Fall Detection: A New Approach to the Personal Emergency Response System (PERS)

Summary

In this conversation, Janet Engel interviews Cathy Minter, co-founder and CEO of Wisdom, a smart device designed to support aging in place. 

Cathy shares the inspiration behind Wisdom, which arose from personal experiences with aging parents and the challenges they faced. 

The discussion delves into the technology behind Wisdom, emphasizing its non-wearable fall detection capabilities and the importance of proactive safety measures for older adults. 

Cathy also explains the significance of the name 'Wisdom' and how it reflects the empowerment of older adults through technology. 

The conversation concludes with practical advice on home safety and planning for independence as people age. 

In this conversation, Cathy and Janet discuss the importance of universal design in home remodeling, especially for those over 50. 

They explore how simple design features can enhance safety and accessibility without compromising aesthetics. 

The discussion also highlights the role of smart home technology in improving the quality of life for older adults. 

They emphasize the need for education to change perceptions about aging in place and the importance of women in tech, particularly in addressing the unique challenges faced by older adults.

Takeaways

Kathy and her co-founder created Wisdom to address challenges faced by aging adults.

The technology behind Wisdom includes advanced sensors for fall detection.
Wisdom aims to empower older adults by providing peace of mind.

The system operates without the need for wearables, enhancing usability.

Home safety is crucial for aging in place and can be improved with simple modifications.

The name 'Wisdom' reflects the intelligence of both the technology and the older generation.

Planning ahead is essential for maintaining independence as we age.

Less is more when it comes to technology for seniors.

The importance of a trusted circle for emergency alerts is emphasized.

Proactive measures can significantly reduce the risk of falls in the home.

 Implementing universal design features can enhance safety.

Simple features like grab bars can benefit all ages.

Universal design increases home value and appeal.

Smart home technology can significantly improve safety.

Education is key to changing perceptions about aging.

The market is often reactive rather than proactive.

Innovative design can be both functional and beautiful.

Women in tech bring unique perspectives to problem-solving.

Installation of smart home systems can be quick and easy.

Community engagement is essential for product development.

Sound Bites

"We should create this technology to help."
"It's a smart home system."
"We all deal with ageism."
"Your home gets wiser too."
"Less is more powerful."
"It's terrifying what can happen."
"Making your home safer is key."
"Planning is really key to independence."
"Our website is mywisdom.io."
"I'm happy to take calls and talk to everyone."

Wisdom Website: Smart Home Technology to support aging in place

Transcript

Janet Engel (00:02.2)
Hello everyone and thank you for being with me today. Our guest is Kathy Minter and she is the co-founder and CEO of Wisdom, which is a smart device that helps support people age in place. Kathy, thank you for being with us today.

Cathy (00:19.107)
Thanks Janet. Thanks Janet. It's great to be here with you. Really appreciate the invitation.

Janet Engel (00:26.624)
Yes, and I've been wanting to invite you for a while. I know it's hard to get these things scheduled. But for everyone listening, Kathy and I met a few months ago and I just really loved her product. I also love the fact that two women created this product and I'm really excited to see you succeed. So I would love to help you in that process and and have

more people learn about wisdom. So first tell us about what led you and your business partner to create wisdom.

Cathy (01:07.314)
Yeah. And thanks, Janet. And I think it's really great to see so many people coming into the industry like yourself in terms of highlighting, you know, sort of what's happening in the aging in place market. It just, I know it's been evolving and just evangelizing it. And so it's been part of what I love about having started wisdom is just this entire new group of people I've met along the way and the network. So it's been, it's been really fun.

And it's been a really amazing year. So it was about this time last year in January that we started Wisdom. So my co-founder, Dawn Newsom and I had met back during COVID. We both were, she was on Wall Street. was, I mean, I'd been in software and technology for a long time. I was...

most recently as chief revenue officer at a FinTech that was focused on blockchain technology, actually. So I've been sort of in emerging tech and Dawn was building a lot of Wall Street systems. So I've sort of come from the go-to-market side and she's sort of the technology side and operations. And we were both kind of stressed out. were, we both have kids that were going into college. We

had met, we were in the same women's group. was sort of an executive sort of coaching and this group that we were participated in. And over the course of a couple of years, we would exchange stories about our parents getting older and our kids kind of what was happening here and there and sort of had a lot in common from that perspective. And I specifically was traveling quite a bit globally, always on the road.

