The TinyCareHome is a development of the Bosch Digital Innovation Hub of the Robert Bosch Foundation in Stuttgart and the Steinbeis Institute in Tübingen. The project manager is Florian Burg. And Stiegelmeyer is also on board.
The idea is simple and appealing: if the caring relatives have a small piece of lawn or terrace available in their garden, a visually appealing 17-square-metre residential container can be placed there. The container stands on a trailer with castors and is accessible via a ramp.
Inside, you will find everything that makes life comfortable for an elderly person: a modern small kitchen, a ground-level bathroom with an open shower and a cosy sleeping and TV corner with the Elvido care bed from Stiegelmeyer. The Tiny House promotes independence for seniors, but is also suitable for comprehensive nursing care. Those in need of nursing care get the comforting feeling of continuing to live in their own space instead of in their daughter's guest room.
Product manager Dennis Wilkening from the Stiegelmeyer Connectivity Lab in Herford explains the concept: the Tiny House is to be available for rent, ideally with support from the nursing care insurance fund. The targeted monthly rent of less than €1,000 would be very attractive compared to the current costs of long-term care.
Our bed plays an important role in this concept. "The technical focus is on a digital care bed based on our Elvido family," explains Dennis Wilkening. "It includes an Out-of-Bed system and voice control, the latter in collaboration with our partner CSS MicroSystems, for example." If desired, the Out-of-Bed system can notify relatives in the house if the resident gets up at night in the Tiny House and does not return to bed after a defined period of time. Our Elvido thus becomes part of a smart home that increases the protection and comfort of people in need of care with intuitively operable digital assistance systems.
When the TinyCareHome was first presented to the German public in September 2025 in the city of Sinsheim, it received enthusiastic feedback from citizens and the media. The container is currently located at the Ravensburg-Weingarten University of Applied Sciences, where visitors' wishes and suggestions will be reviewed and implemented by the end of March 2026. "And then the Tiny House will go into series production," says Dennis Wilkening. We will report on the further development of this exciting project.
