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This is fascinating. What do deaf people normally do in lieu of alarm clocks?
Bright light ones seemed quite popular in the deaf flats at my university.
This sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen. I think it's a great idea, but at 2.99 I don't think it's going to be profitable enough to take on the lawsuit risk.
...There needs to some kind of legislation/regulation on lawsuits. Perhaps, the plaintiff must pay the legal fees for the defendant upfront, up to a maximum of 5% of the desired damages being sought.
Example: If you want to sue for a $1 million, you have to pay up to $50K in legal fees for the defendant. If you win the case, the defendant's legal fees are tacked onto the damages that he must pay. If you lose the case, you lose all your money.
I think this would discourage many lawsuits from happening. Only those with true merit would be pursued.
This is fascinating. What do deaf people normally do in lieu of alarm clocks?
So, to answer your question, some [partially] deaf people use a makeshift Arduino robot that is duct taped to the wall next to their bed.
This sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen. I think it's a great idea, but at 2.99 I don't think it's going to be profitable enough to take on the lawsuit risk.
Any reliance on an app such as this is going to be at the risk of the user. This is a tool for assistance and is not in anyway a replacement for standard emergency protocol.
This is fascinating. What do deaf people normally do in lieu of alarm clocks?
Great idea. I just hope this sort of thing isn't over-regulated.
If I'm deaf and I pay for an app to tell me when an alarm is sounding, I have a certain expectation that it has been rigorously tested and will work without fail. And I'm a software engineer who understands the limitations and failure modes of such applications on non-real-time, commodity kit.
Please be extra careful about how you market this. I absolutely applaud your ingenuity, but I'd feel differently if I found out my elderly, hard of hearing gran was relying on any app on her smartphone to wake her if she left the stove on and went to bed.
I expect a proportion of your customers may be less technical users (or well-meaning relatives) with little understanding of the limitations and risks.
However, it is indeed an interesting idea. There may already be something on the market, but what about developing it into a physical device running on dedicated hardware? Crowd-fund an "alerter badge" or pin or whatever, and budget heavily for testing & verification. You could be onto a winner.
EDIT: Please don't be put off altogether by the comments. It's simply that non-real-time, non-failsafe smartphones aren't built for life-critical applications like this. The idea isn't a bad one - you're just targeting the wrong platform.
Vibrating for it to wake you means you need to keep it close to your body. I wonder what health implications it may have -- In general its really bad to have a cell phone touching your body for prolonged periods of time because of the radiation it emits.
Vibrating for it to wake you means you need to keep it close to your body. I wonder what health implications it may have -- In general its really bad to have a cell phone touching your body for prolonged periods of time because of the radiation it emits.
I'm not deaf, and I have virtually no experience building things specifically for those that are, but this seems like a great idea. Nice work!
Thank you! I'm a college student with an early class (so I have to go to bed earlier than most people), and my dorm can be pretty loud, so I often sleep with earplugs. I didn't like the idea of possibly not waking up in a fire, so I made this to cure my paranoia :p I don't know how many people will find it useful, but it seemed like something that should exist.
Edit: phrasing.