K4Connect Collaborates with Johnson Controls on New Older Adult-Friendly Thermostat Design

Introducing the LUX® KONOse, offering increased visibility, focused ease of use, and adjustment assurance to create the best experience for residents of senior living communities.

MILWAUKEE – (April 23, 2020) – Johnson Controls today announced one of the first smart thermostat products to address the senior care market. Designed with seniors in mind, the LUX® KONOse offers increased visibility, focused ease of use and adjustment assurance to create the best experience for residents of senior living facilities. The Energy Star® certified thermostat is the latest innovation from the Johnson Controls brand of LUX Products, which are known for their intuitive design and technology. The introduction of the KONOse also marks the start of an exciting new collaboration between Johnson Controls and K4Connect, a leading technology partner for senior living communities.

“The KONOse enhances senior comfort through an easy-to-understand display and improved control for those with limited fine motor skills,” said Justin Pasquale, product management, thermostats and sensors at Johnson Controls. “It also provides connectivity, energy efficiency and cost savings for facility managers.”

The KONOse is an extension of the KONO smart suite of products for commercial facilities. To increase visibility, Johnson Controls designed the KONOse with larger primary and secondary digits as well as enhanced backlight options for ideal viewing in all environments.

When it comes to ease of use, large icons on the KONOse like a flame and snowflake call out heating and cooling functions, while an “emergency heat” function visible only to facility managers allows for passive monitoring. Users can rotate the thermostat’s dial to easily adjust the set temperature or push the dial to change HVAC modes. While adjusting the set temperature, the KONOse displays the new temperature as well as the current HVAC mode to ensure the user is setting the temperature in the right direction. These intuitive settings and tactile feedback are specifically tuned to users who have limited fine motor skills.

And on the connectivity front, the KONOse offers a host of features to help facility managers and residents alike effortlessly control comfort and savings. It leverages the power of the Z-wave smart home technology hub, allowing managers to easily connect all smart devices throughout the facility. The thermostat is also compatible with the LUX app so users can make temperature and scheduling adjusts from any device.

Through Johnson Controls design partnership with K4Connect, the LUX KONOse is now part of the most advanced enterprise technology solution in senior living. Built specifically for residents, staff and operators, K4Connect helps deliver a great experience for residents while providing insights to help operators improve their overall business health.

“Our K4Labs team tests hundreds of IoT devices for older adult-friendly design and functionality to ultimately determine the devices we prefer to integrate with,” said Derek Holt, executive vice president of development and chief operating officer at K4Connect. “It was exciting to work with Johnson Controls to design the KONOse and we look forward to bringing it to senior living communities across the nation.”

The LUX KONOse is available now through K4Connect dealers. To learn more, visit pro.LUXProducts.com/KONOse

About Johnson Controls
At Johnson Controls, we transform the environments where people live, work, learn and play. From optimizing building performance to improving safety and enhancing comfort, we drive the outcomes that matter most. We deliver our promise in industries such as healthcare, education, data centers and manufacturing. With a global team of 105,000 experts in more than 150 countries and over 130 years of innovation, we are the power behind our customers’ mission. Our leading portfolio of building technology and solutions includes some of the most trusted names in the industry, such as Tyco®, York®, Metasys®, Ruskin®, Titus®, Frick®, Penn®, Sabroe®, Simplex®, Ansul® and Grinnell®. For more information, visit www.johnsoncontrols.com or follow us @johnsoncontrols on Twitter

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Raleigh Tech Company Sees Business Boom 500% – Here’s Why

Our K4Community technology is meeting the demands for more social interaction while high-risk senior populations will be facing increased isolation during the coronavirus pandemic.

By: Seth Gulledge

April 23, 2020

For the duration of the coronavirus pandemic, high-risk senior populations will be facing increased isolation – a problem that a Triangle tech company is looking to solve.

And now, its business is exploding like never before.

