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Radar fall detection and breath rate under $40

seeedstudio.com

51–59 of 59 posts

Re: Radar fall detection and breath rate under $40

#51
post #11

When my late father moved into the nursing home they stuck him in the basement which had long hallways and at the time was mostly vacant. He had a walker and it didn't dawn on us it would ever be a problem. But then he had a fall and couldn't get up. Anywhere else in the facility a staff member would have found him within five minutes. After a half hour and multiple failed attempts to stand he remembered his cell pho…

It's sad but most facilities are like this. If you want your elderly parents to have assistance, either move them in with you or hire private help and verify that they are doing what you want. Nursing homes and care facilities mainly exist to drain the assets of the elderly and then get them on medicaid until they die.

>Nursing homes and care facilities mainly exist to drain the assets of the elderly and then get them on medicaid until they die

In some countries, elderly care facilities are being run by mob like organizations, as they are insanely profitable, draining the elders, their children and the government of funds simultaneously, while throwing PR to look like saints. Insane.

It's crazy, and I assume this business will boom further in the west with our ever increasing aging population. It'll be the new gold rush if it isn't there already.

Re: Radar fall detection and breath rate under $40

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, as an author of a Fall Detector app I'm pretty proud of the fact that a lot of my users in elderly and care facilities are now able to take a walk around the yard without needing oversight. This has enabled a lot more freedom to some of these people than you seem to be willing to acknowledge ..

> This has enabled a lot more freedom to some of these people than you seem to be willing to acknowledge .. Ideally, assuming there's no need for qualified special care like with dementia people should be able to live out their old days with their family, in their neighborhood. Not being shunted off to a senior citizen's prison in the outskirts and warded over by technology, because the kids have to move across the w…

I don't share your cynicism.

I think the mmWave thing can and probably will be used to reduce staff in care facilities - but this is why apps that are freely available for use with commodity hardware will always have a market, too.

One end of the stick: care facilities optimizing for profit - the other end, families who simply want their loved ones to be taken care of, if they fall while taking a daily walk for health.

Having already shipped a fall detector in both hardware and software form into this market (over a decade ago), I can tell you there are far more families taking care of their loved ones with this technology, than there are commercial (capitalist) elderly-exploitation facilities...

Re: Radar fall detection and breath rate under $40

#55
post #54

500mw power consumption. That's quite a bit.

> The power consumption of the product is 500MW, which is not suitable for long-term power supply. I think they may have used the wrong prefix haha

Yeah, they probably meant long-term battery supply.

Re: Radar fall detection and breath rate under $40

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's sad but most facilities are like this. If you want your elderly parents to have assistance, either move them in with you or hire private help and verify that they are doing what you want. Nursing homes and care facilities mainly exist to drain the assets of the elderly and then get them on medicaid until they die.

>Nursing homes and care facilities mainly exist to drain the assets of the elderly and then get them on medicaid until they die In some countries, elderly care facilities are being run by mob like organizations, as they are insanely profitable, draining the elders, their children and the government of funds simultaneously, while throwing PR to look like saints. Insane. It's crazy, and I assume this business will boom…

It runs so well because in the west folks more or less hate their parents: When they become inconvenient (read: need care), they are put away and politely ignored until they die. That's why those places are so hostile to their inhabitants: They know nobody cares about them enough to really do anything about it.

Re: Radar fall detection and breath rate under $40

#57
post #11

When my late father moved into the nursing home they stuck him in the basement which had long hallways and at the time was mostly vacant. He had a walker and it didn't dawn on us it would ever be a problem. But then he had a fall and couldn't get up. Anywhere else in the facility a staff member would have found him within five minutes. After a half hour and multiple failed attempts to stand he remembered his cell pho…

You can easily do Fall Detection with a modern cell phone - I wrote such an app in 2009, it presented a 3D interface to the user to show them it was working, you could attach it to your belt and safely walk around anywhere, and if it detected a fall it would send SMS alerts, make a sound, etc. I had users that swore by this app, it actually protected mutliple end-users (elderly, sufferers of MS, etc.) and was very we…

This is a really bizarre chain of comments to me. It's great that you're proud of your work, but an external module is a clearly superior product. First, not everyone has a mobile phone at all. And you can't wear it everywhere you go, especially not in 2009 when the battery might have lasted a few hours at most. You still can't take it in the shower with you. You can't "wear" it if you're not wearing clothing at all. Even newer mobile phones with longer battery life still need to be set down somewhere to charge every now and again and can't stay clipped to your hip permanently. And you inherently need a mobile phone per user. An external module can detect every person in a room falling. They don't need individual sensors. Care facilities and at-home care personnel can use this when people in their care and not themselves are the ones at risk. And this things costs 1/30 of a mobile phone.

The only claim I can agree with is an app-based fall sensor is a good option for people who already have mobile phones and don't trust external modules and would prefer to just use something they already have. You seem to have concluded this is widespread based on your users telling you they felt this way. You have to understand your users are not a random sample of all people at risk of falling. They're very obviously people who had mobile phones and thought something like this was a good enough idea to try.

Re: Radar fall detection and breath rate under $40

#58
post #6

This ought to make for inexpensive home automation sensors that do much better occupancy detection for rooms than pIR sensors, which stall out if you're sitting and don't move enough to trigger "motion" but still want lights on in the room.

There are ‘dual-tech’ occ sensors that use IR and ultrasonic sensors to avoid the issue that you mentioned.

That would be quite useful for a home office. I now only have hallways / bathrooms set for automatic light because you're always moving there.

Do you have a link?

Re: Radar fall detection and breath rate under $40

#59
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Nursing homes and care facilities mainly exist to drain the assets of the elderly and then get them on medicaid until they die In some countries, elderly care facilities are being run by mob like organizations, as they are insanely profitable, draining the elders, their children and the government of funds simultaneously, while throwing PR to look like saints. Insane. It's crazy, and I assume this business will boom…

It runs so well because in the west folks more or less hate their parents: When they become inconvenient (read: need care), they are put away and politely ignored until they die. That's why those places are so hostile to their inhabitants: They know nobody cares about them enough to really do anything about it.

I doubt most westerners hate their parents. I think the western grind removes any free time for people to look after their aging parents, hell, most barely have time for their kids, let alone their parents as well.
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