It’s best to think of Walabot Home as sort of a central nervous system that keeps track of a person as they move throughout the home. The small and slim device uses a sensor system that sends out low-power radio wave technology similar to Wi-Fi signals to determine a person’s location.
This provides a number of advantages. For one, it allows Walabot to sense a person through walls and curtains that would otherwise obstruct a camera. Second, it can monitor areas that other systems can’t, including the bathroom, without requiring any sort of wearable device. Finally, it’s far less invasive than a camera-based system that requires a person to surrender their privacy in order to ensure their safety.
“There are a staggering number of adults who fall in their own homes every year. Most falls happen without anybody else knowing that the event occurred,” Raviv Melamed, co-founder and CEO of Walbot Home manufacturer Vayyar, said in a statement. “People want to feel comfortable in their homes without the burden of needing to wear a pendant or medical alert device, but they still want the security of knowing that they can get help if they need it. Walabot Home is so effective because people can set it up and then relax, feeling secure in the knowledge it’s there just in case.”
The situations that require a system like Walabot are unfortunately rather common. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 29 million people over the age of 65 fall every year in the United States. Those falls result in about seven million injuries and can have long-lasting effects on the body. Walabot can’t prevent those falls, but it can speed up the response time to make sure emergency services is alerted immediately and arrives as quickly as possible.
Walabot Home retails for $250 and doesn’t require a monthly payment subscription as most monitoring services do. The device is available through Walabot’s website.
The Walabot Home is like a smoke detector for senior falls [Digital Trends]