Market Size and Policy
The National Bureau of Statistics counted 297 million people aged 60 and over at the end of 2023, 21.1% of the population, and the share is still rising. iResearch's 2024 China Smart Elderly Care Industry Research Report puts the 2023 market at about RMB 5.2 trillion, and expects it to pass RMB 7.5 trillion by 2027, a compound growth rate of about 9.6%. The 14th Five-Year Plan for National Aging Programs and the Elderly Care Service System calls for smart elder care, and for IoT, artificial intelligence, and 5G in that work, so that home, community, and institutional care line up, and medical care sits alongside wellness care.
Three Settings, and Where They Stick
Smart elder care covers the home, the community, and the care institution. Wearables, smart mattresses, emergency calls, and room sensors watch health, warn of a fall, and flag unusual behavior. The hard parts are these. Devices are scattered and hard to maintain. A care home and a private flat both have many endpoints, and a fault is still found by a person walking the site. The data does not join up. Health, safety, and service records sit apart, so there is no single picture of the person. Privacy and compliance. Health data and location are sensitive, and they have to follow the Personal Information Protection Law and the rules that cover medical data.
Standards and Terms
Relevant standards include the GB/T 38626 series, Smart elderly care — home health monitoring; MZ/T 032, Basic safety specification for elderly care institutions; GB/T 35796, Basic specification for service quality in elderly care institutions; and WS 363, Catalogue of health information data elements. Terms in daily use: NB-IoT (narrowband IoT, for low-power devices such as a wristband or a smoke alarm); LoRa (long-range, low-power radio, for indoor location and room sensing); BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy, between a wearable and a phone or gateway); M2M (machine-to-machine exchange with the cloud).
Who Builds It
The chain runs from chip modules through wearables and sensors (Andon Health, Yuwell, and Lifesense) to care platforms (Ankangtong, Maimai, and Fushoukang) and the connectivity layer. Ankangtong, Maimai, and Fushoukang lead the platform side. Andon and Yuwell build the health monitors. Huawei and Xiaomi sell elder-friendly smart-home gear. An NB-IoT device uplinks at about 250 Kbps, the heartbeat can be set from 1 to 24 hours, and the battery can last 2 to 5 years. 4G Cat.1 fits a video call or a live location fix, with latency under 500 ms.
Where It Has Been Used
One city's home-care pilot gave NB-IoT wristbands and smoke alarms to 5,000 older households. An abnormal heart rate, a fall, or smoke goes to the family and to the platform on its own, and the response fell from about 30 minutes to under 3 minutes. A care-home chain fitted 4G room sensors and smart mattresses in 20 branches. Temperature, humidity, and bed-exit readings land on one platform, and nursing headcount came down by about 25%.
Where IoT Is Used
Health monitoring: Wristbands, blood-pressure meters, and glucose meters report heart rate, blood pressure, and sleep over 4G/5G or NB-IoT, and an abnormal reading raises an alarm. A smart mattress watches sleep quality and warns when someone leaves the bed.
Safety watch: Fall detection, an emergency button, and gas or smoke alarms push a notice to the family, the carer, or the platform. Indoor location, by UWB or Bluetooth beacons, helps keep a person with dementia from wandering off.
The room and the equipment: Temperature, humidity, air quality, and light sensors sit on the network, and the air conditioner and curtains follow them. Run state is watched from afar, so a fault is flagged before a visit is required.
Where the Market Is Heading
Home devices keep spreading, and age-friendly refits are being planned together with the smart-care kit. Medical care and elder care are drawing closer, and health data is being shared with hospitals and chronic-disease platforms. AI on the IoT link is starting to read behavior, spot an anomaly, and estimate risk. Large type and voice control are becoming standard. Privacy computing and federated learning are how operators keep that analysis inside the rules.
Summary
An aging population makes connected care hard to avoid, and the link is what puts the wristband, the mattress, and the alarm on one watch list. SimtoLink supplies 4G/5G and NB-IoT SIM cards and communication modules for these devices, with intelligent switching across operators, so a home or a care home does not lose the signal overnight.