Latest / StartUp Health NOW Podcast / 10-Year Overnight Success: UnaliWear Tops Wirecutter List of Medical Alert Systems

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10-Year Overnight Success: UnaliWear Tops Wirecutter List of Medical Alert Systems · StartUp Health NOW Podcast

• 0:00
  It's not just trying to find the cheapest thing that you can find and slap your logo on it and get it out there to the customer. It's what are the real needs of these customers, and how do we serve them best?
• 0:11
  And the form factor had to really make sense. [upbeat music] Welcome back to Startup Health NOW! a podcast where we celebrate the entrepreneurs and innovators transforming health. I'm Logan Plaster.
• 0:25
  This is a big week because we're back with a new season of the podcast after our much-needed summer hiatus.
• 0:31
  Over the last couple of months, we've shared replays of some of our favorite past episodes, but now we're back, and we'll be running new episodes all fall.
• 0:40
  This week, I am so excited to be talking with my guest, Richard Hirsch from Unaliwear.
• 0:45
  I've been following this company for years since before I came to Startup Health, and I've admired how they are changing the game in medical alert for seniors.
• 0:54
  You see, they built this watch called the Kanega Watch that detects falls and allows seniors to call for help if they need it.
• 1:01
  It gives seniors independence without making them wear this stigmatizing alert button around their necks.
• 1:08
  But the real reason for this episode is that the Kanega Watch was just named by Wirecutter as the best medical alert device for people on the go.
• 1:17
  That's the kind of market validation that startups dream about, so I wanted to hear what moves Richard and his team will be making next. Stick around.
• 1:27
  [upbeat music] All right, Richard Hirsch, uh, you're the Chief Marketing Officer at Unaliwear, maker of the Kanega Watch. Thank you so much for being on Startup Health NOW! with me. My pleasure. Happy to be here.
• 1:38
  Thank you for the invitation. I've been looking forward to this conversation for a couple of main reasons.
• 1:43
  Uh, the first one is that I met your collaborator, Jean Ann Booth, many years ago at the ATA, the American Telemedicine Association, and we were at the, the roof of the Ace Hotel at a party, and she showed me this watch, and she told me how passionate she was for, you know, helping seniors have more independence.
• 2:04
  And so to see many year, many years later, to see the, the, the news and the, the results of that passionate work is super exciting.
• 2:12
  So we'll get into kind of where you're at now to what those last few years have been, but that journey has been amazing.
• 2:18
  And then also just to the fact that you've had the kind of news recently that a lot of the startups that we work with at Startup Health would die for, and so we can talk through the strategies of how to make the most of that.
• 2:29
  But, um, let's start with just level setting on, uh, Unaliwear and the Kanega Watch. Tell us about the company and what you've built.
• 2:38
  So, uh, Unaliwear has been-- we're actually celebrating, uh, our tenth year anniversary. Okay. So we call ourselves a ten-year overnight success. Um- As they do...
• 2:51
  it took about five years for the watch itself to be built and commercialized, so we've been out there now for a number of years, thousands of wearers across the country, but, you know, we're still small compared to some of the bigger guys that make the traditional medical or pendants.
• 3:06
  And so, you know, we're trying to basically have a, a bigger voice in this space. We're one of the few companies that are actually trying to drive innovation. The space is really commoditized.
• 3:19
  Um, the, the form factor and the, the usages of these products is very much commoditized. Most of the products are imported from Asia.
• 3:27
  Uh, you know, and, and, uh, if you ask one of their people in these companies, you know, you wanted to talk to their person who runs the engineering team, they'd probably give you a number for somebody in China.
• 3:40
  Uh, whereas our company is based in Austin, and we're an engineering company first, a marketing company second, which gives us a lot more credibility. And so we've built
• 3:50
  a product that tries to really address the pain points and the issues that seniors and other vulnerable populations experience when they're trying to basically look at a medical alert device that will meet their needs and not embarrass or stigmatize them.
