□ Yang Bo

Not long ago, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) officially released the international standard for pension robots led by China, which provides a benchmark for the design, manufacturing, testing and certification of various pension robot products.

Is the era of robot pension coming? A senior industry insider predicts that in the next 5 years or so, companion pension robots will enter the family; The elderly care robot, which can provide nursing services for the disabled and semi-disabled elderly like professional caregivers, is expected to enter the family in about 0 years.

The sun and the moon are like shuttles, time is like arrows, and the light of the future is shining in the present. At present, the landing scene of exoskeleton robots is gradually expanding from industry to the field of elderly care. In addition to assisting caregivers to move the elderly with limited mobility, exoskeleton robots can also help the elderly with cerebral infarction to rehabilitate and resume walking. However, is the pension robot reliable? Not really. Compared with the generally high price and insufficient supporting services, the obstacles to the development of elderly care robots are mainly manifested in the inability to accurately focus on the pain points. This means that at the beginning of product design, some smart pension products are defective. For example, some mobility robots still need the assistance of a caregiver when they are used, and they need to pay an additional fee for use; In the face of the disabled elderly who are difficult to turn their necks, the feeding robot "can't find its mouth" from time to time; Some smart devices frequently prompt upgrades, and after upgrading, they have to re-enter the username and password, which makes the forgetful elderly feel troublesome...... It is conceivable that if the pain point becomes a blind spot, the robot pension will encounter a blockage.

To a certain extent, "pain point thinking" is the key to the prosperity and development of robot pension. The so-called pain point thinking is to pay attention to the troubles and troubles in the user experience and solve the problems in a targeted manner. But in fact, many smart pension products are just by-products of the development of smart devices, and often have products first before looking for application opportunities in the pension scene. For example, in the field of smart rehabilitation, quite a number of products are suitable for both young and old, and there is a lack of a special "elderly version" on the market. Some companies work behind closed doors in R&D, or even take it for granted to lock in demand points, only to see the icing on the cake as a send-off. No wonder some people sigh, looking at the home robots busy serving tea and pouring water at major exhibitions, they don't know when they will be able to help the elderly climb high and step low.

An important question is, in what kind of environment will smart pension be realized? The Department of Aging and Health of the National Health Commission has summarized China's pension model as a "3" pattern, with about 0% of the elderly caring for the elderly at home, about 0% of the elderly relying on community support for the elderly, and 0% of the elderly living in institutions for the elderly. In these scenarios, people remain indispensable as important caregivers. Looking at the future of smart elderly care, robots will not completely replace people. Therefore, the innovation in the field of robot pension is actually carried out in the context of human-machine collaboration. How to solve the problem of human-machine collaboration in smart elderly care is probably one of the main pain points of current innovation.

The spring of robot pension has just arrived. Only by continuously focusing on the pain points of the pension industry and running the concept of "customer first" through the whole process of R&D, manufacturing and sales, can we effectively prevent the phenomenon of "the sunrise industry has not seen the sunrise", and make the smart pension truly realize from "have" to "excellent".

(According to Guangzhou Daily)