Key findings

• While some participants appreciated the more complex devices, some found that this inhibited care as they differed too much from their established (e.g. analog or telecare) care practices.
• We analysed how multimodal commercial devices helped with activities of daily living in ways that could help reduce some care burdens:

Care Work they can assist with:

• Step by step support for tasks 
• Scheduling
• Providing well-being 
• Checking-In
• Procurement and information Seeking
• Emergency support

Care work they cannot do:

• Completing tasks 
• Consequential administration
• Providing human contact
• Providing reassurance
• Procuring local resources
• Emergency support device reliance

• While other researchers have noted that telecare systems can shift care network dynamics and responsibilities, this shift can occur during the initial onboarding process (this is the process of familiarising a user with a new technology).
• Commerical technologies when marketing and onboarding their device or system to help with care typically use terms like independence, peace of mind, and safety. We found that this language can sometimes be misleading and cause users to set expectations for the device that are unrealistic.
• Limitations of technology resulted in established collaborative care networks to be replaced by a new hierarchy of care that formed around the system. Those monitored by the system, i.e., those receiving care, had the least control, then informal and formal carers, and finally, the technologists had the most control.
• Finally, since “home technologies” particularly commercial technologies like the ones we studied affect the entire home ecosystem, not just a specific location, we found that informal carers need to be equally engaged prior to use and adoption during onboarding and within the marketing of these devices.