MPERS

San Diego-based GreatCall — an old guard digital health company which started out making smartphones for seniors in 2006 but now offers a suite of connected safety products and services for aging in place individuals — has been acquired by retail chain Best Buy for $800 million.

Trumbull, Connecticut-based FallCall Solutions has raised a sub-$1 million seed round from Connecticut Ventures to develop a pure software-based Personal Emergency Response System (PERS) for the Apple Watch.

Nortek Security and Control (NSC), which bought mPERS and telehealth company Numera Libris this past summer, has announced the first new product from the Numera brand post-acquisition.

The global mobile health market is expected to top $49 billion by 2020, according to research firm Grand View Research, which made the same prediction 18 months ago.

Seattle, Washington-based Numera, a longtime mobile health company that offers mobile personal emergency response devices as well as other telehealth tools, has had its mPERS and telehealth assets acquired by Carlsbad, California-based Nortek Security and Control.

The Senate Special Committee on Aging held a hearing yesterday to learn about the potential of aging in place technologies, including sensors and wearables.

San Diego, California-based GreatCall, which makes easy to use smartphones and flip phones for seniors, has added automated fall detection to GreatCall Splash, the company's waterproof mobile personal emergency response (mPERS) device.

A wearable device with an emergency button, from Lifecomm.

Philips has finally launched its cellular-enabled, mobile personal emergency response system (mPERS) device GoSafe, which was first announced at CES 2013 with an expected launch of March 2013.

Philips Lifeline, the electronics giants' longstanding personal emergency response brand for seniors, has launched its first-ever app that acts like an mPERS.