Threshold Care’s non-invasive means of elder care uses Wi-Fi

Threshold Care has announced a new kind of smart plug that promises to make it easier for people to provide elder care. The company’s Motion Wi-Fi Sensing Plugs watch for real-time disruptions in a home’s Wi-Fi network that indicate someone has been moving around the house, and they send notifications in the absence of activity.

For today’s seniors, aging in place is vastly preferable to checking into a nursing home. But doing so successfully almost always means having someone check in on them from time to time. Their adult children typically perform this role, but neither caregivers nor the cared-for want unnecessary privacy intrusions. What’s more, most caregivers are also busy with their own children and careers, and many live far from the people they’re trying to care for.

Remotely monitoring elders with security cameras might be the easiest way to ensure they’re up and active each day, but it’s also the most invasive means of ensuring their safety. Cameras can also be difficult for seniors to install and set up on their own.

Threshold Care

Threshold Care

Threshold Care

Threshold Care is the latest company to introduce a product that detects disruptions in a Wi-Fi network as a non-invasive means of monitoring motion. Their solution builds on Origin Wireless’ WiFi Sensing technology, which we first wrote about during the 2020 CES, and consists of sets of three smart plugs that triangulate to form motion-detection zones. Motion detection reports are sent to Threshold Care’s Circle of Care app, which will initially be available only for iOS devices.

Users will typically install one set of plugs—at a price of $59.99 per set—in each room they want to monitor. Threshold’s Motion Wi-Fi Sensing Plugs pass power—up to 15 amps—from the outlets they’re plugged into to their own outlet, but these are not the type of smart plugs that can also turn a connected load on and off via Wi-Fi.

“Motion delivers a practical solution that empowers caregivers with information that helps answer the vital question, ‘Is my loved one okay right now?’ without compromising privacy,” said Threshold Care’s managing director and co-founder Jacob Loader. “It’s technology that respects the individual while providing peace of mind to those who care for them.”

Threshold Care

Threshold Care

Threshold Care

Threshold is wisely avoiding attaching a paid subscription service to its product—at least at launch. I say “wisely” because that requirement has doomed other retail products/services that use WiFi Sensing, including Belkin’s Linksys Aware add-on service for its Linksys Velop mesh routers (discontinued in July 2024) and Origin Wireless’ own Hex Home Security product, which we reviewed in late 2021 but is now listed as “sold out” on the company’s website.

The lure of recurring revenue from subscriptions is likely to prove irresistible, however, and the company’s website describes a Circle of Care feature in development that lets you “look after your loved one as a team with shared access.” Threshold tells me that “there are additional, premium features on the road map that will provide enhanced functionality.”

But the company also maintains that it will never make a paid subscription mandatory, and that the features available at launch will remain free.