I'm the youngest of three girls. So I'm the youngest and I have a sister that was in California and one in Atlanta. So my father got sick very quickly. He had pancreatic cancer and it was like six weeks from start to finish between he got into a car accident. It was just this whole sort of very fast decline and he passed away. they had been, my mom and him had been married for whatever, almost 60 years.

Cathy (03:24.626)
but they had stayed in there, they were in their house. They loved, they bought in 1972. There's still wallpaper on the kitchen, flowered wallpaper from the panels, like the whole house itself, we could all imagine it when we walk in. But anyhow, my mom was having a really hard time dealing with that. And having been in software and technology for so long, I was getting very frustrated about...

me being somewhere sort of overseas and not being able to really grasp like what was happening and she was having a really hard time. So I started looking at the market like what like what's out there to help me with this problem and they're just I couldn't find really the right thing and I ran into Dawn and I we sat down and I go you know like we should create this technology to help like do not only like bring technology to this older adult population but help them live

safely and also help like the caregivers and the people in the sandwich generation like us. So that was the that was sort of the inspiration for it and we just quit our jobs and sort of started bootstrapping the company before we raised some money. But so we launched it last January. So that was sort of the inspiration behind it.

Janet Engel (04:38.894)
Well, I think many women especially are in the same situation you're in. Luckily, I have been spared so far because my mom is legally blind in one eye and so her risk for falls is greater than average, but she's been pretty healthy. She lives with her husband.

She's telling me that he's starting to show some cognitive decline. So that worries me because if I take her on, that means I have to take him on too. you know, I think all of us will need devices such as yours to help not just the people who want to age in place, but the adult children.

Cathy (05:28.21)
Yeah.

Janet Engel (05:28.672)
So tell me how does Wisdom's non wearable fall detection technology work and what are the advantages over wearables?

Cathy (05:38.726)
Yeah, so great question. And when you talk about, a lot of what we see is people don't, sometimes you take action on these things when it's too late, right? So with wisdom, we're trying to be very proactive and really appeal to an older adult population that has agency on their independence and wants to kind of prepare for these things in advance and make it a system that's very empowering. So that's first and foremost what we're trying to do.

The system is, as I said, it's a smart home system. So it's a solution. is hardware. We are a software company. So at our core, it's a software company, but we've developed sensor technology in order to obviously have it work. So it's a hardware and software combination. use, so when you buy Wisdom, you get a box and whether we do the installation or it's something in the future, we'll have you install.

We have a combination right now and in the future we have plans to integrate to more smart home devices and we can talk about that. But right now it's a combination of vision sensors and radar sensors. And these are very advanced which can go either inside or outside of your house depending on it. They have incredibly broad coverage. So you'd probably only need three and they're not, the sensors are not the most expensive.

part of the system. And I can talk a little bit about our sort of where we're thinking about the price points, but it's pretty easy installation. We have a very advanced computer, a GPU, an Nvidia GPU that we use and a router. And that goes in your house and that sets up what's called the wisdom network in your house. And why I say that is it's a private network that doesn't eat into your

Wi-Fi. And that is the basis of what's called edge computing. And edge computing is sort of a modern architecture that's been sort of out to ensure that data remains in your home. So you have these sensors that are kind of creating what would be called sort of a digital twin of your house, right? So that, you know, you can pick up sort of what's happening in the house.

Cathy (08:01.84)
And you have the system, which is sort of the wisdom brain, right? Which is, you know, collecting sort of the data only when there's any activity that's happening in the house. So it's not running all the time. It's like only running when somebody walks, like sort of would activate something in front of the sensor. And we've, so it's not always running. We've trained the model. It's an AI model, but when I say AI, you know, there's like,

Janet Engel (08:21.271)
Okay.

Cathy (08:30.77)
15 things that go into AI. This is a machine learning application, means it involves like training the system specifically on fall detection algorithms and sort of anomaly detection. So it knows if it's a cat, a dog, a lamp, or a person who's fallen, okay? And it picks up whether someone falls and moves, falls, gets up, falls.