• 4:06
  And we think we basically figured out that model, and the New, New York Times review sort of gives us the endorsement that says we're actually moving in the right direction. Nice.
• 4:17
  We'll get i-into that in a section, uh, in a se-- uh, in a se-- uh, in a second. Um, let's talk about the medical alert market and when you started Unaliwear, kind of what was the status quo and what still is?
• 4:30
  You sort of alluded to that with the commoditization piece, but kind of make it personal for us. I mean, so I think the best way to make it personal is when we talk about Jean Ann's journey.
• 4:40
  I mean, she's the founder and CEO. She's a wonderful person to work with and work for.
• 4:46
  Um, she's incredibly passionate about this business, and it's because the passion comes from a very, very personal situation, which is that, you know, Jean Ann is a serial entrepreneur. She's an electrical engineer.
• 5:00
  She's been very successful in her career, and she sold her last two companies to a couple of small companies, Texas Instruments and Apple.
• 5:07
  And so, um, and so she actually retired, and she was a dive master, training to be a dive master for scuba diving. Mm. And her mom entered the age where she needed one of these devices.
• 5:19
  And, um, and the m-mother refused to wear the products that were on the market, and by the way, those products really haven't changed that much.
• 5:27
  It's still primarily something you wear around your neck, uh, that's both stigmatizing and bulky.
• 5:32
  Uh, as a sidebar, you know, we, we like to tell a story about a gentleman who called us up one day to want to get the Kanega watch, and we asked him why, and he said, "Because I don't wanna wear a garage door opener around my neck."
• 5:44
  Got it. And every person who has a parent who is in this, in this age range or has this product or a product like it or is someone who actually has one of these products, that really resonates with them.
• 5:58
  So, uh, Jean Ann, you know, she had literally, you know, had just gotten a bunch of investors and a bunch of developers that have been working with them on these other companies, so-She didn't think this was gonna be a really hard problem to solve for her mom, who wouldn't wear the traditional medical alert pendant.
• 6:15
  And so, um, it took five years and a lot of money and some great patient, wonderful investors and some incredible developers and, you know, sourcing materials you can imagine.
• 6:26
  You know, they-- There's a reason why they call hardware hard. Yeah. It's hard to get right. And one of the ways you get it right for an audience like this is Jeanne's mom, Joan, who sadly has passed away since then.
• 6:40
  She was our kind of senior experience officer, you know, senior in age and senior in stature.
• 6:46
  And so she put an imprimatur on this that really resonates with our audience, because it's not just trying to find the cheapest thing that you can find and slap your logo on it and get it out there to the customer.
• 7:00
  It's what are the real needs of these customers and how do we serve them best. And the form factor had to really make sense. And, um, and so that, you know, that really that kind of formed us.
• 7:12
  And then this went through hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of other seniors and focus groups and all the things you would think a normal company at a normal industry would do. But this industry doesn't do that.
• 7:26
  They're really about pushing out product. They're not bad.
• 7:29
  The companies do what they can, but they're pushing out mediocre, commoditized product in a space that really desi-deserves to have more care and thought put into the design and form and function.
• 7:41
  And that's what Unaliwear has done with the Kanega watch. Got it. So you came into a market where the, the typical, uh, medical alert was a pendant.
• 7:50
  It was a, you know, push the button and, and what would it typically allow you to do since we can compare to where we're at now? Yeah. No, I mean, that really hasn't changed. The back end has stayed relatively the same.
• 8:01
  So let's just create a general statement. An alert comes from the device, right? Mm-hmm. We'll, we'll, we'll park what that alert, how that alert gets done for a second, Logan.
• 8:11
  But just an alert comes from the z- device that gets sent to, uh, uh, you know, a twenty-four seven, uh, three sixty-five US-based monitoring center.
• 8:23
  And when that alert goes to that center, uh, the agent there will automatically pop up on their screen.
• 8:30
  The agent will pop up, um, you know who the wearer is, where the wearer is, uh, any information that's been shared by...
