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May 24, 2021

Guest Blog: 5G And Its Impact On The Service Robotics Industry

This guest blog comes from Tim Morgan, COO of Service Robotics, and co-inventor of GenieConnect®, a voice-enabled companion robot designed to improve the quality of life and alleviate loneliness for older adults.

The implementation and roll out of 5G has huge potential for the development of Service Robotics’ products and business. We developed GenieConnect® after realising the impact that loneliness and isolation has on older adults, seeing it first-hand with close relatives.

The pandemic has shifted focus onto the impact of isolation and loneliness as an urgent general issue, not only limited to the elderly, and the technology solutions available to address it.

GenieConnect® works within a user’s home to enable video calling, interactive healthcare and welfare monitoring, medication and appointment reminders amongst other services. It also offers tailored entertainment content.

It combines user preferences and machine learning, to enable the robot to identify and provide content personalised to each user. It enables connectivity to a “circle of care” comprised of friends and family using companion apps, and to other robots - allowing those living alone or in sheltered accommodation to communicate and socialise virtually with others who share their interests.

A care centre underpins the offering.

The Potential of 5G

5G will further enable this connectivity, as it provides the capacity for the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and increased speed and low latency (end-to-end communication delay), and will improve the user experience and support the speed of machine learning processing and feedback.

GenieConnect© runs effectively on 3/4G access points, so our market rollout is going well, however, we will use embedded eSIM for 4G/5G, as 5G will enable our Internet of Things capabilities to be fully realised.

The promise of 5G expands far beyond handheld devices; the benefits of machine-to-machine transactions, and the increasing volume and improvement of these transactions provides an optimistic technology led future. GenieConnect® is designed to talk to wireless devices around the home such as motion sensors and smart devices in a monitoring capacity, so increased speed will make this much easier. 5G will be ideal for mesh nets; networks with no central point but instead multiple points of connection, and improve in-building coverage, which is particularly relevant in care homes and sheltered accommodation developments. As we move forward with research and development in this area 5G will allow us to develop enhanced feature sets and offer additional services to our customers.

As a professional with many years in the telecoms industry, I can see a multitude of benefits from 5G, not least to my own business.

5G Misinformation

I am saddened by the misinformation and conspiracy theories related to 5G we often see circulating online, many of which are quite simply bonkers. These notions are often uninformed, without sound scientific basis, when 5G brings such promise and can help to improve the lives of so many people”

For more information on the GenieConnect©, please visit Home | Service Robotics Limited (GenieConnect.co.uk)

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