12 Products to Make Every Room in Your House More Accessible


1. Ecobee SmartThermostat

Ecobee-SmartThermostat

A smart thermostat offers the easy, hands-free temperature regulation many wheelchair users dream of. With remote sensors for temperature, humidity and energy use, and a built-in speaker with Amazon Alexa, Ecobee’s SmartThermostat does a lot more than regulate the heat.

Pricier than some of its competitors, Ecobee’s offering thankfully doesn’t require a subscription and you can use it with or without their free app. As long as one of the units can hear you, all you need to operate the SmartThermostat is your voice. As an added bonus, you can use the speaker as an intercom to other units or for typical Alexa functions. Ecobee.com. $189.

2. Wemo Smart Switches and Plugs

Belkin’s Wemo line of products is an excellent option for anyone looking for the smart-home experience on an appliance-by-appliance basis. Wemo offers a selection of affordable smart plugs and light switches that allow you to control your lights from the wall, the Wemo app, or with your voice. The switches and plugs connect to your existing home WiFi network to give you easy wireless control of your lights, with no subscription or hub required. belkin.com/us/smart-home/c/wemo. Starting around $20.

3. Lutron Home Systems and Lighting

Installing a complete wireless system to control your home’s lights and blinds may seem cost-prohibitive or too complex, but a well-designed system can be a game changer, according to those who’ve invested the time and money. With three different total-home systems, single-room systems, and their own blinds and lights, Pennsylvania-based Lutron is the leader in whole-home lighting and electrical solutions.

Their products come with their own app and offer hands-free and app control with Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Apple Home and more. Lutron.com.

4. Smart Garage Door Openers

smart thermostat and app displayed on cell phone


Sectional garage doors are a great way to open your home to the outdoors, but until recently, opening and closing them from a wheelchair could be tricky. The new generation of smart garage door openers enables users to open and close sectional and tilt garage doors via app or voice control. Tailwind, Chamberlain and ismartgate all offer multiple affordable options compatible with the leading smart-home products. Gotailwind.com, ismartgate.com, chamberlain.com. From $29-179

5. Open Sesame

Open Sesame’s Model 133 residential door opener is the ideal at-home solution for wheelchair users who demand regular independent access. The Model 133 comes with a remote that can be easily mounted to your chair, and the ability to work with Amazon Alexa. Anna Pannell, a C1-2 quad, relies on the opener for easy access to two doors in her house. “I don’t have to have anybody open the door for me — I can just do it myself without asking. I can open the door for my family,” she says. opensesamedoor.com. $2,400

woman in powerchair going through open door demonstrating automatic door opener

6. T-Pull Door Closer

woman in wheelchair demonstrating door pull closer


Stop struggling to position your chair just right so you can reach the handle to close the door behind you. The T-Pull Door Closer is a simple and elegant solution. It attaches to the center of any door with no screws or complicated installation, and gives users an easy-to-grab handle that extends as the door is pulled — and retracts completely when not in use. t-pull.com. $39.95

7. The Assisto Bathtub

The Assisto bathtub is a sleek, ergonomic option for anyone looking for an accessible tub. Thanks to a zero-gravity sliding vertical door and an elevated base, the Assisto bathtub is ideal for transferring. Exterior handles give you extra stability, and easy touch controls make for an effortless bathing experience. If you decide to splurge, air jets, a heated backrest and chromatherapy options are available. Assistocollection.com.

Assisto bathtub shown with wheelchair user

8. SureHands Ceiling Lifts

If you can’t transfer independently, are tired of transfers, or are simply looking for an easier, faster way to get to the toilet or bathtub, a SureHands ceiling lift could be the solution. SureHands offers a number of ceiling track installation options that are designed for all types of needs and spaces, including The Freedom Bridge, which requires no ceiling or wall modifications. Their ceiling motor even allows for independent transferring.
SureHands.com.

9. Modular Roll-In Shower

Designing and building a custom roll-in shower can be a pricey, complicated and time-consuming endeavor. Modular roll-in showers, like those designed by Renovative Bath Systems, remove the hassle while still delivering on access. The elegant-looking 60-by-32-inch stalls come in five pieces that can be installed in one to two days, making them a great option to replace an outdated tub or tub/shower combo. renovativebath.com.