• 8:39
  in terms of setting up the account about the wearer, you know, medical conditions, medi-medicine allergies, emergency contacts. And that agent is gonna try to speak to the wearer through the device. Yeah.
• 8:51
  At, at or in some cases with older product through a separate base station, which is kind of a more problem experience. So it's really you wanna have a wearable. That's what the industry has evolved to in most cases.
• 9:02
  So they're gonna try to speak to that person through the device. If that person is responsive, they're in control, they direct whatever care they need. It's not just, you know, an ambulance or nothing.
• 9:13
  It's, you know, call my neighbor and have them come over. I need a little bit of help. Have my daughter come over to get the blankets in the top of the closet 'cause I'm cold. Or help me off the floor.
• 9:22
  Or police, fire or, um, or, uh, ambulance.
• 9:27
  And then if they're not responsive, then they, uh, the agent then tries the person's primary phone number just to make sure there isn't a connection issue with the device itself.
• 9:38
  And then finally, if they don't reach them there, they'll try the first emergency contact and they'll tell them they tried to reach this person and they're not responding. And they'll say, "Are you nearby?
• 9:49
  Can you do a well check?" Sometimes that person they call, that first emergency contact, they're in the same house. Mm. And the person needs help. Interesting. And they check on them and, uh... or they can't.
• 9:59
  And if they can't, uh, the agent then, the monitoring center agent, has the same access to nine one-- to emergency services as nine one one does.
• 10:08
  They have access to the same network, emergency network, and they dispatch an ambulance to the person's GPS location, whether they're at home, out shopping, or in Alaska. It really all works the same way.
• 10:19
  And then if they do that, they call every emergency contact back, let them know it's taken place.
• 10:25
  And the monitoring center agent always calls from the s-same phone number, which is critical these days because no one picks up a phone if they don't know the number.
• 10:33
  So you wanna have it in your contact list to know it's not spam. So it's a really, really well-designed system that's worked well quite frankly for decades. The back end works well. Mm.
• 10:43
  But every company does the back end pretty much the same. The question on the front end is: how do you make an alert happen, and are you actually gonna be wearing the product that will allow you to make the alert happen?
• 10:55
  Got it. That's where the rubber hits the road with the Kanega watch. Um, there's three ways to get help with the Kanega watch. Most companies only offer one, maybe two.
• 11:03
  You can use-- You can-- The fall detection will automatically detect a fall and will connect to the monitoring center without the wearer having to do anything.
• 11:11
  They can also push the side button of the watch, which is that crown, uh, stem button, and that also connects to the monitoring center. Or they can use their voice to ask for help. So it's voice activated,
• 11:23
  button activated, and fall detection activated. That's really differentiating this marketplace. Um, so it ma- it makes a big difference. And then of course the form factor. Yeah. If you're in a really...
• 11:34
  I mean, data shows the average person who has a pendant wears it about forty percent of the day and rarely at night when they may need it most.
• 11:44
  Um, you know, we're seeing, um, active wearer numbers for our, our watch in the eighty to ninety percent. I mean, that's unheard of in this industry. Wow. Wow.
• 11:55
  Uh, well, we can get even deeper into some of that form factor stuff because it's, it contributes to our next part of the conversation. I don't wanna bury the lead.
• 12:03
  The part of the reason why we're having this discussion is that you were recently named by Wirecutter, which is owned by The New York Times, as I believe, the best on-the-go medical, uh, wearable device, medical alert system for seniors.Uh, first of all, congratulations.
• 12:19
  W-uh, when did you- Thank you... when did you receive the, the, the word that that had come through? About two weeks ago. Two weeks ago. Okay.
• 12:27
  Um, was there work that you had to do to kind of be up for that, uh, recognition, or was that just hap-happening independently in the background?
• 12:35
  I gotta give a great shout-out to Wirecutter and the reporter who worked on it. You know, um, it-- they basically asked for sample products, uh, in-- I think it was in January of this year.
