The Story of the Lotus Ring: A Revolution in Smart Home Technology

Summary

Deval Patel, CEO of Lotus, shares the story of developing the Lotus ring, a wearable device that controls home appliances.

The ring eliminates the need for rewiring and internet, addressing privacy concerns. It is designed for ease of use and accessibility, benefiting individuals with disabilities, temporary limitations, and situational needs.

The development process involved extensive user interviews and human-centered design. Challenges included engineering a curved ring and ensuring tactile usability for individuals with limited fine motor skills.

The conversation covers the development and features of the Lotus ring, a smart home control device designed for individuals with limited mobility.

It explores the challenges of creating technology for circular devices, the inclusive design approach, and the impact of the product on users' lives.

The conversation also delves into the product's availability, pricing, and customer success stories.

Takeaways

The Lotus ring is a wearable device that controls home appliances, designed for ease of use and accessibility.

The ring eliminates the need for rewiring and internet, addressing privacy concerns associated with smart home technology.

The development process involved extensive user interviews and human-centered design, ensuring that the technology meets the needs of individuals with disabilities, temporary limitations, and situational needs.

Engineering challenges included creating a curved ring and ensuring tactile usability for individuals with limited fine motor skills.

The Lotus ring is designed to provide smart home control for individuals with limited mobility, using inclusive design principles to cater to a diverse range of users.

The challenges of creating technology for circular devices, such as the Lotus ring, include accommodating different finger sizes, curved electronics, and tolerance analysis for assembly.

The product's impact on users' lives is significant, with success stories highlighting increased independence, reduced risk of falling, and emotional well-being.

The availability of the Lotus ring for pre-orders and its pricing make it an accessible and valuable solution for individuals and organizations.

The product has already seen success with government, senior living, and disability organizations, demonstrating its potential to benefit a wide range of users.

Chapters

00:00 Inclusive Design for Smart Home Control
25:20 Challenges of Circular Device Technology
30:16 Impact on User Independence and Well-being
41:29 Availability and Pricing of the Lotus Ring
43:55 Success Stories and Market Adoption

Transcript

Janet Engel (00:01.1)
Hello everyone and today's guest is Deval Patel. He is the CEO of the company Lotus and he developed the Lotus ring. Deval, thank you for being with us today.

Dhaval Patel (00:15.233)
and honored to be here. Thank you for having me.

Janet Engel (00:17.42)
Yes, I became aware of your product through one of your employees on LinkedIn, Juan, and I was just fascinated by the technology. I've never seen anything like it. And after working in home health for so many years, I saw that this would be a product that would really be useful for aging in place.

So I wanted to invite you on the podcast so that you could make everyone aware about the Lotus ring. So I'll let you start with your background and what motivated you to start your company.

Dhaval Patel (00:50.882)
Thank you.

Dhaval Patel (01:02.274)
Absolutely. Well, thank you for having me and a pleasure being here. Thanks to everyone that's listening as well. I'm an engineer by training. So I'm an electrical and aerospace engineer by training. And a couple of years ago, I got into bed. I was born with twisted knees. I should probably start with that. So I'm on and off crutches and I've been on and off crutches over the years. And one night, a few years ago, actually in this house, I got into bed having accidentally left the lights on.

Janet Engel (01:19.82)
Okay.

Dhaval Patel (01:31.17)
But I was too tired to get out of bed, hop onto my crutches, hobble 10 feet, turn off the light, and vice versa. So I just slept with the lights on the entire night. And woke up in the morning thinking, well, if someone like me, I'm an engineer managing a division at Apple for iPhone, watch, and AirPods. I have worked at the company that makes the wall switches, Lutron. I have 37 patents. If an engineer like me doesn't even have smart home technology in their own home, who does?

Janet Engel (01:42.302)
Mmm.

Dhaval Patel (02:02.146)
And that was the genesis. And after starting to dig, turns out about 91 % of US homes were built before smart homes even existed. But there's no easy way to upgrade. Even if you wanted Alexa to control your lights, well, the very first step is you have to rewire the wall switches to connect to the internet, to be able to talk to Alexa. That's the first step. Then you have to put smart speakers in every room that you just rewired your switches.

You have to put one in the bedroom, in the bathroom, in the living room, in a lot of spaces that people aren't comfortable with devices listening in all the time. And finally, if you've gone through the first two steps and you've gotten through them, then you have to pair every switch one by one to the speaker through another app. And just that first step of rewiring is 11 hours or $2 ,000 if you hire a contractor. And all of this is best case if you own the house.

If you're renting an apartment, there's no solution. If you're traveling for work or for pleasure, there's no solution. And so it affects a lot of people, but it disproportionately affects people like me, about 27 million people with limited mobility, veteran soldiers, older adults, disabled persons, who can spend up to an extra four hours at home on self -care daily. So to solve this, we made notice.

