SafetyNET is a product that benefits the elderly, their caregivers, and their families. The aim of the product is to combine commercially-available technology to determine if a person has had a major fall and alert immediate help.

Senior citizens (aged 65+) represent the largest age demographic in America at nearly 30 million people, and this number is estimated to increase drastically over the next 10 years. The most common injuries among seniors result from falls, which can cause immobilizing injuries. SafetyNET is primarily being targeted at large elderly-care environments or retirement homes, where it can help provide an independent sense of living and increase the quality of service, while lowering the cost of monitoring and reducing caregiver burnout.

In these senior living environments, we plan to install major infrastructures of wireless sensor networks. In our product, smart sensing floors are integrated with wireless control units that can determine if a resident needs emergency assistance by monitoring the floor activity, or getting a response from a resident’s remote paging unit (as in the case of a heart attack or trouble in bed). The wireless control units form a backbone that can allow a single nursing station to provide emergency response for a very large number of residents.

At a goal cost of $200 per residential unit, or product has potential for a $400-million market in the US alone. This market will not only increase as time goes by, but also when we develop a version of SafetyNET targeted for homes and apartments.