Gadgets for graying set- Sequiam Kwikset biometric lock mention.
Baby boomers demand - and get - big-button TV remotes, no-frills cell phones and computers that start with a touch
By Clint Swett - Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:00 am PST Monday, March 5, 2007
While conducting a computer seminar recently at Sun City Lincoln Hills, Terry Rooney heard murmurs of approval when he showed off a Windows Vista feature that allows users to magnify selected portions of a Web page.
"They were very impressed," said Rooney, president of the retirement community's computer club. "Being able to easily read the screen is a concern for a lot of people."
Indeed, as the aging American population increasingly peers through reading glasses, fumbles with keys and begins to ponder life with hearing aids, technology companies are gearing up new products or adapting existing ones to capture a potentially huge and profitable demographic -- baby boomers.
The gadgets include oversize TV remote controls, simplified cellular phones and computers that ask for a thumbprint instead of a password.
"Baby boomers have driven the economy and consumer demand for about every decade they have existed," said Andrew Carle, director of the Assisted Living/Senior Housing Administration program at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. "As long as they continue to control the money, they will continue to drive the products that are being developed."
Baby boomers, those born between the end of World War II and 1964, represent a formidable financial force with an estimated buying power of $2.1 trillion a year, according to the MetLife Mature Market Institute. A boomer is turning 60 every eight seconds, and by 2030, 71 million Americans will be 65 or older.
That graying population could motivate electronics manufacturers to diverge from their path of cramming more features and functions into increasingly smaller packages.
They might consider consumers like Ron Niemi, a retired engineer in El Dorado Hills, who's become resigned to donning reading glasses when he pulls out his cell phone or some other high-tech gadget.
And he has no use for text messaging, watching videos or downloading ring tones on his cell phone.
"I'm an engineer and very technology-oriented," he said. "But for me, a cellular phone is for talking."
Niemi represents a target market for the Jitterbug, a no-frills phone developed by Samsung that features a bright screen, large type, a keypad with big numbers and even a dial tone to indicate signal strength.
The $147 device eschews such cell phone extras as ring-tone downloads, text messaging and a built-in camera. And its operators can remotely program phone numbers into the customer's phone.
Arlene Harris, chief executive of Del Mar-based GreatCall Inc., which developed the Jitterbug phone service, said many older consumers are frustrated by miniaturized cell phones with features they find irrelevant.
"The (cell phone) industry has been focused on making handsets into little desktop computers," Harris said. "They've been focusing all their investment and development on people under 35."
Susan Ayers-Walker, who writes on technology for AARP, said most cell phone makers aren't likely to follow Jitterbug's lead anytime soon, at least until cell phone sales begin to flatten out.
"They are still playing to the 12- to 26-year-old market. But the tide may be turning," she said.
Even youth-oriented companies like Nintendo of America may start cashing in on the aging market. Its Brain Age software for the Nintendo DS hand-held console is popular among the silver-haired set, with more than 1 million sold since last April. Brain Age, created by a Japanese researcher, poses puzzles and other mental challenges designed to "exercise" the brain.
Some older Americans also are gravitating to Wii, Nintendo's popular new video game console, which lets users swing the controller to mimic swinging a tennis racket or golf club, for instance.
Hoping to tap the senior market, Nintendo recently featured a Wii booth at an AARP conference in Los Angeles, said Nintendo spokeswoman Amber McCollom. "It was a slow trickle at first, but by the afternoon we had people bringing their friends to show them how to play," she said.
Carle, the George Mason professor, said the range of motion required by Wii video games also appeals to physical therapists, who want to keep older patients mobile. One retirement community near Chicago has a Wii bowling league in its clubhouse.
For aging couch potatoes, a Chicago-area company has developed a massive TV remote control with buttons that measure nearly an inch across.
Donna Bastien, product manager for Hy-Tek Manufacturing, said the company sells about 50,000 of the Big Button units a year, primarily through catalogs and Radio Shack stores.
"Just to figure out what's on a remote control, a lot of people have to get out their reading glasses," she said. "That seems to be the reason a lot of people are buying this."
Remembering computer and Web passwords is a challenge for anyone, but for those increasingly affected by forgetful "senior moments," it's even tougher.
That's why Larry Ciaccia, president of AuthenTec Inc., a Florida-based fingerprint recognition technology company, thinks his technology will appeal to older users.
AuthenTec fingerprint readers are showing up on computers, where users can sign on and enter password-protected Web sites by swiping a finger, instead of typing a password.
"We want to make interfacing with the Internet more convenient," Ciaccia said.
Fingerprint recognition also is being used in a deadbolt lock coming to market in June. The $200 device by Kwikset lets people unlock their door by swiping a finger across a reader, said spokeswoman Cheryl Kramp. Older folks who don't like fumbling with their keys are one potential market, she said, but Kwikset, a subsidiary of Black & Decker Corp., is not marketing to them specifically.
Finally, newer computers have features intended for those with impaired vision. Those little-known features are expected to become more popular as computer users grow older and their eyesight naturally dims.
The newer Windows and Macintosh operating systems allow users to enlarge type, icons and cursors and even read text aloud when the cursor rolls over it.
But many older users are unaware of these features, said Bill Gould, Web manager at Sun City Roseville. "And even if they are aware of it, they don't remember how to do it," said Gould, 73. "One of the fundamental aspects of computer use is that you remember things. With seniors, you can't assume they will remember."
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