Janet Engel (03:32.044)
Well, okay, that's amazing. Your story that it motivated you to create this product out of necessity. So tell me about your first steps with developing the Lotus Ring and how does this technology work?

Dhaval Patel (03:51.522)
Yeah, so in a nutshell, for people with limited mobility, we've made this wearable ring that controls objects at home by pointing. Right, unlike, say, Alexa, there's no apps, no rewiring, and no internet needed. And to back up a second, we didn't originally design this the way it has come out. In fact, if I'm being perfectly candid,

Janet Engel (04:02.316)
Okay.

Dhaval Patel (04:18.914)
I was originally convinced this was the worst idea in the world. Because at the time, even now, most smart home technologies that exist are internet -based. Right? Your Alexa's and Siri's and Google Homes, et cetera. Everything needs the internet. Everything needs rewiring. And it seemed odd to go against the grain. Right? I was using technology or considering using technology that's been around for 30 years. And it's the same core technology that's in your TV remote, essentially.

And so I didn't do anything about this for the first nine months. In fact, to convince myself that there, you know, this might even be helpful to people for the first nine months, I just interviewed people with different kinds of disabilities. People who were blind, people who are deaf, people with limited mobility using wheelchairs or crutches or walkers, people with no disability. just, you know, pregnant moms, people who have small kids, their family members.

and also clinicians, so orthopedic surgeons, physical therapists, and occupational therapists. And it was at the end of nine months after having, you know, these are very long interviews, we're talking nine hours long in some cases. So spread over three days, and I wouldn't tell them the idea. Yeah, not nine hours out of stretch. So three hours every day, over three days. And I would just walk through people's day, you wake up in the morning, what do you do? How do you get out of bed?

Janet Engel (05:35.436)
Okay, I was gonna ask you. Okay.

Dhaval Patel (05:48.13)
What are your pain points? How do you solve them today? Then I, whatever it was, I wouldn't tell them that this was the idea I had. And only in the, on the third interview at the last hour of the last day, I would say, Hey, by the way, I've had this idea. Do you think this would be helpful? And whatever they would say, I would cross check with the first eight hours of interview, because of course everyone wants to be polite and nice and supportive. And so in a lot of cases, I wanted to make sure they weren't just being nice, that it was genuinely solving.

problem. And so at the end of nine months, every person we interviewed, every single one said, can you please build prototypes or something of this already? We would love to try it. That's when I started building prototypes and forming a team.

Janet Engel (06:33.74)
Now while you were doing this research during this nine month period, were you still working at Apple?

Dhaval Patel (06:41.026)
No, by then I had actually given up my day job and I was solely focused on this. And I, in fact, I had set myself a deadline of six months saying, okay, I'm going to talk to people for six months. And by the end of six months is if it's just a lukewarm interest or no interest, I'm just going to go find another job or go back to my old job. But at the end of six months, people were still interested, but I wasn't convinced yet. And so I decided to extend the deadline, keep talking to people and.

Ultimately was able to convince myself to take the risk. So after Apple, I saw, I was at Apple for eight and a half years. Like I mentioned, I managed the division for iPhone watch AirPods. After that, I was the VP of hardware at his startup. And the goal, the reason to do that was I wanted to learn how startups work because Apple is a huge company and it seemed not prudent to jump directly from Apple to doing my own startup. And so I wanted to learn how to.

how to run a good startup. And so I joined a startup. I was the fifth employee, really small. And I did that for about three and a half years and then decided to do this for the first nine months. And then of course, from that point on, Lotus came into existence.

Janet Engel (07:55.34)
Fascinating story. And I'm glad you mentioned the thing about the pregnant moms because about 12 years ago when I was pregnant with my son, I remember having mobility issues and needing assistance with getting up from the couch. I would never attempt to sit on the floor or anything like that. And you're right, it gives you a real appreciation for...

Dhaval Patel (08:16.482)
Yeah.

Janet Engel (08:23.148)
when you have difficulty with just getting up and down from a surface.

Dhaval Patel (08:30.274)
Yeah, and that's been our thesis and our motto, our principle from the very beginning. So our thesis is we only build technology that anybody can use by optimizing for disability first. Because if you do that, then you've automatically solved for every other use case, right? And it's in academic terms, there's a term for this. So you of course have your permanent disabilities, what most people think of as a disability. Then there's everything that's temporary.

Like pregnancy, from prenatal to postnatal, it's usually a year. But even if you move away from that, you know, we're talking temporary could be a sports injury, like you've just twisted your ankle. Very common situation, either while walking around or just playing sports. But there's also situational. So for instance, if you've ever had a little, you know, like a funny argument with your significant other saying, my God, it's so cold, I'm tucked into bed, but I forgot to close that door.

or close the blinds or turn off that light. You know, it's I did it last night. You go, you go close it. You know, you turn off the lights tonight. Or if you have small kids, you know, you're there either coming in, grabbing your feet or holding on to your ear. You know, if you just put a baby to sleep and you forgot to turn off the lights or you needed to close the door or turn the blinds, you don't want to wake up because you mean wake up the baby. You don't want to make a sound. You just want to control your environment from where you're at or something as simple as you just have grocery bags.

