Today I am keynoting the OSF Digital Health Symposium in Peoria, IL, discussing The State(s) of Digital Health. A double-entendre intended, one of the states I’ll be discussing is the migration of acute care back to peoples’ homes, embedded with sensors, householders donning smart rings, and rooms fitted with Internet-of-Things for health and well-being.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In this context, news that Samsung has begun to partner with Ashley, the national furniture dealer, struck me as interesting and important.

I visited the Samsung Health House at CES 2024 last January: here is my write-up about what I saw and felt about the experience. I’ve been tracking Samsung’s evolving approach to the Internet of Things at home, for many years collaborating across the consumers’ expanding connected ecosystem for appliances, consumer goods, and autos.

With Ashley, Samsung has an interior design collaborator that understands mainstream consumers — a benefit to understanding how people live, work from home, deal with sleep issues, and to be sure, repurpose homes for well-being in their lessons from the pandemic era.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Speaking of sleep, that’s a major self-care challenge many people have taken on; witness the proliferation of beds and especially smart beds and digital paraphernalia that are purported to help consumers track and manage their sleep. Think circadian lighting, temperature altering mattresses, cooling pillow, and the growing portfolio of smart rings which track many metrics — including sleep.

This photo comes from the Samsung/Ashley press kit imagining a smart bedroom for health with Ashley’s design sense inspiring the layout.

From the program’s press release:

“Samsung wants to remove the barrier to shopping for smart technology. Together with Ashley, we’re making it possible to visualize how furniture and electronics come together to make a home a better place,” said Allison Stransky, Chief Marketing Officer, Samsung Electronics America. “The goal is to help people unlock the magic of connected living and make it more accessible. We believe it’s the experiences you have in your space that make it a home.”

 

 

 

 

Health Populi’s Hot Points:  Consider this a new form of personalized medicine and health care, to the N of 1 person or family at home. Samsung’s messaging in the ad for SmartThings — “Your home speaks you” — is a good umbrella statement about the promise of a home being purposed for health based on a consumer’s personal goals to manage a condition, stay well, recuperate from a hospital stay, or other health goals.

=

 

 

 

 

 

 

In working through the growing ecosystem for food-as-medicine, digital tech is playing a role to enable connection across peoples’ personal omni-channels and life continua and contexts. This includes connected cars, with which I have some familiarity relative to health (here’s a 2017 post on the topic — I’ve been thinking about this for some time!).

This last graphic is a schematic from GM for a connected car patent that can perceive a driver’s stress — perhaps to perceive and help curb road rage. There can be many applications for this technology which our imaginations can conjure up….

We can connect the dots (and apps and technologies) between our cars and refrigerators and food in those fridges, along with other digital life-flows….stay tuned for more on this as I continue to learn and work in this evolving ecosystem, and attend CES 2025 for updates from the likes of Samsung, GM, and others who are enabling our homes to speak to us and support our health and wellness goals.