Pontosense founder Alex Qi holds a Silver Shield monitoring device, which is powered by radar technology and AI algorithms.Jenna Marie Wakani/The Globe and Mail
For years, the trade-off in caring for aging loved ones has felt stark: safety or privacy, but rarely both. Families want reassurance that an elderly parent living alone hasn’t fallen, wandered or quietly slipped into distress. But the tools available – cameras, wearable trackers, constant check-ins – can feel intrusive at best and dehumanizing at worst. For older adults already grappling with a loss of independence, being watched can feel like a second erosion.
Today, a new wave of technology is helping Canadian companies reimagine elder care. For example, Pontosense is a Toronto-based company using AI-powered radar sensing to monitor movement without capturing any visual or audio data. Its system, called Silver Shield, tracks patterns – how someone moves through their home, how often they get up at night, whether something seems off – and flags anomalies that might signal danger. The pitch is simple: peace of mind, without surveillance.
“It’s not too different than Wi-Fi signals in your home,” says Alex Qi, CEO of Pontosense.
Essentially, Silver Shield is a radar that can be placed on the wall in the corner of any room. It uses wireless signals to detect people in that room and presents each of them as dots on a screen. It can’t detect what those people are doing exactly, but it can detect falls and pick up on heart rate, unstable gait and offer sleep analytics. Mr. Qi says much of the data is processed locally (“on the edge”), limiting what is sent to the cloud and reducing the risk of exposure. It’s also HIPAA-compliant (a U.S. standard for protecting sensitive health information); the company is audited every two weeks to ensure this.
“[Families] are worried about Big Brother, but the moment they see how the technology works, they’re like, ‘I get it, this is cool,’” Mr. Qi says.
He adds that the technology is deeply personal for him. He and his wife lost three grandparents to falls while alone in their homes. And in fact, falls are the leading cause of injury-related death, hospitalization and fatal injury for adults aged 65 and older in Canada.
The transformation of elder care
The appeal of technologies like this is growing quickly. Pontosense operates in 22 countries, working with home care agencies and partners across North America, Europe and Asia. The rapid expansion reflects a broader shift: as populations age, families and health systems alike are scrambling for scalable ways to provide care.
Alex Mihailidis is scientific director at AGE-WELL, a federally funded technology network that brings together researchers, older adults, caregivers and industry partners to develop technologies to help senior maintain their independence and quality of life.
As a caregiver to his own parents, Mr. Mihailidis says he uses various smart systems to equip their home. The most effective? A smart washer and dryer.
“I get an alert every time my parents do their laundry, and I know that they do their laundry every Saturday morning,” he says. “If I don’t get that alert one Saturday morning, then I know I need to check in with them, because there’s a difference in their routine.”
Mr. Mihailidis says the vision of these technologies is that they eventually become invisible, blending into your home’s architecture and décor – into the flooring, the walls and the furniture.
The ‘fine line’ between safety and autonomy
Despite technological advances, even the most privacy-conscious design can’t eliminate the underlying discomfort individuals may feel about being monitored, says Lili Liu, a professor at the University of Waterloo who studies aging and technology adoption.
“There is a fine line between autonomy, privacy and monitoring,” she says. “Once you send these alerts out, they make an already vulnerable person more vulnerable by labeling them.”
In other words, some level of trade-off is inevitable. The question, then, is how to manage the tech responsibly. It’s why Dr. Liu advocates for systems that are opt-in, minimally invasive and governed by clear standards that balance safety with privacy protections.
Mr. Mihailidis notes that many of these technologies currently fall into a regulatory grey area, which is something that Toronto-based AGE-WELL is working on rectifying with the federal government. He also wants to ease the financial burden.
“If we put smart home systems in a house, there’s no tax credit,” Mr. Mihailidis says. “They’re paying out of pocket.”
This means that it’s only a certain part of the population who gets access to innovative tools like these. As an example, Pontosense’s Silver Shield costs $380 CAD per unit. Other similar systems, like Naviva or Ring Alarm, cost anywhere from $200 to over $1,000.
Dr. Liu also cautions that innovation without integration can fall flat. “Often, they fail because companies haven’t worked with the end users from the very beginning. You can have a fantastic device, but if it’s left behind because the actual user doesn’t want to carry it, then it’s not going to [succeed].”
The solution, she suggests, is better governance: anonymization, collaboration and shared frameworks that allow insights without compromising individuals’ privacy. Mr. Mihailidis adds that seniors simply need control, whether that’s through being a part of research and design teams or understanding how they can turn the technology on and off.
What the future looks like
Despite potential challenges, the trajectory is clear: monitoring technologies will become more predictive, more integrated and more invisible. Mr. Mihailidis imagines a world where homes themselves act as caregivers, quietly observing, learning and intervening when needed. Mr. Qi says early warning systems are the next frontier, where more digital tools will detect and anticipate emergencies and long-term health issues.
This shift from reactive care to continuous, ambient monitoring could fundamentally reshape how aging is managed. It could also ease the burden and burnout for caregivers, many of whom juggle jobs, families and long-distance responsibilities.
“Caregivers are not there 24/7,” Mr. Qi says. “This is for families looking to adapt to that.”