Janet Engel (09:35.692)
Yeah.

Dhaval Patel (09:59.906)
your hands are full. What do you do? So in academic terms, it's called solving for permanent disabilities solves for temporary and situational disabilities as well as are called. And so that's our thesis. We make the anti prosthetic. You don't have to be disabled to benefit. But once we solve for that, everybody benefits anyway. So why not do?

Janet Engel (10:23.18)
That's brilliant. Tell me how does the ring work and what appliances or home features can I use it with?

Dhaval Patel (10:34.082)
Absolutely. So it's a simple three -step process. So step one for those of you watching you put on the ring We recommend it on your pointer finger so you can use your opposable thumb as I'm showing to the camera there's only a single button on the ring so there's just one button that you can press with your thumb and Every time I press it you can see this little light coming on in the front of the ring so that's step one you just put on the ring and putting on the ring once and

Janet Engel (11:00.812)
Okay.

Dhaval Patel (11:02.882)
eliminates the need to have a smart speaker in every room of your home, which is what you would have to do otherwise, right? Because the ring stays on you and goes with you wherever you go. So that's step one. Step two, for any existing wall switch, I'm just showing one example here, but it's also true for the other type of switches. For any existing wall switch, regardless of what it controls, lights or fans or appliances, you can attach the Lotus switch cover,

and you'll notice it attaches magnetically. So there's no rewiring. Again, show it again, you just bring it nearby and the strong magnet's just attached on. Now you can also continue using it manually like a regular wall switch. So you can walk up to it, other family members can just walk up to it and use it like a regular wall switch. That's step two. And step three, you can just point and click and whatever you're pointing at will turn on and off.

And that's it. So you put the ring on, snap on the switch, point and click. That is literally it. There is no pairing, there's no internet, and there's no rewiring.

Janet Engel (12:14.38)
So by you saying there's no internet, does that eliminate the issues with privacy and the internet of things being connected, all of the things people worry about with Alexa and Google Home?

Dhaval Patel (12:24.706)
Yeah, exactly.

Exactly. The number one concern we got, and it was sort of a split. Everyone wanted smart home technology. Everyone we interviewed, including folks that you would normally associate with not being interested in technology, like older adults, everyone actually wanted and was interested in being able to control their home environment easily, right? For ease of convenience, or you have arthritis, or just small kids. But what they didn't want to do,

Janet Engel (12:54.284)
Mm.

Dhaval Patel (12:56.962)
was that nobody wanted to get involved with rewiring because you have to, you know, you have to find an electrician or know how to turn off the fuse and open up your wall and the drywall. You know, it's a very complicated effort. The other equivalent concern was everyone was concerned, like you're mentioning with privacy. And so we started to work backwards to create tech that didn't involve rewiring and no internet. So yes, absolutely. To your point, the number one concern that people had, even the people who had an Alexa already,

They did not want to add a second Alexa in their bedroom because they didn't want something listening all the time. And Lotus devices are completely offline. They don't connect to the internet. So there's no concept of your data going anywhere. They're just offline devices. So it's no different than your TV remote. The only person who knows about it is you while you're using it. And that's it. So there's no privacy. There's no concern about hacking or security.

Janet Engel (13:50.764)
Thanks.

Janet Engel (13:54.764)
You said there's no rewiring and you showed us how the magnet communicates. So is it by the act of the magnet communicating with the existing system?

Dhaval Patel (14:07.682)
Yeah, it's a great question. So the magnets just help connect and hold on to the wall switch because every wall switch is held by two screws. So the magnets just help attach. But the actual physical motion is happening behind where there's an actual small motor that's pushing the wall switch. So it's physically manipulating the wall switch. So in the case of rocker switches, you're actually, there's a small motor that's pushing it.

Janet Engel (14:19.82)
Okay.

Janet Engel (14:32.332)
I see.

Dhaval Patel (14:36.514)
And in the case of toggle, it looks the same from the front, but it's actually moving it up and down. So I can show it here.

Janet Engel (14:37.228)
Janet Engel (14:42.828)
that's amazing. I'm so glad you explained that.

Dhaval Patel (14:46.146)
And that way it's... Yeah, yeah. So there's basically a little motor inside and you're just triggering the motor using the button on your right.

Janet Engel (14:57.276)
Okay. Well, and you're in a phase.

Dhaval Patel (14:59.33)
The idea was to keep it super simple so that my grandmother, who's not technology savvy, but who could really benefit from this could even use it because she knows how to use a TV remote.

Janet Engel (15:13.964)
or this middle -aged woman who's not technology savvy.

