You are asleep, your phone is in its dock beside your bed, and deadly cool toxic smoke from a smoldering fire starts slowly filling your room. Traditional ionization ceiling mounted smoke alarms work well for fast fires but can take around 20 minutes or more to detect this cool smoke by which time you may not wake up.
This is where Sense+ technology could save you and house hold members. The Sense+ is the first ever portable smart device docking station and charger with built in Photo Electric smoke and gas detection sensors. The Sense+ also ‘talks’ to a smart App on your phone offering unique personal protection options.
‘Photo-Electric’ smoke sensors are the latest (and in most cases the best) smoke detectors available. They can detect deadly cold smoke that some traditional smoke alarms have difficulty sensing. By combining the photoelectric sensor with a carbon monoxide (the gas that makes you too sleepy to wake up) sensor you get secondary technology as a backup which may work better depending on the nature of the threat.
If smoke is detected, an alert will sound and the Sense+ App will start up on the iPhone. If there is no response, an alarm will sound and the app on your phone will call numbers listed in your home call group. An alert screen offering emergency services will then be displayed.
The Sense+ draws its power from the grid (mains power) or the docked smart device. If these are not available it also has a built-in battery as a backup.
Sense+ is intended as an additional level of protection to ‘in-house’ smoke alarms and is intended to help provide sufficient advance warning to allow you to react and potentially save your life and the lives of those around you. Worldwide there are over 195,000 fire related deaths1 every year and an unspecified number related to carbon monoxide poisoning plus hundreds of thousands of people injured in such events. In the U.S. alone one, person is killed in a fire every 169 minutes and someone is injured every 30 seconds (Karter 2011).
- About 85% of all U.S. fire deaths in 2009 occurred in homes (Karter 2011).
- In 2010, fire departments responded to 384,000 home fires in the United States, which claimed the lives of 2,640 people (not including firefighters) and injured another 13,350, not including firefighters (Karter 2011).
- The total costs of injuries to the U.S. economy, $7.5 billion (2006) each year.
- Most victims of fires die from smoke or toxic gases and not from burns (Hall 2001).
- Over one-third (37%) home fire deaths occur in homes without smoke alarms (Ahrens 2011).
Most households have smoke alarms but many of them aren't in working order, usually due to flat batteries or batteries having been removed. A device such as Sense+ in a household may help to prevent many of these deaths.
The team behind the Sense+ were inspired after reading several media reports of multiple tragedies and near misses in fires where no working smoke alarms were installed in the home/hotel/cabin... Smoke inhalation meant the occupants were unable to wake up and get themselves and their families to safety. By studying Smart phone owners habits the team came up with the idea of combining an everyday personal item such as a mobile phone (often placed beside the users bed) with a smart smoke and gas warning system.
The Sense+ is designed for use with Apple’s iPhone5. However other smart devices can connect via a USB port. Future versions are planned to be native for Android and Windows phones. This is simply a matter of swapping the inner core module with one for your type of phone/device. Designed to be portable, the Sense+ is a great travel charger and smoke/gas sensor.
iPad or other smartphone can be connected via USB port at back
Lengthy prototype development and testing against both photo electric and ionization smoke alarms was completed in combined with Smart App development. The results are a robust, sleek, multi-functional smart device which has the ability to be upgraded.
![]()
'Gun Metal' finish option
Unlike traditional ionization smoke detectors the Sense+ uses no radioactive materials and is designed to be upgradable and recyclable.
1 World Health Organization statistics
How it works overview
Beta prototype testing
We are working hard gearing up for production, here are the final housings being tested before final PCB design testing.
Pre-Production Prototyping printouts of final housing for test assembilies.
![Prototype of 'Dock Only']( "Prototype of 'Dock Only'")
Prototype of 'Dock Only'
Schedule
T-shirts
T-shirt designs
Shipping product
As professional Industrial Designers with over 30 years combined experience developing products we have the necessary skill set and manufacturing partners to allow us to overcome obstacles that occur during the development of a product. With the Sense+ we have sourced and tested most components but we are still at the mercy of OEM’s like Apple and cannot predict updates/changes to their smart devices that may effects our lead-times. However we have an experienced and capable team and feel comfortable delivering on our promise.
Quality
We have produced machined and printed parts for assembly evaluation and shared these with our vendors to hone the design so that what you see in the this presentation we can deliver on. All details have now been finalized and we are ready to go to tooling.
Our manufacturing partners are vetted by us and we have worked with them for many years and have trust in each other’s ability to produce what we design.
Our preferred manufacturing partners have all given us assurances that they can deliver in the indicated timeframe and will guarantee their work, however there may still be things do still come up that can cause delays. We have done our best to mitigate possible holdups by working with known vendors, conduct testing of all electronic components and build test models and CAD to ensure fit and finish of components.
Future proof
This unit has been designed with future expansion and possible changes taken into account. For example the ‘inner core’ can be replaced if there are changes to the connectors or we wish to produce another ‘core’ for another smart device manufacturer in the future.
There is also the possibility of future versions having more sensors and connectivity options, which would require the electronics module to be swapped out. We have designed the assembly so that the user can do this themselves following instructions from us.
PLEASE NOTE:
Ceiling mounted smoke alarms are still recognized as the preferred response alarm. As such the Sense+ is intended as an additional safety system for fixed in home ceiling mounted smoke alarms.
Sense+ adds safety for you and your family as a automated and networked, cold smoke and carbon monoxide detector system. It saves you precious time you need to get you and your family to safety and alarm emergency services.
It is a portable charging dock that can be easily used to provide added protection when you are on the road and sleeping away from home.
Not all smoke detectors are created equal - Video on NBCNews.com