• 12:46
  Okay And, um, and the, the, the, the reporter said, you know... I-- We said, "Look, we'll send you the sample product. We want you to go through the typical way someone gets this, this, this watch."
• 12:57
  Uh, we do an onboarding call with every wearer. We expl- And there's a n-there's a, a b-a simple booklet that comes in, but the watch also arrives completely already set up. The wearer doesn't have to do anything.
• 13:08
  It works out of the box, which is very different than the rest of the industry, so we're very much taking care of our wearers from day one.
• 13:15
  And then the person basically did testing of the device, plus other devices, obviously, that were part of the consideration process.
• 13:22
  And in about May, you know, she emailed us with some additional questions, uh, emailed us with a few additional questions as well in July. And I-- to be honest with you, they didn't even tell us the article came out.
• 13:34
  We heard it from other people. No way. I-- So me, you know, I'm-- I was both frustrated but also quite impressed. Like, we had nothing to do with this.
• 13:42
  Yeah And I think it's, it adds even more to the credibility of The Times and Wirecutter that there's no like, "Here's the article. Do you have any-- Do you think it should change at all?" Like, they really...
• 13:52
  There's a church and state mentality that doesn't exist in journalism that much anymore. So I give a huge shout-out to Wirecutter and The Times for doing this in the most, uh,
• 14:03
  due diligence and in, and journalistic way possible. I know I personally use Wirecutter constantly, things like buying a tent or everything from a tent to, uh, to headphones.
• 14:14
  So when I heard this, I knew it was a big deal. But help our audience, uh, by just putting in perspective what it means to be the best of on a list like this.
• 14:22
  Yeah, I mean, what's interesting is that, you know, they broke it down to at home and on the go.
• 14:28
  Most people don't really think about the business that way because most people that want a device that works at home want a device that works on the go.
• 14:35
  It's, you know, there are some people that are only at home, but our watch works perfectly fine at home as well. So we're, we're really...
• 14:42
  What's amazing is that we're the, the best option out there for people that wanna be able to use it anywhere, and that's really what's, what's very credible. And z- as you can imagine, you know, our site traffic spiked.
• 14:53
  It's still spiking.
• 14:54
  Call volume increased, um, but also the percentage of orders that go directly through our website increased as well because the impression of Wirecutter, uh, gives people a sense of confidence that's different than really any o- We've gotten endorsements from PC Magazine, Forbes, the National Council on Aging, lots of other review sites, top 10, top five, caring.com.
• 15:19
  I go on and on. But...
• 15:21
  And they're all great, and we are appreciate every last endorsement and thumbs up from every company and, and agency that we work with, but The Times and the Wire-Wirecutter, they're the top of the mountain, and we're just so happy to having been recognized.
• 15:34
  And, you know, it's one thing to be on a list of many things, but to be the only one that they recommend after looking at everything on the market, that really speaks volumes to the innovation that we've actually brought to the marketplace.
• 15:47
  Yeah. Let's talk to the founders or any entrepreneurs listening, and, uh, let's talk about just the steps that you took to make the most of this sort of announcement. It, it could've been something smaller, you know.
• 15:58
  But when you get news, as a chief marketing officer, you gotta think about, you know, "How do I optimize this moment?" Well, so I mean, I, I look at it as like the pebble in the pond. So I...
• 16:10
  You know, what's that first circle? And the first circle that we did is we sent out a breaking news email to all of our subscribers.
• 16:19
  You know, our subscriber base is now, it's still relatively small, but it's about 20,000. Mm. I mean, so it's, it's still a nice size. I mean, it's not 200,000.
• 16:26
  But like, y- it's almost, you know, it's almost like you think about when you get engaged, you know, who do you tell first? Yeah. Right? And so, like, th-that's our family, right?
• 16:35
  So w- obviously, we told our employees and, and our investors. But I mean, just think about how that pebble in the pond just sort of emanates out.
• 16:43
  And so we went from really thinking more about making sure that everyone that, that was in our overall circle heard about it from us.
