Remote Monitoring Tech to Play Large Role in Caring for Aging Baby Boomers
Jane Helgesen had a rough night recently, as nausea kept the 71-year-old retired nurse scurrying to the bathroom. A sensor under the bed recorded her comings and goings, sending alerts to her daughter, Britt, who lives nearby. Feeling better the next day, Helgesen used a doorbell camera to welcome guests, whose images are displayed on her rose-gold iPhone, which she also uses to unlock the front door and tweak the thermostat.The smart gadgets in Helgesen’s three-bedroom townhouse in the Twin Cities suburb of Woodbury, Minn., aren’t new. What’s different is that Best Buy Co., better known for hawking TVs and computers than for selling geriatric-care products, is wiring it all together. The electronics retailer, which sells an entry-level package of gear for $389.96 (installation costs an extra $199), also provides a monitoring service for $29 a month.
The realities of the aging population have been on the radar screens of investors and financial services companies for many years. Today, as the stat goes, nearly 10,000 Baby Boomers turn 70 every day. Many investors look to healthcare and assisted living as the mechanism for tapping into this demographic shift from an investment standpoint. A good starting point, but misses the overall impact of this sea-change coming at us.
In our world at Tematica Research, we assess the situation in a way that some might describe as being “holistic”. We prefer to call “thematic investing”, which is to look at the developing change in consumer behaviors, identify the tailwinds and headwinds that will come about from those changes, and determine which companies stand to ride those tailwinds and which ones are heading straight into the headwinds.
When we utilize our thematic approach and look at this theme that we call “The Aging of the Population” we, of course, include healthcare stocks and REIT’s with exposure to medical buildings, retirement communities and the like. The Baby Boomers, however, are the largest and wealthiest generation in the history of the world, and they are now in the process of transitioning from being income earners and supporting their families to disposing of all their wealth (and stuff!) while caring for themselves. The impact of that shift will be felt across virtually every category, particularly even the most cutting-edge technology, as this story in Bloomberg confirms. So as we build out our Tematica Investing Select List, we turn to companies providing technology such as voice detection, autonomous vehicles, home monitoring and delivery services, and generally, things that will make maintaining independence that much easier.
Read Full Article: Best Buy Bets on Adults Remotely Monitoring Their Aging Parents – Bloomberg