Dhaval Patel (15:17.73)
Or anyone. Yeah, really anyone. I mean one of the very common situations that we've noticed recently are a lot of younger adults like 16, 17, 18 years old, but who have cerebral palsy and use a wheelchair. For them, they get a sense of dignity from the independence because otherwise they're constantly asking for help for what is often considered a quote small thing, right? It's just turning on the lights. Why can't you do that on your own?

Janet Engel (15:40.908)
right.

Dhaval Patel (15:47.234)
Nobody wants to ask for help because you want to feel like you're independent, you're in control. And so a lot of the younger children also have been telling us they love this because it gives them that sense of autonomy and independence back, which leads to dignity.

Janet Engel (16:02.348)
What a great product and what a great idea. I can't believe that you questioned it for so long.

Dhaval Patel (16:08.482)
You know, it's because there's absolutely, there's nothing like this out there. We've, again, we've been working on this for about two years because it's so different and such a deviation from the existing universe of smart home technology. You know, everything today is internet or Bluetooth or Zigbee or Z -Wave, you know, this uses none of that. And so initially you sort of, you know, you wonder if you're on the right track, you know, you're not necessarily single -handedly the smartest person in the world.

You know, you wonder, other people probably may have thought of this and maybe it doesn't work for obvious reasons. And so initially it took me nine months to sort of come up with every reason that this was a stupid idea and then disprove it. And after I eliminated everything, I was left with no excuses. So then I had to, then I decided it was time. I had to, I had to work on it. Yes.

Janet Engel (16:54.284)
Then you had to invent it. You had to use your, because you're a graduate of Georgia Tech, right?

Dhaval Patel (17:02.146)
Yes, Underground Masters, yeah.

Janet Engel (17:03.916)
undergrad yeah and master so you had to use your your education.

Dhaval Patel (17:10.21)
Indeed, indeed. I had to use my education. Actually, I would say the best, the best thing we ever did was human centered design, which was, you know, talking to people and designing technology that they want, not what technology is capable of. So like I said, we talked to people and they said, we want smart homes, but we don't want internet. We don't want rewiring and we don't. There are tons of people, especially of younger adults like your age, younger. Nobody wanted another app on their phone.

A lot of people said, like, I have yet to meet a person who said, my God, if I only had 10 more apps on my phone, my life would be better. Nobody, nobody's in that boat. And so a lot of people who love the smart home technology, and you would say are pretty tech savvy. They just wanted things that they could just use without having yet another app on their phone. And so that's why I said, we started working backwards saying, okay, if this is what they want and they also want smart homes, how do you invent one that does not have these three things? And so we ended up with this.

Janet Engel (17:39.884)
Mmm.

Janet Engel (18:08.556)
Now going back to the ring, so if you could put that on camera because I have a few questions from an OT perspective, thinking about people with neuropathy or decreased sensation, for example, diabetes, that neuropathy is a common side effect of diabetes where people can't feel something as well as someone else without neuropathy.

Dhaval Patel (18:20.642)
Yes.

Janet Engel (18:38.316)
or decrease fine motor coordination which is very common in people with arthritis and let's face it most of us do develop some form of arthritis as we age. Now with your ring being so small and you said that there's a toggle right so is there

information that we're getting from the ring like some sensory, some tactile input that tells us that we're touching the ring in the right location.

Dhaval Patel (19:13.218)
It's a great question. In fact, I'll take a step back. Why is it even a ring to begin with? Why not a watch? Why not a pendant? Why not something else? And so in those first nine months when we interviewed people, the common complaint when it came down to the form factor was, hey, please don't make a watch or a phone, a phone app just because people were sick of apps. But a watch or a phone requires two hands.

and looking at the device simultaneously. Not one condition, both conditions must be true, right? So for a watch, you have to have your wrist up and trigger it with the other hand. And for a phone, you have to hold it in one hand and then use your other hand. And so if one of your hands was engaged, either you're holding a baby or grocery bags or you just don't have control in that arm, then you couldn't use it. If both your arms were available and functional, but you were looking somewhere else, like looking after a small child.

then you couldn't use it. And so the common request was, can you develop a device that can be used with one hand without looking at the device? And so continuing along that rabbit hole, we asked people, OK, well, one of the most common use cases is getting up to use the bathroom at night. This is especially true for older adults. What do you wear to bed? What devices do you keep on you in bed? And so most people had taken off their Apple Watch or Fitbit.

either out of habit or because it's bulky and it hurts when you're sleeping or it runs into your significant other's back. In the words of one of our users, it gets caught in my significant other's hair, so they would take it off. Or the necklace would often get caught or tangled up. So they would basically not go to bed with anything. And the only thing users had on were their wedding rings. That was it. That was the only thing they kept on.

In fact, we didn't want to make rings initially because it's a very hard engineering problem. Because you have to make, you know, everything, including the battery inside has to be curved. It's a very difficult engineering device to make. It's actually very difficult. And so.

