My father, Allen Schrock was not in the best of health, but he was self-sufficient enough to take care of himself.  One day in March of 2015 he fell and spent 24 hours on the floor before he was found.

In that time his body literally started breaking down to the point that his doctors only gave him a 33% chance of surviving.  He did survive, but his quality of life is a fraction of what it was before the fall.

I am creating the Allen Band (named after my father) to help families get their aging parents and grandparents the help the need as quickly as possible when they fall or need assistance.  If I would have found my father in four hours instead of 24 hours, I could have prevented much of his tissue damage and he would still be enjoying a good quality of life.

What Exactly is the Allen Band?

The Allen Band is a slim, stylish band that monitors a senior's heart rate, body temperature and mobility.  It sends automated alerts to family members (we call them Caregivers) if something is wrong or the wearer needs help.  It is very much like Life Alert but without any monthly monitoring fees whatsoever.

Most devices like LifeAlert and MedicalAlert provide users with free hardware up front, but then saddle users with $41.95/month multi-year contracts for monitoring.   A typical senior will spend over $7,500 in monitoring expenses alone while using a Life Alert system over a 15 year period.

The Idea behind the Allen Band is that the user pays a one-time cost (estimated at $399) for the Allen Band, and receives free monitoring services for life. The Allen Band can provide families with superior, personalized monitoring options while allowing seniors to stay at home where they want to be.

Free Monitoring for Life

Free monitoring may seem too good to be true, but with today’s technology it is easily achievable. All of the current major senior monitoring systems rely on a pendant / base system that links the user directly to a live monitoring call center. These monitoring centers are extremely expensive to operate and are the driving expense behind existing cost-prohibitive monitoring devices.

The Allen Band is different. Rather than routing emergency events to a call center, the Allen Band uses the Internet to directly notify family, friends, or even neighbors that mom or dad needs help.

When a loved one falls, is inactive for an extended period of time, or experiences an event that is detected by the Allen Band, the band will ask the senior user if they are OK. If the senior user presses the OK button no alert is sent to family.  If the SOS button is pressed instead, a text message, email, and/or push notification is sent to the seniors’ caregivers letting them know what happened and that help is needed.

More than Just an SOS Button

The Allen Band does offer senior users the ability to signal for help by double-pressing the SOS button, but it is more than just a panic button. The Allen Band uses the latest 21st century technology to measure specific biometric readings. The Allen Band can measure:

• Heart Rate
• Body Temperature (is there a fever or hypothermic state)
• Sudden Falls
• Lack of Motion Over an Extended Period
• Connectivity Issues (No communication from the Allen Band)
• Battery Status Issues (when battery is low, Caregiver is alerted)
• GPS Location (using phone's location services)
   

All of this data is sent to the monitoring cloud at regular intervals and each caregiver can ask the cloud monitoring system to alert them based on their own levels of concern.

This eliminates the need for a call center to monitor each user, eliminating the monitoring costs. Each Allen Band can send alerts to up to 2 Caregivers at no cost whatsoever.

Additional Caregivers can be added for $1.00 per month per Caregiver. The Caregiver, not the senior user, pays the $1.00 monthly monitoring charge to be added to the account. We use these small $1.00 payments to cover the cloud server monitoring expenses.

Monitoring Options That are as Mobile as You Are

Unlike traditional pendant / base monitoring solutions, the Allen band will communicate with the cloud over WiFi or via a Bluetooth connected smartphone. That means your Allen Band can monitor your loved ones at home or on the go.

If a senior suffers a fall or needs to quickly and easily ask for help, a double button press on the Allen Band immediately alerts Caregivers to the need.  The Allen Band pulls the senior's GPS location from their smartphone and includes with the alert so Caregivers know where to send help.

Stylish and Discrete

We conducted over 100 interviews with seniors who have used or considered using the pendant / base monitoring systems.

The leading consideration in a senior user’s decision to use an existing system was the monthly cost of monitoring followed closely by the stigma that is associated with the large and ugly wearable pendants.

One respondent said she wouldn’t use a LifeAlert system even if she needed it because it was like “wearing a giant I am infirm" sign around her neck. Another stated that she was 63 years old and probably needed a pendant but wouldn’t wear it because “it just isn’t cool.”

The Allen Band will be designed to look like a slim fitness tracker. It even tells time! No one but the senior user and his/her caregivers will know that the Allen Band is hard at work. That is the way it should be.

Why Indiegogo?

Myself and my team of 15 employees at Schrock Innovations have successfully developed and marketed products like our Modular Computer Systems, PC security software like Secure Updater, and even our own Modular 10.1" Tablet.  We have a track record of identifying needs and successfully developing products to fill those needs.

But the Allen Band is a different type of project.  When we approached our SBA lenders seeking funds for the project they thought this was a great idea, but they wanted to see a monthly monitoring fee that would "save or create" multiple jobs.

The whole point of the Allen Band is to create a senior monitoring solution that had no monthly monitoring costs.  A monitoring center would certainly create a lot of jobs, but they are expensive.  We were not willing to abandon our free-monitoring principle, and as a result they were not willing to fund this project through traditional methods.

We have received an outpouring of fan support on our Allen Band Facebook page as well as emails and phone calls from people who want to help.  We decided that Indiegogo was the best way to fund the project and also collect valuable opinions and design advice by making our supporters part of the design process.

I have personally invested over $9,000 in this project to get it to where it is now, and I plan on spending more of my own money to make this device a reality.  My dad needs the Allen Band, and hundreds of others have asked us when they can buy one.  I would not ask you to back a project that I am not backing myself.

Our goal of $22,750 is enough for us to have the Allen Band designed and prototyped in a Chinese factory.  We would really love to design and build this in the U.S. If we can raise sufficient funding (4 times our goal) we should be able to build the Allen Band in America!  Please consider this as you are contributing!

What We Have Accomplished So Far

Since May we have completed a hardware design document and submitted it to several factories in the US and China for prototype development. We are currently working with the MultiGold Corporation in China to begin developing the molds and main board for the device.

We have selected TPE (thermo-plastic) for the construction of the band due to its flexibility, comfort, and durability.

MultiGold has informed us that the device prototype will take 6-8 months to produce. MultiGold is creating the prototype CAD drawings and we are working together to select the correct chipsets that will maximize battery life, reduce weight and bulk, and allow us to create a streamlined, attractive design.

We have also started the development of the cloud monitoring system that will receive data transmissions from the Allen Band and send alerts to Caregivers automatically.

The factory will be developing the iOS and Android apps for smartphones, and link them with the cloud system's API. Schrock Innovations Computer Company's staff is coding the desktop PC application that will allow those without smartphones to pair the Allen Band to their wireless network in their homes.

The next step is to finalize the prototype design and produce 15 Alpha devices for field testing. We expect to field test on real seniors for a period no less than 30 days. This testing will focus on the utility of the design, ease of operation for seniors, and the accurate collection of data by the Allen Band and correctly processing that data in the cloud to send appropriate alerts.

Revisions will be made to the design if required. Each design revision will take between 30-60 days to finalize and produce another 15 units for field testing. Again, the new units will be tested for 30 days to ensure any issues with the initial design have been corrected.

Once we have a prototype that tests successfully, mass-production of 1,000 units will begin and should take 30-45 days to complete.

The units will be made available to backers at that time first. Subsequently any contributor who gave $350 or more will receive their units first.  After our contributors are fulfilled, the Allen Band will be available for purchase form the Allen Band website, as well as our Schrock Innovations Service Centers. Other distribution channels will be opened as needed to mass-market further production runs.

We expect the design, development, and production process to wrap up in late 2016 with a targeted distribution date of December 2016.