FEATURED ARTICLE
Making every living space better with assistive technology by Brett Savill CEO of ASX-listed Quantify Technology
Quantify Technology is focused on making lives better in homes, workplaces, and communities with their smart home technology.
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ssistive technology helps people living with disability in three specific ways: it enhances quality of life; reduces costs; and improves safety. According to the World Health Organisation, accessible and assistive technology-enabled homes improve the health, wellbeing, and daily life activities of people with disabilities. It has been around for at least twenty years as a complex and expensive option that was really was only for the wealthy. However, costs are declining rapidly, and complexity is being engineered out of products to make them truly mass market. This means the benefits can be more broadly shared. Take smart home automation, which is exploding to a large extent because of voice activation. In Australia, the smart speaker market is booming (no pun intended) with penetration growing from 20% of households in 2019 to over 40% in 20231. The cheapest Amazon Alexa now retails at less than $50. At the same time, products are becoming simpler, meaning that purchasers can pick and choose the most suitable technologies for the circumstances. In the residential housing market today, smart home automation provides a way for builders or developers to differentiate their properties; in 1 https://voicebot.ai/2019/03/19/australia-leaps-past-u-s-in-smart-speakeradoption-google-home-establishes-dominant-market-share
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the future, they will not be able to sell them with automation. After all, who would buy a car today without airbags, collision avoidance and anti-locking brakes? Disability living is rapidly revolving in the same way:
1. ENHANCING QUALITY OF LIFE In 2019, Victorian-based disability services provider St John of God Marillac (Specialist Disability Accommodation provider) in partnership with St John of God Accord (Supported Independent Living provider), built a five-bedroom, technology-enabled home to meet the needs of their clients with intellectual disabilities and complex needs, as set by the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA) design category. St John of God Health Care Projects and Technology Director Nicole Jahn said the house featured an all-inclusive technology solution, designed to match the needs of the clients. “It includes smart home automation, facial recognition, and access control to reduce restrictive practices, enable independence, and digitise work processes to allow a new level of independence for our clients,” Nicole said. According to St John of God Accord CEO Lisa Evans, the completion of the innovative accommodation home aligns with St John of God Accord’s disability and inclusion strategy. “It is a significant initiative to raise the profile of, and advocate for, people with a disability,” Lisa said.
THE MAGAZINE FOR THE ASSOCIATION OF CONSULTANTS IN ACCESS AUSTRALIA
