and up who own smartphones quadrupled from 2011 to 2016, while the percentage of 65+ adults using the internet grew five times from 2000 to 2016.

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