3 Ways Technology Can Make Your Home Healthier

3 Ways Technology Can Make Your Home Healthier

HTA Resource Content
Anthony_Antolino

 

Anthony Antolino

Delos home wellness systems improve these key areas of your home environment to make you healthier—and happier—over time. 

We’ve all become very critical of our homes. Forced to quarantine, one begins to look around and notice every detail that’s wrong—that failing paint on your front door, the shrubs growing from the rain gutters, the chipped tiles on the backsplash. We have also become increasingly aware of health due to the pandemic, and more specifically, the way our homes affect our health.

While home wellness is not something you can see or touch, it’s definitely something you can feel. You know when your allergies are acting up, when you've had a rough night’s sleep, or when you’re dehydrated. But did you know that you can actually improve wellness at home via technology?

Y1C1647“Right now, there is top-of-mind consciousness around how our homes are helping us stay healthy and safe as people had to become overnight experts on both their homes and their health due to COVID,” says Anthony Antolino, Chief Commercial Officer & Chief Marketing Officer at Delos. “They are taking a closer look at their lifestyles and the choices they can make to bolster health.”

But what does that healthy home look like? And what should the homeowner—along with the architects, interior designers, integrators, and builders the homeowner is using—think about as they embark on a new construction or remodel?

Delos has been working in hospitality wellness for years, and recently launched its residential division in 2018. The company’s technology brings together building science and health science to produce solutions that help the human condition. According to Delos, there are three key areas of the home that affect health, all of which are addressed by the company’s DARWIN Home Wellness Intelligence Network—a suite of hardware and software products installed in residential environments by home technology professionals.

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#1 Purified Air- How good is the air you are breathing? Do you even think about it outside of an air filter in your central air-conditioning system? Delos helps you understand the quality of the air inside your home with air-quality sensors, monitored in real time. When the air quality goes beyond a threshold that Delos has defined based on its extensive research, the sensors trigger the Delos air purification system to remediate the contaminants and particulates that have been detected, creating healthier air!  

#2 Filtered Water - Your water may taste ok, yet be unsafe to drink. “Even if water is great at the source, it still has to run through miles of infrastructure. By the time it gets to your tap, it can have harmful contaminants and particulates,” says Antolino. Delos’ water-filtration solution is unique in that it takes into account your specific geographic area. Ten years of historic data specific to your location help assess the problems with water locally and remedy them at your tap. “The water in Arizona is different than the water in New York, so it’s not a one-size-fits-all approach, and this is unique to DARWIN,” adds Antolino.

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#3 Lighting - Do you feel groggy when you wake up? Experience that 2pm energy slump? It could have something to do with lighting and your melatonin levels. DARWIN creates lighting that mimics the sun and naturally helps your body produce the right hormone levels for sleep. “It’s no secret that sleep is at the root of our ability to be refreshed, feel good, recharge, rejuvenate, and fight off disease,” says Antolino. “Helping our bodies align to that natural clock is important, especially in these days when we are bombarded by screens that affect our ability to sleep.” DARWIN produces brighter blue light in the morning, and in the evening begins to strip out the blue light so our bodies can produce melatonin and prepare for sleep.

DARWIN even produces experiences that help our bodies wake up more naturally, with the goal of waking you between sleep cycles. Set your alarm for 6 am, for example, and DARWIN’s Dawn Simulator will start working a half hour before that: raising blackout shades slowly to let in light, warming up the air temperature by a few degrees, softly playing biophilic sounds like birds chirping or ocean waves crashing, and generally allowing your body to take the cues that nature normally delivers to tell you to wake up. “Over time, waking in this way allows the body to perform at a more optimal state, passively providing health benefits,” says Antolino.

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Delos’ DARWIN solution is scalable—attainable at all price points and typologies—depending on your particular home environment. Delos will work closely with your home technology professional to figure out the best solution for the residence based on size, the mechanical systems in the home, the number of thermostats, the number of lights in different rooms, how you use the space, type of HVAC, and more. Architects, builders, and designers will also be happy to know that DARWIN does not interfere in any way with the architectural design and intent of the home. Delos’ DARWIN systems also integrates with third-party smart-home control systems, like those from Crestron, for example.

Interested readers who want to learn more and incorporate a Delos healthy home solution can visit delos.com/residential-partners to find home technology professionals (many of them HTA Certified) who have already been Delos-trained as home wellness experts. The integrator will come out to your home to do home health assessment and get you on the road to feeling—and being—healthier at home.