A community of San Diego retirees is using the personal-assistant gadget to listen to audiobooks, keep current with family news, and control home appliances.
When Lois Seed wakes up in the morning, one of the first things she says is “Alexa, what is the weather?” Seed, who is 89 and has low vision because of macular degeneration, finds it convenient to get weather information by speaking to the Alexa voice-activated assistant on her Amazon Echo. She also asks her Echo to tell her the time and to play classical music from her former hometown radio station.
“Life is more enjoyable [with Alexa],” she says, proving that the recent Saturday Night Live spoof about Alexa and seniors couldn’t be further from the truth.
Seed and about 50 other residents at the Carlsbad by the Sea retirement community near San Diego have been testing the personal-assistant technology inside their homes since late February. Front Porch, the nonprofit organization that runs the community, devised the pilot program after residents expressed interest in Alexa and asked to try it.
Some older adults have been using Alexa on their own to alleviate loneliness and set medication reminders, but Front Porch appears to be the first retirement community to study the technology’s impact in depth. And it wants its residents’ experiences to help inform how future versions of Alexa might better serve the elderly. The group could represent a sizeable new market for Amazon. More than one million Americans reside in assisted-living facilities today, and that number is expected to double by 2030. ..Continued..
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