What happens to digital supervision when the internet goes down?

A resident gets out of bed during an internet outage. The room may still be able to detect that movement. Whether the night team receives the alert is a separate question.

That distinction belongs in every conversation about digital supervision. Nkom identifies both fibre breaks and power failures as risks to communications, and notes that fixed and mobile services can share physical infrastructure. A second connection is only useful if it remains available during the failure you are planning for. Read Nkom's risk overview.

For a care service, the useful question is specific: what keeps working, who can still receive an alert, and what does the team do next?

Separate the room from the internet

Wi-Fi is the local radio network. The internet connection links that network to services elsewhere. A broadband outage can leave the local Wi-Fi running; a router that loses power may take both away.

Stillsense processes sensing data on a device in the building. That local processing is part of both deployment options: a self-hosted installation and Stillsense Cloud, where interpreted events sync to a managed service in Norway. The raw sensing signal stays local. Our explanation of how it works describes that architecture.

With the required equipment powered and the local sensing links functioning, losing the internet need not stop local detection. But an alert to a remote response centre or a family member still needs a working communication route. Local processing cannot deliver a message across a broken connection.

Follow the alert all the way to the person

Before a pilot, ask the supplier and the service's IT team to map each step: sensing, interpretation, local alerting, remote delivery and acknowledgement by staff.

For each step, identify the equipment, power supply and connection it depends on. Include the phone or terminal receiving the alert. A sensor may be operating normally while the receiving application is unreachable.

This is where broad promises about working offline need a concrete demonstration. In a nursing home, staff may be on the same local network. In home care, the person who must respond may be kilometres away. The same local sensing capability serves very different response arrangements.

Plan for power as well as connectivity

Processing in the home still requires electricity. So do the access points, network equipment and any local device used to receive alerts.

Nkom's preparedness advice describes using an uninterruptible power supply for a router and modem when the fibre network remains available. That condition matters: backup power at home does not repair an outage elsewhere. See Nkom's advice on communications outages.

For a care installation, establish which equipment has backup power and verify its runtime in the actual configuration. Do not assume that a powered sensor means the complete alert route is available. Ask how the team will learn that supervision has been interrupted, including when the normal notification route is down.

Make an outage exercise part of the pilot

Our suggested exercise covers four separate failures: loss of internet access, loss of local Wi-Fi, loss of power to the sensing equipment and loss of the receiving application. Run it in a controlled test setting, with agreed alternative supervision in place wherever residents are involved.

For each case, record what continues, what becomes unavailable, how staff find out and who takes over. Then restore the connection and check how the system presents missing periods and delayed events. A message delivered after recovery should not be mistaken for a new event.

Keep the fallback procedure accessible during the outage itself. Helsedirektoratet's operational preparedness-plan template includes keeping plans and procedures available on paper or locally so they can be accessed without ordinary power and internet services. Read the preparedness-plan template.

Local processing gives Stillsense a useful foundation for continuity. The pilot must establish how that foundation works with your building, your alert route and your staff. Book a pilot conversation to work through those dependencies together.