Introduction
According to the "China Smart Elderly Care Equipment White Paper" by the 2025 Year Leopard Research Institute, China's smart elderly care industry has surpassed 6.8 trillion yuan, with smart elderly care equipment growing at an annual rate of 21.2%, and a marketing scale of 1560 billion yuan in 2024.
A $0 trillion market and 1 billion smart devices: the anti-lost niche has been pitched for over a decade, yet no dominant leader has emerged—and not even a near-monopolist. The market is huge, demand is clear, and the technology exists. So where's the real problem?
In this piece, we break down the data to reveal the real operating conditions of industry players. Drawing on Kome's decade of experience in this field, we explore why this market is "loud but fragmented" and what kind of companies will ultimately survive.
Who captured the 6.8 trillion-dollar pie? Digging deeper, structural dispersion is the real story.
Take a look at these figures: the smart elderly care equipment market size was approximately 2024 billion yuan in 1560, with an annual compound growth rate of about 21.2% (Source: Headland Research Institute). The data is hot, but 1560 billion is not something one company can capture on its own. Breaking it down, there are four distinct segments: equipment manufacturing, information services, institutional operations, and community services. Players in each segment are predominantly small and medium-sized technology companies.
There are over 3 thousand companies in this niche, but only a handful have truly taken root and built barriers in specific scenarios.
A critical insight: The bottleneck in the anti-lost positioning sector isn't technology—it's fit. We haven't yet found an efficient way to align products with their use cases. This doesn't mean there's no demand; on the contrary, it's growing daily. Fragmented scenarios, inconsistent policies, and misaligned payers versus users have prevented the market from reaching a tipping point. Hype is superficial; differentiation is the reality.
The real bottleneck in the industry isn't technology—it's understanding scenarios and closing the value loop.
After over a decade in the industry, what's your biggest takeaway? Technology keeps evolving, but the real challenge isn't technical—it's about solving for specific use cases.
The first layer addresses the challenge of making seniors willing to wear it.No matter how advanced the device is, it's useless if seniors don't wear it. Early industry thinking focused on "how to make devices more wearable," but after years of development, we realized the real issue isn't whether they wear them—it's whether the devices are useful. When smart bands evolve from simple location trackers into health companions that monitor heart rate, blood pressure, and blood oxygen, seniors can see their own data trends. This shifts their mindset from passive compliance to active engagement. This isn't a technical challenge; it's a product positioning problem.
The second layer addresses the issue of "separation between payer and user."Children need peace of mind, seniors need comfort and freedom, and facilities need cost-effective, hassle-free solutions. To satisfy all three parties with a single product, this triangular relationship must be addressed during the product definition phase. The solution: avoid building a standalone monitoring tool; instead, deliver an integrated "Health + Safety" package. It provides real-time location tracking, shares vital signs to keep families informed about well-being, and boosts facility efficiency through a SaaS management dashboard. When each party gets what they need, the product truly succeeds.
The third layer is about whether the "technical boundaries" are honest.A common pitfall in this industry is vendors overselling product capabilities to win deals. However, B2B clients are the hardest to mislead; once a project goes live, capability limits become immediately apparent. Whether it's false alarm rates for fall detection, the accuracy gap between wrist-worn blood pressure monitors and medical-grade devices, or indoor-outdoor positioning coverage solutions—these realities lie beyond what's listed in product manuals. They emerge only through repeated on-site tuning. Clearly defining technical boundaries builds more trust than hiding them.
Kemei's Decade: From Equipment to Solutions, from Technical Capability to Scenario Understanding
Komei started developing positioning hardware in 2006 and entered the elderly care sector in 2016.
Many assume senior care solutions are simply "a wearable + a backend." But after a decade in the industry, we know the real barrier isn't the hardware itself—it's understanding the use cases. A nursing home environment is fundamentally different from a mine: seniors won't follow device manuals, maintenance teams vary widely in capability, and regulatory requirements differ significantly by region.
Kome's solution addresses several core needs of nursing homes: ** integrated indoor/outdoor positioning via Beidou + Bluetooth**, wearable bracelets with heart rate, blood pressure, and SpO2 monitoring, one-touch SOS alerts, all managed through a centralized SaaS platform. But what truly sets our value apart is over a decade of on-site IoT positioning experience—knowing which precision level fits each scenario, anticipating when devices may fail, and aligning workflows seamlessly with the positioning system. These insights aren't derived from labs; they're forged through years of real-world collaboration with clients.
To put it plainly: Kome isn't building a generic positioning product; it's developing positioning capabilities designed to work effectively in real-world elderly care scenarios.
We see great potential in this market, but we chose the harder path.
Back to the original question: The market is huge, so why haven't any giants emerged yet? The answer isn't simply "the industry is struggling." On the contrary, this indicates the sector is still in an early consolidation phase. No vertical scenario has been fully saturated yet—and that's where the opportunity lies.
Seeing this trend, Comate made a clear choice: instead of chasing hot topics or spreading resources thin, we focused on the high-barrier vertical niche of elderly care positioning and went deep into it. This decision was based on several key insights: selling hardware alone has no future as margins shrink; major players won't deeply invest in such specialized scenarios; indoor-outdoor fusion positioning (Beidou + Bluetooth/UWB) offers sustained technical barriers; and evolving from positioning devices to comprehensive safety management systems is what customers truly need.
We remain bullish on the senior care market. This sector still has room to grow. With its technical expertise and established use cases, Comed is eager to collaborate with partners who bring strong distribution channels and system integration capabilities to deepen our impact. In this industry, those who go deep will endure.
If you're building aging-in-place solutions or smart nursing homes and want to learn how to implement Beidou positioning, contact Comai for consultation. We've also compiled a quick overview of market research on smart elderly care positioning—scan the QR code to get your copy.
FAQ:
How big is China's smart elderly care industry?
China's smart elderly care industry has surpassed 6.8 trillion yuan, with the annual market size of smart elderly care devices reaching approximately 1560 billion yuan in 2024, reflecting a compound annual growth rate of about 21.2% (Source: LeadLeo Research Institute's "White Paper on China's Smart Elderly Care Devices").
Why is the senior care market so large yet lacks a dominant leader?
The root cause is structural fragmentation: equipment manufacturing, information services, institutional operations, and community services operate in silos. Fragmented use cases, inconsistent policies, and a mismatch between payers and end users have prevented the market from reaching a tipping point. Technology isn't the bottleneck; it's aligning scenarios with value creation that matters.
What's the real challenge in positioning elderly care products?
Challenges lie in the use cases: First, making seniors willing to wear the device—shifting its perception from a tracking tool to a health companion. Second, balancing the differing needs of children, seniors, and care institutions. Third, honestly communicating technical limitations (e.g., fall detection false alarm rates, wrist-based blood pressure accuracy vs. medical-grade devices) without overpromising capabilities.
Is there a significant gap between consumer-grade elderly tracking and medical-grade systems?
Clear distinction is essential: consumer-grade devices provide trend insights and anomaly alerts, not medical diagnoses. Wrist-based blood pressure readings are less accurate than clinical-grade arm cuffs, and heart rate/SpO2 measurements may deviate during exercise. Clearly defining these boundaries prevents user expectation mismatches.
What does Kemei do in the senior care positioning sector?
Komei has been developing positioning hardware since 2006 and entered the elderly care sector in 2016. We offer integrated indoor-outdoor positioning using Beidou + Bluetooth, smartwatches with heart rate/blood pressure/oxygen saturation monitoring, one-touch SOS alerts, and centralized SaaS management. Our positioning solutions are designed to deliver real-world operational capabilities for elderly care environments—not generic standalone products.