Hacker News Reader

Comment by robg | Hacker News Reader

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?

View on HN

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!

The daily routine is probably key, you'll get better compliance with something that is done daily than something that can (in theory) be done weekly, even if the batteries could last that long.

We take this approach with our biowatch, but it's a different demographic that also charges a smartphone every night. With seniors, I worry that it comes off to charge it may not go back on. And the loss of faculties related falls starts to correlate with loss of memory and further dementia.

That said, they are honing in on the user experience at nursing homes. Independent living facilities offer a slightly different demographic and likely closer to their goal. Worst case, the device is sending low battery pings, and that itself is an opportunity for children to check in.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com