Janet Engel (21:23.98)
That was my next question. What challenges have you run into? So now you're answering that one.

Dhaval Patel (21:28.61)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll come, I'll double down on that in a second. And so we started off by making the ring because it's something that people kept on all the time. You could use with one hand without looking at it. And so to then come to your question, there are a few different features that are hard to see on camera, but they're all tactile. So the edges of the button are actually raised. So even in the dark, I can actually tell where the button is.

And the surface where the infrared comes out is also raised. So it's similar to the little F and J keys on your keyboard, which have a raised surface so you know where you're typing. In addition to that, we actually did research to understand how much pressure people, even with limited fine motor control skills, could apply. And what we found was...

Our rings only need 100, so we've designed the ring to only need 100 grams of pressure, of force.

Janet Engel (22:28.972)
Now for the lay person, what other activity can you equate to what 100 grams of pressure feels like?

Dhaval Patel (22:37.25)
It's just around the, you know, it's the amount of pressure you need to press a key on your keyboard. It's in that range. Usually keyboards are 100 to 120 grams. You don't want lower than that. So 80 grams is a threshold for a false trigger. So if it's too soft, you're going to accidentally push the button all the time. If it's too hard, then you're not helping a lot of people, right? It's too hard to press. And so we've set it at that threshold for exactly that reason.

Janet Engel (22:42.86)
Okay.

Dhaval Patel (23:04.93)
So for instance, a lot of our users who don't have fine motor control, Parkinson's is a common use case, who have jitters or tremors, they will often, or users in wheelchairs where the muscle has atrophied and so they're not using their hands as much, we have given them in our pilots and they will actually use their knee or their opposing hand to just press the button slightly. You can see even now the camera is lighting up. And so it's very light pressure.

that they're able to keep it on and trigger it. Now, for Gen 1, those are the developments we've made. For Gen 2, because we wanted it to be a combination of inclusive design and universal design. Not either or, but both. So at the moment, Gen 1, we've kept it point and click. Low cognitive effort and low physical effort. It's easy to press and easy to understand. Everyone knows how to use their TV remote.

Now, if you couldn't do that for some reason, let's say you don't have any fine motor control at all, then in Gen 1 .5, we're actually going to allow gross motor control. So you can use gestures to control the same objects. And in Gen 3, if you couldn't even do that, let's say you've had a stroke or you're quadriplegic, you can't move your arm at all. Then we're also going to allow voice to control the same objects. And all of this...

is still completely offline. And the added benefit of voice, it does not just have to be line of sight.

Janet Engel (24:40.044)
And so right now your ring, is it in Gen 1 or is it all the way up to Gen 3?

Dhaval Patel (24:47.586)
No, right now it's just Gen 1. We're an early stage startup. We wanted to start somewhere because we're a small team. And so at the moment, we started off with point and click because it helps the most people most of the time. And then we want to add on these other use cases in addition so we can help more and more people gradually.

Janet Engel (25:06.572)
Well, that sounds amazing. Go back to explaining why creating technology for something that is circular so difficult.

Dhaval Patel (25:09.282)
Thank you.

Dhaval Patel (25:19.362)
Yeah, I mean, the hardest part was just even before getting there, the hardest part was just getting people to genuinely tell us what their problems are. I mean, that was the first, which was, you know, originally we were thinking, well, maybe we should make an app or a phone thing or watch thing. And so I would say the hardest part, even before the tech was actually doing the interviews. Cause you want to find people, you know, they're spending nine hours of their time. It's a long time. And so, and then processing all that information. So that was, that was probably the hardest.

Janet Engel (25:28.332)
Okay.

Dhaval Patel (25:48.194)
But to come to your question, there's a few challenges when it comes to the ring. One is when you make a ring, everyone's fingers are different. So one of the things we had to figure out was, well, we need different sizes. So all the electronics, they're not uniform. They are different for different sizes. So that's one. Then all your electronics have to either be bent or curved to begin with.

Or they come flat and you have to bend them after the fact. So our electronics come straight and you bend them later. Our batteries come pre -curved. Same idea. And then finally, how do you assemble such a small device? Well, within tolerance conditions. So if you're starting to make thousands of these, there's going to be slight variations from part to part, from unit to unit. When you assemble them, how do they all still fit?

And so in engineering terms, it's called a tolerance analysis, meaning how do you make sure the biggest battery still fits in the smallest housing? And so you have to make sure under all those conditions, everything still fits and works. And so those are just three examples of buckets that are difficult when you're making a very small device and a circular small device.

Janet Engel (27:04.876)
I feel like I was invited into a classroom, a graduate class at Georgia Tech.

Dhaval Patel (27:09.482)
You're very nice. But I'm glad this is interesting.

Janet Engel (27:15.788)
Yes. So tell me how, when is your product going to be available and how can someone purchase it?