It's got the sensitivity to understand that something's happened. And also to pick up in the house whether there's some type of anomaly or something out of the ordinary of pattern. So someone hasn't gotten up out of bed, there's no movement, there could be some type of a medical event that happens. All of this takes place without the need for any type of wearable. So.

many of our competitors have these sensor systems, but they require to be tethered to a wearable or, you know, some of them are just your medical alert devices, which have not been shown to be very effective. 80 % of older adults do not wear medical devices consistently and wearable devices have been shown to have fatigue of wearers after three months. So the bottom line is, yeah.

Janet Engel (09:56.366)
Well, I just wanted to say that another issue is what if the person loses consciousness or they're conscious but they're confused because they hit their head or because falling is a very stressful event. So they may not have the wherewithal to use their wearable accordingly.

Cathy (10:03.911)
Right.

Cathy (10:20.498)
A lot of times they're laying on the floor, they don't know how to press the button because of that confusion. So wisdom's meant to be just very easy and peace of mind. It's kind of you get it, I don't want to say get it and forget it, but it's there. It provides that sort of companion, it's sort of that protection that you have in the house. And it's going to be smart enough to know something's wrong. And if something happens and you need someone to be alerted the first...

order, the first thing that will happen is an alert will go out through our mobile application, which is the MyWisdom app. It is designed very simple. We've tested it with sort of older adults, not too many bells and whistles, like the most important sort of design in the app, because I myself can't see, you we're all even sandwich generation, you you need to wear your glasses. So this app is designed

When you get the system, we have a sort of an administrative setup. And the first thing you do is you invite people to your trusted circle. You would send an invitation to Janet, OK, I've got Janet, you're in my trusted circle. But we have this very sophisticated configuration, which means what privacy levels does Janet get as part of my trusted circle, right? Because as I said, all the data is in your home.

Only you must be let in to see data. You must be authorized to do anything versus Alexa. Some of these other products are sending all the data out to the cloud and people's privacy. Sometimes they're not sure if all of their data is being kept private in some of these situations and it's very, you know, it's your home. So the mobile app would send an alert to Janet saying, Kathy fell.

And the system at that point would authorize potentially if you've been authorized a two-way audio connection into the house without your phone. So this would be built into the sensors would have a speaker that would never be active unless there was actually an event that's happening or you're authorized. There would be a triaging sort of, and if there was more than one person in the trusted circle, there'd be a chat that goes up with like everyone to say, Kathy's fallen.

Cathy (12:47.026)
And you start to, Cathy, are you okay? Can you hear me? Do you move? You can start to kind of understand that if there's no response or no movement, there'll be a timeout that will take this and escalate it to our emergency response center, which is a partner that we're using, which is a trained emergency response center. They're amazing. They've been in business for 40 years.

incredibly their call center is very trained in terms of triaging medical and alarm situations. And they would then also jump in to determine whether a local EMS or ambulance needs to be alerted. And all this is happening within minutes because the data shows every second, every minute you're on the floor with some injury, not getting assistance.

is exponentially damaging to your recovery time, not only from a mortality perspective, but just recovering, your rehab. So you really need to get help as quickly as you possibly can. So that's the key. I mean, there's a lot of other things that we have envisioned for Wisdom as we go forward, but it's like a health, it's a physical safety,

and wellness tool in your tool belt for aging in place that you know you're gonna, somebody's kinda, you've got something there that's kind of your companion that's gonna make sure that you're gonna be okay. If something happens, it's gonna alert someone, you're not gonna be alone, you're not gonna be sitting there for hours. There's professionals that are gonna get involved.

And as a caregiver, that's incredible peace of mind because it's not requiring you to always check in. You're going to know if something happens, if there's an anomaly, if there's an event. there's sort of like other tools you're constantly kind of having to call and check in. So if you're somewhere, that's kind of the intent of it.

Janet Engel (15:01.634)
Mm-hmm.

Kathy, can it pick up an anomaly such as someone walking into the bathroom and two hours later or an hour later, they're still not out of the bathroom? Will it pick that up?