• 16:51
  Uh, we also shared it with all of our affiliate partners, you know, that, uh, uh, that just so that they're... A- again, we wanted to make sure they heard about it from us first.
• 17:00
  And then you start to make changes to the website. We're still doing that, you know, adding infor- you know, different points, uh, that we can say about the article.
• 17:10
  I mean, the thing that's interesting about The Times article is that it's one thing to have been listed as best, you know, on-the-go medical alert device, but they also chose that because they said we were best for fall detection.
• 17:24
  And I wanna park that for a second 'cause that's a really important point. Mm. Uh, they want all... They also said we were best for, uh, emergency response, uh, best for GPS, and best for customer service.
• 17:36
  I mean, you can't a- What else- Right... uh, are you getting this device for than those- Yeah... four things? Right. Right. Are you cared for when you have an issue? Are you cared for in an emergency?
• 17:47
  Will they find you where you are, and will it work when you fall? Mm. And so, like, I, I couldn't... Uh, we were just so blown away that they recognized all those things.
• 17:55
  And, and so I wanna touch base on the fall detection. That's a really important point that I wanna share with you.
• 18:01
  But beyond that, you know, now, you know, we, we are just moving beyond the, the two or three initial blips in the circle and going out from there.
• 18:09
  Obviously, we've added, you know, information in our brochure or any kind of communication materials that go out.
• 18:15
  Um, and so we just keep, you know, simple things likeYou know, adding it to the, our, our Facebook, uh, header graphic, our LinkedIn header graphic.
• 18:26
  You know, just trying to think all the different touchpoints to make sure that, that it's consistent. We also obviously did a blast on LinkedIn as well. So, um,
• 18:35
  w-we're just, we just wanted to make sure that the world in which we touch every day is aware of what we do, and the people that are coming into our funnel, and coming into our world now, uh, that they know very clearly, uh, that we have this designation, and we're quite proud of it.
• 18:51
  Yeah. So this is a mountaintop sort of moment. The life of a startup is anything but all mountaintops. So help us understand kinda what the last five years have looked like, just if you were to graph it out.
• 19:05
  Um, you know, you said the thing about PC Magazine, et cetera, but, you know, put this in perspective for us in terms of, you know, the struggle over the last five or seven years. I mean, again, I would just...
• 19:16
  The, the simple tagline is, "Hardware is hard." Right? So you... A-and, and what's... And, um, we're blessed because we have great engineers, and we're small, so we can pivot. Mm. So he-here's an example, right?
• 19:29
  So, um, fall detection is really hard to get right, right? People think, "Oh, I just want it to go off when I really fell and I need help." That's literally impossible, right? So...
• 19:40
  And we have people that are wearers of the Conneaga watch that are in their 50s and 60s and play competitive tennis. Ugh. This wearer is 103 and never leaves their home.
• 19:52
  So how do you design something that's gonna catch a fall and is accurate and uniformly sensitive to meet the needs of the 103-year-olds whose main activity is lifting the remote control to watch TV, and the person who's doing overhead smashes?
• 20:07
  It's literally impossible. And so we were challenged by, at one point, was, you know, people either complain that the fall detection was not sensitive enough- Yeah... uh, or complain that it was too sensitive. Sure.
• 20:21
  And, and so we were doing... One thing we do do that other companies don't do is we're collecting real fall data every day on what a fall looks like on the wrist.
• 20:31
  Nobody else has this data, and so we're constantly pushing updates every month to two months or so, improving our fall detection algorithm to make it smarter and smarter, and nobody pays for that.
• 20:44
  It just gets pushed at, you know, 4:00 in the morning when they're asleep. Mm. We push the updates automatically. No one has to actually make those happen themselves.
• 20:51
  It's not like a regular phone where you have to ask for that. We just push them to make the watch better and better for them. Nice. But, so that's on a macro level.
• 20:58
  But on a micro level, there's still this variability of interest of, of how do I want the fall detection to work for me?
