Wellness For All, All The Time
Along with a safer environment, everyone in a household benefits from a healthier space, whether that stems from cleaner air, water or germ-free surfaces. Consumers are especially concerned about cleanliness after 2020, and manufacturers are fulfilling that demand.
Cleanliness is a priority that will stay after the pandemic ends. Touch-to-open cabinets are especially in demand with waste drawers. Having the ability to touch the cabinet face with a hip, elbow, knee, or even the back of your hand reduces the spread of germs and saves time from constantly wiping down handles and fronts.
Indoor air quality is also top of mind. Stern recommends using materials and furniture with low volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that avoid off-gassing, which can cause ailments like asthma over time. Low-VOC paint and countertops and cabinets made without harmful sealants are also suggested for better indoor air. Biophilic elements in the environment — like plants or other natural references — also create an overall feeling of calmness.
Wellness is now a homeowner prerequisite to bathroom upgrades, which involves promoting spiritual, mental, emotional and physical wellbeing.
Smart Tech Is Not Just For Millennials
Today, wellness and the smart home are often hand in hand. While it took time to catch on with older generations, today more of the 65 and up population is comfortable using smart home tech. These products make daily living easier and simpler for everyone but can be a true gamechanger for those with vision impairments or dexterity difficulties.
The technology available to us is becoming so easy to install and comfortable to use. Smart home tech can give you an opportunity to live a better life. Technology that calculates how much water is consumed, how many hours slept and how clean the air is can play a large role in improving the well-being of a homeowner. It can also allow someone elderly to age in place in their own home more easily and without as much outside help.
A voice-enabled smart home will allow an elderly client to easily secure their home, turn lights on and off, monitor what’s cooking and communicate with family. If this home contains younger family members, it can make life more streamlined with automatic actions like lowering the air at night or turning the music on at a certain time of day. Although this might have seemed superfluous in the past, post-2020 homeowners are now depending on this technology to improver their overall quality of life and allow them to focus on what’s truly important at home.
The Future of Living in Place
Especially in light of the pandemic, people want to stay at home and our of senior living facilities as long as possible. They want every family member, from the toddler to the elderly grandmother, to feel comfortable and safe. A home with basic living-in-place elements, like wider walkways and curbless showers(the removal of any unneeded shower curbs or barriers will reduce the threat of potential tripping or slipping hazards as mobility becomes more strenuous later in life), combined with newer — but just as important — products like anti-microbial surfaces and voice-enabling lighting — makes this possible.
Those with healthful attributes, like low-VOC finishes or a nature-inspired appeal, will probably have a larger influence on living-in-place design in the future as people focus more on personal wellness. The smart home will continue to grow in prominence for every age group, making life simpler for all types of families — from the standard nuclear family to the growing multigenerational family that is growing more common today.
