QinKeshi Expands Integrated Smart Elder Care Solutions to North America

“The elderly care industry is the last sector in China that can capitalize on the demographic dividend.”

Smart elderly care falls under the domain of application-oriented innovation, leveraging existing technologies and reconfiguring them for the specific scenario of elder care. Meanwhile, it constitutes a form of peripheral innovation that integrates technologies such as integrated circuits, the Internet of Things (IoT), and cloud computing, alongside innovations in data algorithms, to collect and analyze data on older adults’ behaviors and physiological signs.

Shanghai Wanfeng Information Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Qinkeshi”) was founded in 2013, initially focusing on video security solutions before transitioning in 2015 to the research and development of intelligent aging-care solutions. Zhang Yu, General Manager of Qinkeshi, recalled, “2015 was a year of major consolidation for the video security industry, resulting in an oligopolistic market structure. For small enterprises like ours, it was a matter of proactively transforming or being eliminated by the market.”

Seizing this opportunity, the team proactively pivoted toward smart elderly care by leveraging its technological DNA, market insights, and investor support. After three years of dedicated R&D, Qin Keshi launched an integrated hardware-software solution, focusing on the design, deployment, and promotion of intelligent elderly care products, platforms, and solutions.

Since its promotion in the second half of 2018, QinKeshi has cumulatively sold more than 20,000 units, with sales covering over 20 provinces and municipalities across China and serving more than 300 institutions.

From 2015 to 2018, Qin Keshi dedicated three years to research and development, continuously iterating its product portfolio. Leveraging the team’s technical expertise in video surveillance, Qin Keshi initially developed a monitoring camera, and subsequently launched additional products including sleep monitoring, digital call systems, and mobile positioning solutions.

Zhang Yu stated that during the R&D process, Qin Keshi placed particular emphasis on communicating with users to understand their expectations and usage patterns, as well as to assess their capabilities and habits. To facilitate user experience, Qin Keshi launched a combined hardware-and-software solution that pushes data and information generated by hardware devices to corresponding application systems, enabling seniors, family members, and care institutions to access details more conveniently.

“We visited numerous elderly care facilities and found that some had multiple monitoring systems in place—for health, physical activity, caregiver performance, and more—with a variety of software applications running on their computers,” said Zhang Yu. “At the time, we wondered whether we could develop an integrated solution to address these challenges holistically for our clients.”

Qin Keshi comprehensively reviews products on the market designed for the elderly, categorizing them into five major systems: Care Monitoring System, Call System, Health Management System, Safety System, and Location Tracking System. These five systems synchronously collect various data in real time, aggregate it, and sync it to the cloud. After comprehensively processing data from multiple devices, the cloud platform identifies abnormal conditions in the elderly, converts them into alert information, and promptly forwards this information to all relevant personnel.

Zhang Yu stated that Qin Keshi’s products can be flexibly configured according to different application scenarios and objectives, making them suitable for government agencies, home-based elderly care, community-based elderly care, and elderly care institutions. By using Qin Keshi’s products, the government can monitor care institutions and the living status of the elderly, as well as oversee the volume of life safety services, service qualification rates, and compliance in the allocation of fiscal subsidies. Enterprises (including those operating in home-based, community-based, and institutional care) can monitor the real-time activities of the elderly to ensure their safety.

In Zhang Yu’s view, Qin Keshi has three core advantages:

Advantages of Integration: Qin Keshi integrates five major systems—caregiving, call, health, safety, and positioning—to facilitate customer use; in this integrated state, cross-analysis of device data provides higher availability assurance and enhanced data service capabilities.

Advantages of the Concept: Compared to other smart products, Qin Keshi’s product design philosophy focuses more on the needs and usage habits of the elderly, making it better suited for integration with elderly care services. Qin Keshi places greater emphasis on developing non-contact, low-maintenance, and operation-free unobtrusive smart devices, allowing seniors to enjoy the convenience brought by smart technology without even realizing it.

Cost Advantage: Independent R&D and OEM production of core products, combined with the flexible and open integration of mature, high-quality market offerings such as blood pressure monitors and gas alarms, enable Qin Keshi’s smart elderly care solutions to achieve total costs significantly below the market average. Flexible configuration and device reusability are also key drivers of this cost advantage. In an elderly care household, only one device requires internet connectivity, while other devices simply push data to this central unit. In addition to its own operations, this device also serves as the gateway for all smart home devices.

Furthermore, in elderly care institutions, Qin Keshi integrates call devices with positioning devices into a single unit, reducing the cost of positioning network deployment to nearly zero. It is reported that the average cost per bed for the complete solution (comprising five major systems) is kept under RMB 2,500.

Moreover, the pricing for the SaaS services provided after product purchase is highly competitive. Recognizing that many elderly households lack Wi-Fi connectivity, Qin Keshi charges an annual service and data fee of only RMB 30 per household for its smart eldercare devices.

Zhang Yu stated that QinKeshi currently relies primarily on hardware sales, supplemented by modest service fees. Since entering the market in the second half of 2018, QinKeshi recorded sales of RMB 2 million in that six-month period and RMB 8 million in 2019. Its products have now been sold to more than 20 provinces and municipalities across China, serving nearly 300 institutions.

In terms of market development, QinKeshi primarily emphasizes three key points:

Deep Collaboration: Qingkeshi will communicate and collaborate with elderly care institutions on scenario design, addressing pain points, and R&D recommendations, striving for continuous improvement;

Flexible Services:QinKeshi features hardware, software, and a platform, with highly flexible service models;

"Grow Together with Our Clients": The elderly care industry exhibits significant fragmentation, with all service enterprises still in their early stages of development. Meanwhile, the practical implementation and application of smart elderly care are merely at a nascent stage. Qin Keshi possesses the patience to grow alongside its customers.

In terms of future planning, in 2020, Qin Keshi will participate in government-led age-friendly renovation projects with its smart elderly care products, while also increasing R&D and marketing investments in community-based elderly care. Moving forward, Qin Keshi will leverage new technologies such as 5G to further deepen and refine its product offerings. Additionally, in the market sector, Qin Keshi has already completed sample testing and cloud platform integration with clients in North America, Western Europe, and other regions, and will continue to expand its overseas market presence.