• 21:05
  So our engineer has actually built out, uh, the ability for us to actually, our customer success team, we can tune the sensitivity of the fall detection to meet the needs of the wearer. That is mind-blowing.
• 21:19
  And, and un- Di-dial it up, dial it down. Yeah.
• 21:22
  And so what's important is because, yes, if you dial it down, you may miss certain falls that, that you m-may have caught, but you also get fewer false alerts that you're made that might annoy you. Mm.
• 21:34
  And so the important thing is you wear it, and it's funny 'cause we hear from pe- customers who call us and they say, "Well, I talked to other companies and I was gonna get a pendant, but they said, 'Don't get the fall detection.
• 21:46
  It's gonna go off too much and you're gonna return it.'"
• 21:48
  [laughs] That's really ha- If that's really their pitch, and it's because they have a static fall detection algorithm, and so if you sit down fast in a chair today and it goes off, it goes off that way every day.
• 21:58
  Imagine how annoying that is, so of course they're gonna take it off.
• 22:01
  But if you have the ability for someone to call up, not to do it on, on themselves, not to do it on their watch, not to mess with a manual or, or push a bunch of buttons on the f- on the watch to figure it out, just call us and say, "I'd like it more sensitive or less sensitive," and we're like, "Okay, we're pushing the update to the watch now."
• 22:18
  Wow. That is, that is revolutionary, and it's really, it's really...
• 22:22
  You only get there when you're in the market long enough to start to understand what pain points you didn't fully solve when you launched the product in the first place. Yeah.
• 22:33
  So you said it's been 10 years, so, so you needed some of that time. You needed to be in the market. You needed to, to do those hard tests so that you would know what you know now.
• 22:42
  I remember Jeananne talking to me about the interesting things you've done around the battery, uh, so that it's more wearable at night. Could you tell me more about that? Well, yeah.
• 22:50
  I mean, we have a patented quick swap battery system, and you can see it on the watch here. Ah, you're, you're wearing one. Nice. Well, of course I am. And so, and right up here it tells the time, right? Uh-huh.
• 22:59
  Uh, the, the, the batteries. So every other device out there doesn't run on batteries.
• 23:05
  It runs, it, uh, it runs on an internal battery that you have to then take the watch or the device, pendant, whatever, at some point off to charge- Mm... and put it on a, on a charging station.
• 23:17
  If you have a device that is a watch and that is a, an internal battery, you're taking that watch off, not our watch, other competitors' off every 10 to 18 hours, um, and you're leaving it there for an hour or two or longer to charge.
• 23:33
  That's not very protective. Right. With our watch, the, one of the innovations is that, um, you just remove the batteries, right? It's a quick swap battery system. Mm-hmm.
• 23:42
  Take them off, you put 'em in a charger that the watch comes with. Not the charger, not for the watch, but for the batteries.
• 23:49
  The watch comes with four batteries: two go in the watch, two go in the charger, and so every day to day and a half, you just swap the batteries. It takes about 10 seconds. Mm. It is a bit of a trade-off, right?
• 24:01
  It's not the kinda thing where, you know, you just, you just take it off and let's, uh, let's, and you just forget about it until you wanna put it back on again.
• 24:09
  You do have to actively engage with the watch every day to day and a half. But for the 10-second trade-off, you never take it off to charge. One of the challenges in this business is behavior modification.
• 24:19
  How do you make sure someone keeps wearing that device, whether that's a pendant or something on your wrist?And so the more reasons you give someone to take it off, "Oh, well, you can wear it all the time, but you gotta take it off to charge, and you, and you can't wear it in the shower.
• 24:34
  Oh, and when you go out, you gotta have a, you gotta have a different, um, you gotta have a different device when you leave the house, when you come in, you gotta swap things out."
• 24:43
  All that completely invalidates the behavior modification you're looking for. You want someone to put this on, use it as a watch to give them benefits every day.