Dhaval Patel (27:27.714)
Yeah, so you can go to getlotus .com. That's G -E -T -L -O -T -U -S dot com. Get Lotus, Lotus like the flower. Getlotus .com. And you can submit preorders right now. We're not taking any money yet. We're just adding you to the list for the wait list for the preorders. Because initially, we're just going to have a limited quantity. And so we really wanted to prioritize people who really, really wanted it first or needed it first.

And we will start shipping devices in September, so a little over three months from now.

Janet Engel (27:59.788)
That's around the corner. How much does it cost?

Dhaval Patel (28:04.546)
Great question. So at the moment, we're thinking, we haven't figured out exact pricing yet, but we're thinking somewhere in the ballpark of $299 for one ring and two or three switch covers. So it'll be a pack, one ring and two or three switch covers will be in a pack of $299 or somewhere around that ballpark. That way for the same price point as one Amazon Echo Show, which is $299, instead of one smart speaker,

you end up with a smart home because you have the ring and you can put one switch in every room. And so that way you have some control of every space in your home.

Janet Engel (28:42.604)
whatever that switch is connected to, whether it's a light, a fan, it's going to work for that home feature.

Dhaval Patel (28:50.946)
Correct. And so the things we can already control today are whatever your wall switch controls. So most people assume just lights, which is reasonable. But if your switch is controlling a fan, you can control a fan. If it's controlling an appliance, like an AC, you know, the window unit ACs in rental apartments, you can control an AC. In addition to anything that a wall switch controls, because we're using infrared, we can also control televisions.

And for televisions, you don't even need the second half. You don't need a switch cover. You can control televisions on and off using just the ring. Now at the moment, for Gen 1, everything I just described is just on and off. In future generations, you can do analog control as well. So you can dim lights. You can change channels and increase, decrease volume, because the same button will be touch sensitive. So you can swipe left and right, which will be change channel.

And front and back would be increased, decreased volume. Or in the case of light, it might be turning on and off or dimming the light, for instance.

Janet Engel (29:55.692)
Right now we have everyone has dimmers so that would be...

Dhaval Patel (29:59.49)
Right? So that's the idea, which is that would be Gen 1 .5 or Gen 2. But yeah, at the moment everything's on and off. So lights, fans, appliances, and TVs.

Janet Engel (30:13.708)
I love your product. I've never heard about it. Well, obviously you said there's nothing like it. So obviously we've never seen anything like it. And that's a great price.

Dhaval Patel (30:15.074)
Thank you.

Dhaval Patel (30:22.786)
Well, coming from an occupational, thank you, thank you. Coming from an occupational therapist like yourself, it means a lot. From time to time, I have imposter syndrome, so thank you. It's very kind.

Janet Engel (30:33.676)
So where have you tried to introduce your product in the market?

Dhaval Patel (30:41.09)
It's a great question. So we have a couple of paying customers already. They're not individuals, but they're organizations. So we primarily are currently working with three categories of organizations. One is just the government. So we're working with the state of New York. They've already purchased a number of devices. And we're actually sending them a number of devices later this summer. So they can actually give it to all the residents of New York. We're also working with Veterans Affairs.

to give to a lot of veterans. And so we're working on pilot programs with them. We're working with senior living for older adults. So a lot of folks in independent living or assisted living or skilled nursing are often at risk of falling. And so actually the example you gave earlier, same idea. The one challenge with diabetes is neuropathy leading to reduced sensation, including your feet. And so on average,

A person will get up from a seated position, it's called a sit to stand, about 46 times a day. That's the low end. On average, it's about 60. And 88 % of them, especially for older adults, are the cause of falls. So older adults fall in process of getting up, walking, or sitting back down. That's 88 % of all falls. Actually, 89%. And so if you just don't get up to begin with, you've

ultimately eliminated the fall. You've truly prevented most in senior living. The more common example is they have monitoring systems. So there are camera based systems that are watching to see if someone is in process of falling. But of course, you can't prevent the fall. You're just reacting and getting to them after they have fallen. With Lotus, the nice thing is the less you stand, the less you fall. And so especially for older adults, that's where we're working with senior living. And finally, with disability organizations.

So we've spoken to a number of organizations, ALS .org, Cerebral Palsy, MS, Multiple Sclerosis, a very common situation in the United States, 1 .2 million people. And so we're working with all disability organizations. So those are the organizations we're working with, government, senior living, and disability organizations. And then, of course, from time to time, if you're in the Bay Area and you're interested, reach out to us. We're happy to loan you a prototype so you can give us feedback.

Janet Engel (33:07.276)
Do you have a customer or a success story that you can share with us of someone who has been able to use the prototype?

