A humanoid robot folds bed linens in a bedroom setting during the 2026 World Robot Conference in Beijing on August 19, 2026. Photo: VCG

China has vowed to promote age-friendly products such as home service robots, health monitoring, and smart care to boost smart home consumption, according to an action plan released on Monday. 

The action plan, jointly issued by eight government departments, including the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) and the National Development and Reform Commission, also said that it will encourage manufacturers to strengthen research and development of smart home products, and support home goods stores, shopping malls, and other venues in setting up smart home experience centers, whole-house smart systems, and digital home model rooms.

The action plan also called for accelerating the development of smart home software and hardware products and integrated solutions based on domestic open-source operating systems.

The plan also highlighted support for local governments in determining subsidy categories and standards for smart home products, and providing coordinated support for the purchase of new whole-house smart home systems.  

The plan proposes promoting age-friendly products such as home service robots, health monitoring, and smart care; guiding enterprises to adopt age-friendly designs in terms of product dimensions, ease of operation, dialect recognition, and safety performance; and enriching the supply of age-friendly smart home products and home renovation services. 

China's home goods sector has a large market, covers a wide range of fields, and involves a long industrial chain, according to an interpretation of the plan by a MOFCOM official on Monday. 

It is an important component of household consumption and a key area for integrating efforts to improve people's livelihoods with efforts to boost consumption, the official said. 

China has unveiled measures to expand and upgrade consumer goods consumption, aiming to bring total retail sales of consumer goods to about 60 trillion yuan ($8.85 trillion) by 2030, according to an implementation guideline made public on August 31.

The guideline calls for fostering 10-trillion-yuan markets in areas such as green, smart and health consumption by 2030.

It further specifies measures that include expanding automobile consumption across the entire industrial chain, promoting smart home applications, supporting consumption of products for elderly people and children, and boosting consumption of green, smart and health products.  

Enriching smart home scenarios, promoting the application of new smart products, formulating smart home interoperability standards, and supporting age-friendly renovation and intelligent upgrading of old housing are covered in the outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30).

Global Times