Cathy (15:17.874)
Yeah, it depends on, we have these events that get programmed into the system when you set it up. So for my mom, she gets up at 8.30 every morning and sits in the kitchen and has a bowl of cereal, right? So like if it's 9.30 and she's not there, the system would sort of, what's the expected, what's supposed to be happening? And if not, there potentially could be an alert.

Janet Engel (15:24.779)
opening.

Janet Engel (15:44.236)
Okay.

Cathy (15:46.802)
the system's also gonna get smarter and sort of, if you can think about wisdom as like you're kind of your pal that's hanging out in your house. If you had somebody going, Janet usually like takes a shower right after breakfast, but now she's not, you start, it of gets smarter. So yes, the answer would be it would start to just kind of send those alerts and maybe the alert is not something that needs to be acted on, you do know sort of you can sort of

Janet Engel (16:04.974)
Right.

Cathy (16:16.178)
program different things into your daily routine.

Janet Engel (16:20.896)
I see, right? So then the longer you have it, the better it works. It's kind of like Google ads.

Cathy (16:25.158)
the better. Kind of, yeah, it gets to know you. that's kind of which our tagline like with wisdom is sort of, first of all, there's a lot of wisdom in the older adult generation that we feel is sort of locked with not having access to technology or not having technology that's supporting independence. So that was sort of why wisdom was a very intentional name of the company. So, but the other side.

Janet Engel (16:30.367)
you

Janet Engel (16:48.768)
Yeah, tell me a little bit more about that. I love the name because it just, it's positive. But tell me why you chose it and the different meanings.

Cathy (17:00.538)
Yeah, I was on a business trip at the job before when I was thinking about about this and I was like it has to be Like what am I trying to what is the purpose of it? Right and and it's really to say and we all deal with the ageism and you know what's happening in the world and like people and have so many great role models and people that I love that are Older than me and they have so much wisdom and they've helped me so much yet

if there's a physical issue or there's something that happens, all of a sudden that just gets sort of forgotten. So for wisdom, I really wanted to have something that was a nod to sort of all of the brilliance and the greatness in as you age, right? And the wisdom that you accumulate over the years and sort of, so, and as a play on that as well, so that's kind of one side of it on the other side.

Janet Engel (17:51.907)
right?

Cathy (17:59.814)
We say, as you get wiser with age, so does your home. So like wisdom as a home system also gets smarter and you guys are working as a team to keep you safe and independent. And that was really, and it's an empowering message. There's many people in the field that have sort of care or there's other sort of health or care related sort of nomenclature. And I don't think that's as

Janet Engel (18:08.724)
I love you.

Cathy (18:27.92)
empowering for the people that are using it.

Janet Engel (18:30.958)
I love that. The person is wise and the home also gets wiser.

Cathy (18:35.92)
Yeah, right. Your home gets wiser too. that's kind of, yeah. So yeah, it's been, yeah. And I mean, think we are, having been in software and technology, I've worked at like Oracle, I've worked at SAP, I have been in four startups. was in IoT, AI, I started up for seven years, which got sold to Nokia. I've been in blockchain. So like, I really am a bit of a tech geek.

Janet Engel (19:03.064)
Mm-hmm.

Cathy (19:04.134)
So I love the tech aspect of it. And we're using the most advanced technology that's out there right now. But we are trying to do it in a way that's simple, because you don't need, there's like data overload, there's feature overload. We've all seen it with different apps that we've used. The power and the simplicity of it is what we're trying to achieve here, having used different apps or seen

my mom navigate different things. When we were in the middle of all this, one story is my mom, I couldn't reach her again. Like this was before the wisdom and her text messages were muted, right? Like she had muted it for like weeks and no one could get through to her. And I was like, mom, and she had like an iPhone, I don't know, from whenever. So I like hauled her down to the Verizon store. was like, sit down. We got her a new phone. And then I went through and I like erased, I don't know.

90 % of the apps on her phone. Like you don't need this, you don't need this, you don't need this, you don't need GarageBand. I don't know how this got on here. You know, like you don't need, right? Like my daughter had done that one time or something, you know, I'm like, you don't need TikTok, you know, or whatever. So I like cleaned it all up. Then I got her, you know, messages, favorites, pictures, one click. And it just, took me like an hour, but I made the phone.