Dhaval Patel (33:13.858)
yeah, Yeah, absolutely. So about two, two Thursdays ago, I won't say her name, but she's someone who lives 15 minutes down the road. We don't know this person. We met her at a conference and she tried our prototype. She'd been living on it with for four months. And so actually one thing we haven't talked about this battery life, but we can come to that. So she had it for four months and we met her after and we gave her a form and I actually had the form with me. It's.

Janet Engel (33:36.78)
Mm -hmm.

Dhaval Patel (33:42.882)
It looks just like this form. But basically, the questions, and I'm reading from the form now, the questions were, how easy is it to set up? How easy is it to use? How much did it make your day -to -day life easier? How much did it reduce your risk of falling? How satisfied are you? And how likely are you to recommend it? Six questions. And it's a score of 1 to 10. 1 is the lowest, 10 is the highest. And she selected 10 for every category.

And for falls, it was nine out of 10. And so that was a really helpful story. In fact, one of the most unexpected things. So she loved it. She thought it was easy to use, easy to set up, reduce her risk of falling, made her more independent. I think two things really moved me about that conversation. One, she said it brought her dignity back because she could do it herself. In fact, in her specific situation, she's a mother of two children. One is 11 and one's nine, I believe. And two girls.

And she felt, yeah, yeah, she's in her mid thirties, just under 40. And she, one of the things she shared, I'm actually getting goosebumps as I'm talking about this, she mentioned that she's a mom and she wants to be a mom. And a lot of times her younger children come up to her and ask her for help. And too often she has to say, mommy's tired right now, I can't get up. Can you go turn on that light switch? Or can you turn on that fan?

Janet Engel (34:41.74)
So she's a younger person.

Dhaval Patel (35:12.354)
And she, you know, she's a caregiver. She wants to remain a caregiver. And on the other hand, she's having to ask her younger or younger children for help. And so one of the things that really moved her was she could go back to being a caregiver that she wants to be. And that was completely unexpected, which was she felt like she could be a mom again, which was which was what she was saying. Now that was really moving. The other thing she mentioned was she felt like.

She has times where she feels depressed because she can't get up and stand for she has no permanent disability She has a neuropathy where she can't stand for long periods of time where she can't walk long distances and so She felt like when she was depressed on certain times of the day when she used the lotus device It brought her out of depression. And so one of the questions we have is How much does this help you emotionally?

And you can say not at all, medium neutral. There's five levels. So not at all, a little, not, not really neutral, a little bit, a lot. And she picked a number of things, but the biggest one was for depression. It was the highest, which is when she had depressive episodes using the Lotus ring brought her out of depression because she felt in control. She felt like she had autonomy and independence. And so that was really, those are really heartwarming success story. She was probably one of our best users. We've had a couple of stories like that.

We've only done small pilots. We're talking 10 -20 people. So those are really moving.

Janet Engel (36:45.676)
You know, you brought an important topic up, which is energy conservation. That I want people to understand that we're not, or you're not promoting people staying, you know, on the couch or in bed and not exercising. What you're promoting is energy conservation so that people aren't expending energy.

Dhaval Patel (37:04.482)
Correct.

Janet Engel (37:13.1)
doing small everyday tasks that we do very often. And of course, people should be exercising regardless of your age, your disability, it may have to be modified. But obviously, that's not what we're saying at all that people shouldn't exercise. But really, what your ring is giving people is an ability to conserve their energy for tasks that

are more important like being a mom, playing with your children, bathing, grooming. Yeah.

Dhaval Patel (37:53.058)
Exactly. And so you hit the nail on the head. Essentially, it's in academic terms, it's called the spoon theory, which is you wake up every day and you have limited amount of energy or limited spoons as the theory goes. And there are lots of things for which you have to get up. You have to get up to go to the bathroom. You have these are activities of daily living, right? You have to get up to take a shower or to groom yourself. Those are things just to take care of your body.

Doesn't matter if you're Jeff Bezos, how much money you have, you have to do those things and you have to do them every day. And they're typically intimate enough that you don't want somebody else doing them for you or they can't. Right? Like you want to feed yourself, you want to shower yourself, you want to groom yourself, change your clothes yourself. What we found is especially for people with disabilities, they were expending so much energy on the quote little stuff, like just turning on the light or just turning off that fan.

or just closing your blinds, then when it came stuff to the important things, they had run out of energy. So in my case, for instance, I was so exhausted at the end of the day, I didn't even have energy to get back on my crutches to turn off the lights to go back into bed. So I slept all night with the lights on. Needless to say, my sleep was terrible. I woke up not having slept well. And so the idea is we want you to conserve energy and use it for the things you absolutely want to and need to.

like being a parent, taking care of a loved one, or doing activities of daily living to self -care for yourself or your body. And the things that take a disproportionate amount of energy that are not adding a ton of value and stealing from those other things, that's where we want to help. And so for instance, we don't even actually, we're not recommending this for really young kids who have no pathology. We're not recommending it because we want them to be up and active and running around. It's...

