Libby Powell sits at her kitchen table with a tablet demonstrating with glee her ability to turn the lights off and on adjust the thermostat without getting up from her chair.
She’s a senior who never fails to get super-excited about technology.
“I love technology. To me technology is going forward. It’s not going to go back,” she said.
Powell is a resident at “The Cardinal,” which is a senior living facility in Raleigh. Each unit is equipped with K4Connect’s K4 Community. It’s a technology developed specifically with older adults in mind.
“It’s simple. It’s easy to use,” Powell said.
And that’s the point. K4Connect CEO Scott Moody got the idea for the program while talking to a man with multiple sclerosis. The man explained how technology can make life easier for people who have limited mobility. Moody and his partner got to work creating a system which would be useful for those with disabilities while also creating technology that could help seniors.
“You hear that a lot, ‘older adults don’t like technology.’ They don’t like technology designed for a 25-year-old, and the analogy I often make is that my daughters’ grandmother doesn’t wear the same clothes that they do but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t like clothes,” said Moody.
K4 community allows residents to easily connect with neighbors, which helps with loneliness. They can also look at the menu for each day and control most things around the house like the lights and temperature.
“To a large extent, a lot of these products that you hear about in home automation are being designed for other demographics,” Moody said. “We actually repurpose for the people we serve with this whole belief that it really does empower them.”
