After his graduation at Erasmus, Maarten de Boo helped set up Dutch Domotics: a company focused on innovative health-care solutions and thereby great addition to the companies moving to the completely renovated 10th floor of the ECE Campus!

What kind of innovative health-care solutions does Dutch Domotics provide?

Simply put we develop sensor networks for health-care institutions. We do this based on data that can accurately define if people need care, and are mainly aimed at long-term elderly care. We are already working together with 12 health-care institutions to provide them with live information about the wellbeing of their residents, and right now we are also working on a second product line: a remote monitoring system that uses small, unobtrusive sensors to help you keep a caring eye on elderly family members and friends who live on their own.

It is small box with sensors that you can plug into a house and monitor via an app on your phone. This lets you keep track of whether the person who is being monitored is eating well, goes outside, has fallen – notifying you of ‘suspicious inactivity’ or lifestyle changes that may be the result of an accident or illness.

Since each person is different, the system needs about a two week learning period in order to accurately identify subsequent deviations in behavior and avoid ‘false-positives’. It is quite a revolution in providing care for people! The sensor systems are changing the way people interact with technology and the technology is changing the way people interact with people. You trust systems instead of your own eye. This alters the behavior of nurses, caretakers and family freeing up time for really providing care instead of constantly worrying.

How did the idea for this develop?

The idea for Dutch Domotics actually started 3 years ago and developed as a spin-off of a TNO research project that lasted over 12 years. We are moving to a society where ¼ people are 65+, which is an age group that is prone to accidents. So with people living longer and the amount of elderly growing, the cost for watching and caring for them is also increasing. The only solution for this is technology; we need to make use of technology to watch their safety. So we developed a product for this and brought it to the market.

Which markets have you been targeting?

So far our sensor systems has been met with quite a broad interest; it seems to be a global need that is not only confined to the Netherlands. However the Netherlands is a good starting point. There is a very innovative climate here and plenty of interested parties. In any case we designed our products so that they can easily be shipped in a box to outside of the Netherlands and we already did successful pilot tests abroad (in Germany, England, and China). Our goal is to go global!

What kind of reactions are you getting from the elderly?

Some elderly are very proud that their children care so much and it gives them a safe feeling that if something happens to them it will sound an alarm, while others feel it can be a bit intrusive. We did lots of in-depth interviews with elderly people and with human interaction designers. What we discovered is that despite being older, in their minds many elderly do not feel old. Sure, they need help and assistance, but they don’t want to receive the stamp of being “old”. And we also don’t want to give them such a stamp since what we offer is all about living – it is a lifestyle product. My own grandparents have it installed, relatives of investors and colleagues are also using it and every time you have a conversation with a random person they say, “ Oh, this is really something for (insert the blank).”. Everyone knows a family member/neighbor or someone they care about who would benefit from our products and overall the reactions are very positive.

Great! Are there any competitors out there?

Well there is lots of turbulence in the market. Politics are changing and it is hard to see what the long term plans are. In that sense it is not easy to predict how many people will be going to nursing homes. But the need for a technological solution is clear and there are plenty of companies that think it is easy to link some sensors together and notify people of an emergency. Competitors often come from a technological background, they are not software development companies and therefore don’t have the skill to build a strong software team.

That is what we do differently. We have a great team and go out there, talk to nurses, interview elderly and do our best to build a user-friendly interface. We look at the needs first and then create a design. We believe you need a good user experience and you don’t necessarily have to measure it all- as long as you can communicate it well, design it well and listen to the users a lot. So instead of basing our concept on tech-push focused on developing sensors, we are more oriented towards a solution-pull with our main focus being the algorithm and software development to improve the quality of life of our customers. Plus the people in our team are really socially responsible and want to make a difference. Our long-term vision is that we want a design that will work well for people, and a lot of research goes into that. And so far all our customers are very satisfied. We have had zero false-alarms and zero emergency situations have been missed.

And you are situated right here at the ECE! Why did you choose the ECE Campus?

First of all the location is great in terms of accessibility. It is well connected to main roads, trains, and has great parking facilities. Plus the community here is very interesting for us. There are lots of companies (unfortunately not any other e-health companies yet!) but in general the ECE is a great place to meet people and also receive some coaching. By being here we often get introduced to other interesting parties, for example the Innovation Quarter and the Chamber of Commerce. It is a fantastic place for networking and it would be nice to see more e-health companies here.