That's why our initial focus is on anyone with limited mobility. That's who we want to help. Because people in those situations are expending a disproportionate amount of energy, which is stealing away from other things that make them them, or make them feel like they're living a fulfilled life, like being a mom, or painting, or just doing things that make them feel alive.

Dhaval Patel (40:10.914)
Because they end up spending a ton of energy just turning on and off lights. And then by the time it comes to doing something else, like playing with their children, the very common situation that came up in interviews where grandkids were, you know, their grandparents would often have the grandkids coming up to them saying, grandma, can you please come play with me? And they would be too tired by that point. They would say, not now, granny's tired. We'll play later. And of course you really want to do that, but you've burnt up all your energy just turning on the switch. And so.

And again, this is sometimes difficult for very healthy older adults to understand, but the little things are not so little. They take up a disproportionate amount of energy. And so it really helps. And so this is the equivalent of, well, you know, should we eliminate all escalators and elevators just because, you know, you might get lazier? Well, sure, maybe it saves you 10 calories, but for the people who really need it, you're saving them a thousand calories. Right. And so by having all those ramps on sidewalks,

Janet Engel (40:44.492)
Mm -hmm.

Dhaval Patel (41:08.93)
It doesn't just help people with wheelchairs. It helps people who have babies and use a baby cradle, or it helps older adults who use walkers, or just grocery cart. And so anyway, that's the idea. You solve for the most difficult case first, so you expand it to everybody benefit.

Janet Engel (41:29.068)
Well, that was beautifully said, Deval. Tell us again where people can find your product.

Dhaval Patel (41:37.954)
So you can go online to getlotus .com. You can learn more about everything I've just said, how the device works. You can share it with friends and family. And of course, you can also pre -order on the website.

Janet Engel (41:52.652)
I know you wanted to talk about the battery life.

Dhaval Patel (41:56.29)
yeah, good point. So another common question we get is, well, how long do these things last? And so unlike other rings or unlike other watches, so let's say an Apple watch that you have to charge every day, our ring lasts because it takes power only for the 50 milliseconds that you push the button. Instead of charging every day like an Apple watch, you only charge it once in 90 days. In our testing, it's actually more than four months, but at minimum, we're guaranteeing 90 days. And it's same for the switch cover.

So the switch cover actually has a USB -C on the bottom. So it's rechargeable. Most people we interviewed didn't want to have the hassle of changing batteries. It's also better for the environment. So it has a rechargeable battery inside. You only need to charge once in three or four months. And the same with the ring. The ring comes with a little tray charger that you can drop it onto. And it charges. Both things need less than an hour, about 45 minutes to charge. And then you can use it for 90 days.

Janet Engel (42:52.428)
genius.

Dhaval Patel (42:53.95)
You're very kind. Again, my impossi - yeah, thank you. I'm just gonna say thank you.

Janet Engel (43:00.076)
You put your education to good use.

Dhaval Patel (43:03.042)
Thank you. Again, like I said, coming from an OT, an occupational therapist like yourself, it means a lot. Thank you.

Janet Engel (43:06.156)
Well, Deval, it was a pleasure having you on the show. I loved learning about your product. I think it's gonna be huge. Everyone, except people without disabilities, can find use for this. I just, I love it.

Dhaval Patel (43:26.818)
Yeah, well, our thank you. Our hope is everyone from folks, you know, moms during prenatal and postnatal pregnancy to parents of younger children to people with acute permanent disabilities like MS, cerebral palsy, or even chronic like arthritis. Our hope is it helps a ton of people or just someone living in a rental apartment, you know, who can't rewire their home because they're living in a rental.

So that's our hope, to help as many people as we can.

Janet Engel (43:55.152)
Yeah. And moms with babies, holding a baby. When I had my son, there were so many activities that I had to do while I was holding him because he would start crying if I put him down. So not having to get up or while you're breastfeeding, not having to get up to turn on a light or a fan, just so useful.

Dhaval Patel (44:00.578)
Yeah.

Dhaval Patel (44:12.194)
Yeah.

Dhaval Patel (44:22.85)
Yeah, exactly.

Janet Engel (44:23.18)
Well, thank you very much and we hope to have you on again, especially as the product comes out in September and more people have the opportunity to use it. And then once you're transitioning into your second and third generation, it just sounds like it's going to be a wonderful product for so many people.

Dhaval Patel (44:27.81)
Thank you.

Dhaval Patel (44:50.146)
Thank you. You're extremely kind, Janet. It's been an honor and privilege to be here. Thank you so much for having me. And if anyone listening would like to reach out, feel free to email us at hello at getlotus .com or me, Deval, D -H -A -V -A -L, at getlotus .com. More than happy to talk to anyone that's interested, either from a founder perspective or from an end user perspective or just families.

Janet Engel (45:13.004)
Well, thank you.

Dhaval Patel (45:14.53)
Thank you.