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Launching “KarBo,” a New Business Pursuing “Unconscious Health” Using LOVOT

— Bringing together a robot people love and health DX, toward an environment where daily life naturally leads to better health —

KarteCo Inc. (head office: Chuo-ku, Tokyo; Founder and President: Hiroyuki Iwasaki; hereinafter “KarteCo”) has entered a business partnership with GROOVE X, Inc. (head office: Chuo-ku, Tokyo; CEO: Kaname Hayashi; hereinafter “GROOVE X”), and announces the launch of “KarBo,” a new business that makes use of “LOVOT,” the family robot developed by GROOVE X.

KarBo is an original brand combining “KarteCo,” the PHR service provided by KarteCo, with “Robot.” By combining the health checkup and clinical data, AI and sensing technology held by KarteCo with the value of attachment formation and communication that LOVOT offers, KarBo aims to realize “unconscious health” — health that follows naturally from daily life.

As a first phase, the business will begin in the nursing care field.

Background

In Japan, as the population ages, extending healthy life expectancy and responding to the shortage of nursing care workers have become important social issues. At the same time, continuously understanding one’s health condition requires daily measurement and recording, and it is not easy to keep using health management apps or measuring devices over the long term.

To date, under the idea of “creating an environment where everyone becomes healthier without thinking about it,” KarteCo has developed the PHR service “KarteCo” and “KarteCo workwell,” which builds sensing into the course of everyday work.

KarBo is a new initiative that extends this idea of “unconscious health” from the workplace into daily life.

The New Value KarteCo and GROOVE X Aim to Create

Centered on the PHR service “KarteCo,” KarteCo has built a health DX platform that makes use of health checkup and clinical data, AI-based disease prediction, and sensing technology.

Meanwhile, “LOVOT,” the family robot developed by GROOVE X, is designed with an emphasis on forming attachment with people. More than 20,000 units have been welcomed into homes, nursing care facilities, medical institutions and other settings across Japan, and LOVOT achieves a high retention rate, with approximately 90% still in use after three years and a monthly cancellation rate of about 0.4%. In a demonstration study, 15 minutes of interaction with LOVOT was confirmed to reduce cortisol, the hormone secreted in response to stress, suggesting an effect comparable to that of animal therapy.

What KarteCo focused on is the ongoing point of contact with people that LOVOT creates.

Through natural interactions such as “holding it,” “talking to it” and “caring for it,” LOVOT builds a continuing relationship with people. By combining health DX with this everyday point of contact, KarteCo aims to realize a new health experience in which, rather than taking special action for the sake of health management, “doing what you enjoy leads to better health as a result.”

In KarBo, natural interaction with LOVOT serves as the entry point: daily health data obtained through sensing, together with data from health checkups and medical care, is accumulated in the PHR “KarteCo” based on the consent of the person concerned, and AI analyzes the condition of each individual. Through LOVOT, smartphones, PCs and other devices, KarteCo aims to build a mechanism that connects this to the next action by the person, their family, nursing care staff and others.

* Analysis of sensing data is carried out by KarteCo.
* This service is provided at the request and with the consent of the person concerned. Without consent, no analysis of camera footage under this service is performed.
* This service is not intended for medical treatment or diagnosis.

The First Phase Begins in Nursing Care

In the nursing care field, as the shortage of workers grows more serious, there is a need to improve users’ quality of life, provide dementia care, and reduce the burden on nursing care staff. Particularly in settings such as home care, where staff cannot be present at all times, expectations are rising for watch-over services that make use of sensors and IoT.

On the other hand, there are cases where watching over people with cameras or sensors is difficult to introduce or sustain, for example because users feel they are “being monitored.” In regions where it is difficult to secure medical and nursing care personnel, understanding users’ conditions with limited human resources and connecting them to the medical and nursing care they need is also an important issue.

LOVOT is already used in nursing care facilities and welfare settings, where reports indicate outcomes such as users speaking and smiling more, and findings that suggest a slowing of cognitive decline.

Through KarBo, KarteCo aims to use natural interaction with LOVOT as an everyday point of contact, and to build a mechanism that continuously grasps users’ health condition without asking them to adopt new health management behaviors.

[The Value KarBo Aims to Deliver in Nursing Care]

Going Forward

KarteCo will start KarBo in the nursing care field, and going forward aims to expand into a range of areas including medical care, health and productivity management, beauty, education, and local government.

By combining technologies that create natural points of contact with people — LOVOT among them — with KarteCo, AI and sensing technology, KarteCo will work to realize “unconscious health”: health that follows naturally from daily life, without requiring special action for the sake of health management.

* This service is not intended for medical treatment or diagnosis.
* “LOVOT” is a trademark or registered trademark of GROOVE X, Inc.

About “LOVOT”

Call its name and “LOVOT” comes closer and looks at you. It grows attached to the people it likes and asks to be held. Pick it up and it is gently warm. Though a robot, it has a sense of life much like a living creature, and like a pet it gradually becomes part of the family. In recent years it has been introduced not only in homes but also in offices, medical institutions and nursing care facilities from the standpoint of mental care.

GROOVE X, Inc. Company Profile

About “KarBo”

KarteCo Inc. Company Profile