I worry about the battery life here. Other devices can last much longer by using those base stations. And in this population, what happens if they forget to charge once a week?
Amulyte (YC S13) is Building a Better Lifeline For Seniors on the Move
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Re: Amulyte (YC S13) is Building a Better Lifeline For Seniors on the Move
#12It would seem a much simpler solution would be feasible. A small GSM device that is essentially powered off until it is needed, at which time it would be booted up and begin sending GPS coordinates via SMS. If you wanted higher reliability, you could look into the FM-based system that LoJack uses, but either way, constant communication seems unnecessary.
Is there anything like this out there already? With good battery life.
They use base stations. Here's one:
Re: Amulyte (YC S13) is Building a Better Lifeline For Seniors on the Move
#13I worry about the battery life here. Other devices can last much longer by using those base stations. And in this population, what happens if they forget to charge once a week?
To get around this issue they can build an alarm which starts sounding when the battery is getting low. Another feature would be to send a notification to the care giver to charge the battery. The third fail safe would be to alert care giver if there is no communication with the device.
Re: Amulyte (YC S13) is Building a Better Lifeline For Seniors on the Move
#14This is the best kind of startup - targeting an important problem whose current solutions are outdated and not very good.
There are LOTS of seniors already using such a product (usually ordered by their concerned family), and a low monthly fee is not an issue when your loved ones's life is at stake.
The existing solutions are basically a DECT cordless phone with a one-button 911 call. Marketing something like amulyte should be a slam-dunk. Of course you're not gonna sell "it has GPS and an accelerometer" - you market "it will notice when you fall, it will automatically call for help, even if should be unconscious, and even tell people where exactly you are".
Re: Amulyte (YC S13) is Building a Better Lifeline For Seniors on the Move
#15I worry about the battery life here. Other devices can last much longer by using those base stations. And in this population, what happens if they forget to charge once a week?
To get around this issue they can build an alarm which starts sounding when the battery is getting low. Another feature would be to send a notification to the care giver to charge the battery. The third fail safe would be to alert care giver if there is no communication with the device.
Couldn't have said this better myself, this is exactly what we are doing :) We are also conscious of making sure that charging the device becomes part of a seniors daily routine to help ensure that it remains charged. We are also using induction charging to make charging the device as simple as placing it on its holder (no micro USB to fiddle around with)
Re: Amulyte (YC S13) is Building a Better Lifeline For Seniors on the Move
#16This is the best kind of startup - targeting an important problem whose current solutions are outdated and not very good. There are LOTS of seniors already using such a product (usually ordered by their concerned family), and a low monthly fee is not an issue when your loved ones's life is at stake. The existing solutions are basically a DECT cordless phone with a one-button 911 call. Marketing something like amulyte…
Great point - the marketing for this device is going to sound quite a bit different based on the audience that we are reaching out to. For the TechCrunch crowd, we can say things like "a micro-controller to keep all those bits running in harmony"...definitely not something we would be telling our end-user :)
Re: Amulyte (YC S13) is Building a Better Lifeline For Seniors on the Move
#17It would seem a much simpler solution would be feasible. A small GSM device that is essentially powered off until it is needed, at which time it would be booted up and begin sending GPS coordinates via SMS. If you wanted higher reliability, you could look into the FM-based system that LoJack uses, but either way, constant communication seems unnecessary.
Great points, this is something that we have given a lot of thought towards. We are going to be pinging the device at certain points (when someone logs into the portal for example), and the device will also send data at set intervals (we can adjust how often we send data to save battery life, and based on a few other things). When the device is not actively sending data or establishing a connected we do sleep the device.
We opted not to send GPS location via SMS because it is a lot less secure. We are also sending more than just GPS data, all of which we would have to interpret on the server side anyways thus complicating the implementation. We looked into this and for a variety of reasons it made more sense to use data to transmit information from the device.
Re: Amulyte (YC S13) is Building a Better Lifeline For Seniors on the Move
#18Firstly it's just great to see someone from YC targeting anyone over 24 :) Ok, snarky joke is over. I think this is a great idea. I see 3 challenges. i) Seniors tend to be more frugal than the younger generation so $30 per month might be a dealbreaker. Having said that children would probably pay that to know their parent is safe so maybe that's the better angle. ii) Superseded by a smart phone based app. No need for…
Great points, both of which we have put much thought into:
i) our target customer is actually the daughter or daughter-in-law of the device user. They are almost always the ones who make decisions to get a system similar to Amulyte, and they are the ones that typically end up covering the cost for their elder relative.
ii) we considered coming out with an app, but after talking to a lot of industry experts we verified what we had suspected - seniors simply don't use smartphones. There definitely are some that do, but the majority of them do not. Even those who have one rarely use it (it isn't uncommon for them to turn it off when they aren't using it or leave it somewhere, unused, for extended periods of time). Getting the right form factor is an important implementation consideration, and a cell phone isn't suited for this user.
Re: Amulyte (YC S13) is Building a Better Lifeline For Seniors on the Move
#19Firstly it's just great to see someone from YC targeting anyone over 24 :) Ok, snarky joke is over. I think this is a great idea. I see 3 challenges. i) Seniors tend to be more frugal than the younger generation so $30 per month might be a dealbreaker. Having said that children would probably pay that to know their parent is safe so maybe that's the better angle. ii) Superseded by a smart phone based app. No need for…
Great points, both of which we have put much thought into: i) our target customer is actually the daughter or daughter-in-law of the device user. They are almost always the ones who make decisions to get a system similar to Amulyte, and they are the ones that typically end up covering the cost for their elder relative. ii) we considered coming out with an app, but after talking to a lot of industry experts we verifie…
Got it. I figured you guys would have done deeper research. the flip side of your wireless device research is there might be a partnership opportunity with wireless manufacturers or networks as I agree you'd drive more adoption and usage of their devices.
Re: Amulyte (YC S13) is Building a Better Lifeline For Seniors on the Move
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
To get around this issue they can build an alarm which starts sounding when the battery is getting low. Another feature would be to send a notification to the care giver to charge the battery. The third fail safe would be to alert care giver if there is no communication with the device.
Couldn't have said this better myself, this is exactly what we are doing :) We are also conscious of making sure that charging the device becomes part of a seniors daily routine to help ensure that it remains charged. We are also using induction charging to make charging the device as simple as placing it on its holder (no micro USB to fiddle around with)
In my experience in working with seniors, I still worry that very long battery life is a competitive advantage. The category of seniors for whom this device is almost a necessity starts to significantly overlap with the category of seniors with some form of dementia or physical ailments that make regular charging more challenging.
Good luck!