• 24:51
  It tells time, it tells tate, it tells date, it has medication reminder functionality, and that's it. It's super simple, no touch screen. It's just a watch.
• 25:01
  And so that allows someone to feel like they're wearing it every day for a reason, and that means when they need help, it's on their wrist, which is when they need it most. Very nice. Very nice.
• 25:12
  Um, well, that's pretty much our time, Richard. You know, I wanna hear basically what's coming next. I know this is this sort of seminal piece of news, and yet you still have a big market to break into.
• 25:24
  You're still a relatively small player. So what does it look like six months to a year from now? A lot more wearers. I mean, the, the data is pretty interesting. You know, you have, um,
• 25:36
  about 8% of seniors currently have a medical alert device.
• 25:40
  And yet Forbes did a study last year where they talked to 2,000 wearers of medical alert devices, all different types of devices, and asked them, you know, have these been helpful?
• 25:49
  87% said that they, that the device had either helped them in an emergency or helped to prevent an emergency from actually happening, like helped prevent an escalation to an emergency.
• 26:02
  So this, with that kind of data, there should be a lot more people wearing these devices, and it's because they vote no because of the form factor.
• 26:11
  So now that, you know, we have the best product, it's been, you know, dubbed that by an incredibly, you know, valid and, and respected, uh, ind- independent industry, uh, you know, uh, uh, independent, uh, journalists, uh, in the Wirecutter in Times.
• 26:29
  Um, we just, you know, our goal is just to keep get more and more wearers wearing it and growing the community, and really, you know, we're in the business of giving people the peace of mind they deserve
• 26:40
  for themselves and for their family in the, in the most non-stigmatizing way possible.
• 26:45
  So our goal is trying to keep our, quite frankly, our nose to the grindstone, keep improving the watch's software, its functionality in a way to make it better and better, improve the fall detection, uh, listen to our customers when they have needs that we can solve, pivot, and make sure we can try to solve them better and better, and, um, and just try to be as successful as possible.
• 27:08
  'Cause our success means we're saving lives, and there's nothing that gets you up in the morning more than when you realize that every day. Yeah.
• 27:16
  S- saving lives and also allowing people to thrive, uh, in that older age, and giving freedom to the, the sandwich generation, the adults who are concerned about their aging parents.
• 27:26
  So, uh- Can I tell you one more quick story to this? Yeah, yeah. Go for it.
• 27:30
  So, so there's, um, a woman called us up, and she had, uh, the story about, you know, calling, uh, using the watch to, uh, call the monitoring center to have them call her daughter to get the blankets from the top of the closet 'cause she was cold.
• 27:44
  I mean, you know, it's 100 degrees today, but that was real, about, you know, months ago where that took place.
• 27:49
  So we get a call from that woman thanking us because, you know, she's found a way to use the watch even for another reason she hadn't thought about, for kind of minor emergencies.
• 27:58
  The next call they got was from the, the daughter, who said, uh, "I can now sleep at night because I know my mom is wearing this watch." Mm. And it hurt the woman, the, the, the wearer,
• 28:11
  a really tremendous amount of peace of mind. We've given the daughter back sleep she never had before because she was always worried about her mom living by herself.
• 28:19
  How do you not get up in the morning and just wanna do this every day? Yeah. It's hard to quantify the value of that. You're giving her the ability to think about her own family, do her job, all these ripple effects.
• 28:29
  Speaking of the, the, the pebble in the water. Well, Richard, thank you for, uh, the time. Thank you for, you know, work- collaborating with Jean-An on this product and, and really giving people independence.
• 28:42
  Very excited about this news, about this validation, and I hope that, um, that more people hear about it and, um, and go out and, and pick it up 'cause it is gonna do a lot of good. So Richard, thank you.
• 28:55
  We'll be keeping tabs going forward. Well, thank you for your time and, and for inviting me. I really appreciate it. All right. Take care. Be well. [upbeat music] Thanks for listening to Starter Health Now.
• 29:08
  We'll be back again with another episode next week. [upbeat music]