Raleigh-based K4Connect has been developing a suite of senior-living solutions for years, including its K4Community Platform – which integrates the latest smart home and health technologies into a user interface designed for senior living residents and staff.

It started 2020 with big expectations, believing it could double the users on its platform for the second consecutive year due to demand growing for at-home technology solutions for seniors.

And that was before Covid-19 forced the world into home isolation and lockdown – especially for older populations that are most at risk to the virus.

According to CEO Scott Moody – formerly credited for the TouchID technology bought out by Apple – the company has gone from serving about 125 communities two months ago to more than 800 now. It has also increased its staff by about 10 percent to accommodate for the new growth.

 

Moody says that while the company was steadily growing and its value-proposition was always clear to those in the Industry, the sudden change in reality has made their value much more apparent and urgent.

“It’s all the sudden much more of a necessity,” Moody says. “We went from a ‘nice to have’ … to now understanding ‘wait a minute we have to have this.'”

Looking to cater to the demand for service to combat isolation and loneliness caused by the pandemic – which Moody notes has been shown to be as negative of a factor for health as smoking – the company has now also rolled out a new application “taking the best experiences of today’s popular social media platforms and integrating them into a sophisticated application.”

“It came from this whole thesis around engagement and combating isolation and loneliness, which is a big issue,” he says.

He says their platform differs from many popular social media models in so much that instead of driving engagement on the app – in order to sell advertising – the platform is designed to encourage personal engagement with other users, such as communicating and signing up for activities with each other.

The new software was already being developed by the company, but was expedited to serve customers during the pandemic.

“Isolation is one of the more significant challenges they’re facing today,” Moody says. “Which is why our expediting and releasing K4Community Plus now to better support them was incredibly important to us.”

He says they are in conversations about how to incorporate some telemedicine applications into their technology, seeing the company’s platform as an existing video and health integration opportunity that other telemedicine companies could plug into.

Read the story on Triangle Business Journal, here!

New App will Help Seniors Counter Isolation During Pandemic, says Raleigh’s K4Connect

K4Connect is determined to redefine the digital experience for older adults in senior living, especially now during COVID-19.

By: WRAL TechWire

April 23, 2020

K4Connect is determined to redefine the digital experience for older adults in senior living, especially now during COVID-19. And it’s offering technology to senior centers right now free of charge in the firm’s latest effort targeting the impact of the pandemic.

Senior and assisted living centers have emerged as one of the most damaging “hot spots” for COVID-19 with access to residents often limited by restrictions on visitors.

K4Community Plus, its new resident app launched this week that takes some of what it considers the “best experiences” of today’s popular social media platforms and integrating them into a sophisticated application specifically designed for them.

K4Connect’s new app

“Our company exists to serve older adults through technology that adds value to their lives. This mission has never been more important than right now as older adults – and the senior living communities serving them – are turning to technology solutions to help manage the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic,” says K4Connect CEO and Co-Founder, F. Scott Moody.

 

 

“K4Community Plus brings material present day utility to senior living, enabling communities and their residents to truly connect, communicate and engage in secure, meaningful ways both in and outside of the communities they live in. Isolation is one of the more significant challenges they’re facing today, which is why our expediting and releasing K4Community Plus now to better support them was incredibly important to us.”

The Raleigh-based company creates technology solutions centered to help older adults and individuals with disabilities. It currently serves tens of thousands of senior living residents at 800 premier continuing care, independent living, assisted living and memory care communities across the nation.

The app allows community residents to connect with family and friends, engage and socialize with their community and fellow residents, as well as control their smart living environments all from their personal devices.

Several senior living communities beta tested the new application. As one White Horse Village resident observed: “This technology is the future!”

To help seniors and centers, K4Connect is offering remote installation of K4Community Plus to any senior living community at no cost for the coming months.

Recently K4Connect also launched additional entertainment options for its users.

Read the story on WRAL TechWire, here!