It really shouldn’t be a surprise that Florida would be a testbed for senior assistive technologies. But Bloomberg reports that Sarasota County, Florida — which has the highest concentration of seniors of any significant county — is apparently focused on becoming just that.

The story details several startups that are trying out products in Sarasota, where a third of the population is 65 or older.  It focuses on the start-up Lively, which has built a system of motion sensors that of whether things like the TV remote, pillboxes or the front door have been moved.

Most seniors would rather not give up the keys to the car — not surprising in a society built around roads and automobiles. But the road presents particular problems for seniors. Night driving is particularly hard, according to a survey done by The Hartford insurance company, as are distractions and even lane changes and merges.

Like most insurance companies, The Hartford has a vested interest in keeping people safe. Its list of 10 technologies that are especially helpful to seniors is instructive. It includes

• “Smart” headlights
• Emergency notification systems, like OnStar
• Blind spot warnings
• Lane departure warnings

It’s an interesting list. Read the article.

This article had us with this snippet:

Using 10 years of data, which amounts to over 10,000 recordings of various people’s breathing…

BreathResearch has a KickStarter campaign to raise $30,000 to build a Bluetooth smartphone headset that also tracks the sound of your breath. The interesting idea is that your breath is an important indicator of your health; by comparing how you’re breathing with population-normal activities as well as your own history, you’ll be able to anticipate or help diagnose health problems.

Kind of cool. We wonder if the headset’s the important part, or if this could work with a more conventional Bluetooth…