10. Side Door Oven

If you’re a wheelchair user, downward-opening oven doors can make it difficult to put in or take out your favorite meals. Thankfully, designers are beginning to move past this staid tradition and embrace sleek, microwave-like side-opening doors. Eric Thorstenson, a C5-6 quad, loves the easy access his Bosch side-opener offers. “Being able to roll right up to the racks makes using the oven a lot safer,” he says.

side opening oven

11. Pot Filler

For those of you who haven’t heard of pot fillers, they’re exactly what they sound like: faucets designed and specifically placed above the stove to fill pots. Boring? Maybe. Practical? Definitely. By adding a water line near your stove and getting one of the many pot fillers on the market, you can avoid the hassle of lugging heavy pots of water on your lap from the sink to cooktop. “I honestly don’t know why more people don’t have them,” says Rosemarie Rossetti, a T11 para and the designer of the Universal Design Living Laboratory.

12. Active Hands Kitchen Pack Deluxe

UK-based Active Hands Company makes plenty of handy kitchen gadgets designed for cooks with limited hand function. The Kitchen Pack Deluxe combines 10 of the most popular tools — the all-purpose knife, 5-in-1 opener, jar opener and more — all in one bundle that sells for 25% less than they would individually. Our reviewer’s favorite was the Nimble, which he described as “essentially a tiny box cutter in a rubber sleeve that fits on the tip of a finger.” Activehands.com.


Support New Mobility

Wait! Before you wander off to other parts of the internet, please consider supporting New Mobility. For more than three decades, New Mobility has published groundbreaking content for active wheelchair users. We share practical advice from wheelchair users across the country, review life-changing technology and demand equity in healthcare, travel and all facets of life. But none of this is cheap, easy or profitable. Your support helps us give wheelchair users the resources to build a fulfilling life.

donate today

10 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Jon
Jon
1 year ago

It appears the website provided for the roll-in shower is incorrect. It should be http://www.renovativebath.com

Cheryl
Cheryl
1 year ago
Reply to  Jon

Thank you!

K. Lyons
1 year ago

The modular roll-in shower is a terrible design. When sitting on the bench, one cannot reach the water controls or the hand-held shower. Who came up with this design must think a I have Orangutan arms.

Samantha Theobald
1 year ago
Reply to  K. Lyons

I completely agree! What a ridiculous design for anyone who doesn’t stand up!

charlieopensesamedoor-com
charlieopensesamedoor-com
1 year ago

These products are great! And as someone who works at Open Sesame, I know there system can be installed for a lot less, depending on who is doing the installation. Plus they now have better technology and the ability to be connected to a voice activation system too.
Amazing to see how the technology comes a long and hopefully helps people a lot.

Barbara
Barbara
1 year ago

That’s what we have! Voice controlled with Siri and we love it! Changed our life!

Stephen Pate
1 year ago
Reply to  Barbara

How did you get Siri to control the door? Does it have a HomeKit connection?

I love Siri. I can go around the house talking to it/her like a person. Turn on the lights, TV, etc. With motion sensor light switches from Lutron, I can easily wheel around the house.

The latest gizmo is cheap plugs that allow me to turn things on and off without getting out of bed or up from the chair. It used to be so annoying to realize I left something on and had to transfer back to my chair to deal with it.

Dan Caliendo
Dan Caliendo
7 months ago

another item that has been a great help to me is an automatic door opener for my sliding patio door. It was too heavy for me to open easily; but now I can open it with a button on the wall or the small remote attached to my wheelchair.
Gentleman Door Automation LLC   800-525-7078      GentlemanDoor@hotmail.com

Bill Fertig
Bill Fertig
7 months ago

Agree with others here that the ‘modular shower’ is completely unworkable for someone who uses the bench and doesn’t have a shower/commode combination wheelchair. THIS happens when some able-bodied designer thinks they ‘know what works best’ for a wheelchair user. If they actually ASKED a couple of wheelchair users, they wound have a much more functional system.

Bill Fertig
Bill Fertig
7 months ago

Also, the T-handle is completely unnecessary. Just use a spring-loaded door hinge for $7 at Home Depot to have the door softly close to where you can reach it. All my exterior and some interior doors have spring hinges, and it is a big effort saver 🙂