For Greenville SCORE client Jaron Carter, the motivation to develop an innovative emergency alert device expected to hit the market early next year was personal.
He’d already heard harrowing stories from friends and family about circumstances where an ability to call for help not tied to a cell phone would have been handy.
But the work on the device at the heart of SOS Anywhere that began three years ago proved all the more necessary recently.
That’s when his mother was injured while walking on the Prisma Health Swamp Rabbit Trail. She was unable to use her phone to summon help and would have been well-served if the device her son was developing had been available. “There are times like that where this would help,” Carter says. “I felt it was my God-given duty to come forward with this.”
The SOS band Carter has been developing is the size of a first generation Fitbit and contains a custom-designed chip capable of communicating through any existing cellular network worldwide. The rubberized band and housing is waterproof, even in saltwater, and the battery is designed to last 10 years.
With his background as a software engineer, Carter explains that with the push of a single button, the device powers up, instantly determines the wearer’s GPS coordinates and elevation, and contacts a predetermined list of contacts and alerts them of the wearer’s location.
Carter’s SCORE mentor, Dennis Geraghty, says in more than 50 years working with technology innovators, he’s rarely met someone who has so aptly identified a need in the marketplace and developed a solution to meet that need.
“I’ve dealt with 20 or 30 business startups in the past year,” Geraghty says. “I can say what Jaron has put together is truly exceptional.”
When he began looking at what was available in emergency alert devices about seven years ago, Carter says he learned there were a number of technical shortcomings in those devices. He also heard they often made users “feel old.”
After waiting several years to see if existing manufacturers would address those problems but seeing no moves to do so, he decided to take on the challenges himself.
“I built the first prototype out of spare parts as a proof of concept,” he says. “We tried to keep it as simple as possible.”
Geraghty says Carter has self-financed the development of the SOS band while continuing to work full time. With an expected price point of around $150, Geraghty says the new device will be significantly cheaper than other options on the market and thus will have a clear competitive advantage.
Carter says he is in the process of obtaining final FCC approval and after that approval and applying for a patent, he expects to place an initial order for 1,000 units by the end of the year with an anticipated delivery in the first quarter of 2022.
Carter says he’s also developing a companion mobile app that will offer many of the same features as the SOS band. It is expected to launch within a few months.
Carter and Geraghty say there are a wide range of uses where the bands would give users and their loved ones peace of mind and that more than 9,000 people have expressed early interest in the device through the website and social media.
Judging from his own experience, Carter says he expects the SOS band will have broad appeal.
“I’ve learned in my life that anything can happen to anybody,” he says.
For more information about the SOS band, visit sosanywhere.com.
SCORE is funded, in part, through a Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Learn more by phone at 864-271-3638, email at info@piedmontscore.org or online at https://piedmont.score.org.
Tell me more
- The band contains a proprietary chip able to communicate across any cellular network worldwide
- The device’s battery has a designed lifespan of 10 years with thousands of uses
- With a single button push, the device powers up, collects the wearer’s GPS coordinates and elevation and contacts a predetermined contact list with the wearer’s location