Janet Engel (20:10.03)
You're one of your children.

Cathy (20:30.662)
And I know there's phones that actually do this for seeing, you know, there's a couple of companies that have these phones, but like, just the aha moment went out that like less is more, less is more powerful. So when we've done our focus groups for wisdom, we had a list of 25 features that we knew people were asking for. And we forced everybody to pick three with two alternates. And we said, you need to pick three only, only. And it was amazing.

how consistent everyone was and what they actually wanted when push came to shove. like that's going into our design. Obviously there's more we can do, but making it usable and easy to use for both for caregivers and for the older adults.

Janet Engel (21:15.842)
Are these the must haves that you refer to with your product?

Cathy (21:19.526)
Yeah, the must haves really it's safety. I would put number one like making sure that the system Is smart enough to pick up the falls right to pick up an anomaly to pick up a medical event, right to pick up something's wrong, right in a very quick amount of time So the anomalies the safety the communication so how to make easy communications through the app, right and then ems having that

peace of mind that should someone not be there that you are going to get help. Someone's going to be coming to your house to help you because that scares, there are so many stories. I can't even tell you in our sort of interviews. Yeah.

Janet Engel (22:05.534)
I've lived it as an OT. I can't tell you how many patients I've had that laid on the floor for three days after they had a stroke before someone found them. We had a man that we found in the bathtub dead, full of blood, countless horror stories that people don't think.

Cathy (22:15.622)
Right. Yeah.

Cathy (22:30.992)
Right. It's terrifying.

Janet Engel (22:33.422)
happen, but they do, they happen every day. I learned as an OT, if it can happen, it will happen. It's just a matter of time, especially when someone is already at risk for falls because you know, they have hazards in the home or they were taking medications that put them at a higher risk or they have low vision, generalized weakness. It's just a matter of time before something happens. And usually you have several of those factors going on at the same time.

Cathy (22:40.305)
Right.

Janet Engel (23:01.226)
It's not just, they only have low vision like my mom, that she's legally blind. No, they have low vision. They're taking more than five medications, which automatically puts you at risk for fall. They have hazards in the home, like very narrow walkways. You know, they have clutter on the floor. They have pets. They have poor lighting. It goes on and on and on.

Cathy (23:01.372)
Right.

Cathy (23:07.271)
Right.

Cathy (23:28.934)
Right, and it's when you least expect it. So what we've found too is the, know, kids sometimes don't know what to do. So they buy their mom a medical or device or maybe a watch or something or dad, you know, and it might be worn, but it's like at those moments, I always compare it to sort of the car accidents and seat belts near you, know.

Janet Engel (23:44.739)
you

Cathy (23:55.484)
forget what the statistic is, but most car accidents happen within five miles of your house. So it's when you sort of run out to the convenience store, forgot milk or, you know, those are when those accidents are happening. And it's the same in the home when you least expect it and your guard is low. those, you know, many times your phone or your medical alert device might be literally within, you can see it, but they can't get to it.

Janet Engel (23:59.81)
Mm-hmm, right.

Cathy (24:24.664)
or it's not charged or something happens.

Janet Engel (24:25.07)
And people don't realize that home hazards account for half to two thirds of all falls. So your home is literally putting you at risk for a fall.

Cathy (24:37.05)
Right. And Janet, yeah, from your perspective too, because this is always interested for our clients, like outside of, I mean, we think of wisdom as part of this ecosystem as a great tool to be used in conjunction with a strategy around aging in place, right? So you kind of come in, can you, I mean, just for some of the folks that might be listening, you know, there's other things to be thinking about that can really just a small...

Small efforts can make a huge difference in preparing your home.

Janet Engel (25:10.122)
Yeah, the most important things that you can do to your home is number one, plan. Just like people plan when they have young kids and they plan to make their home safer, you know.

tie up attached furniture to the wall, put a screen enclosure around your pool, know, something around your outlet, the same thing as we're getting older because unfortunately our abilities do change over time. Even if we're still very active, our vision is the first system to deteriorate with age, right? And that actually happens as early as in your early 40s.

Cathy (25:50.929)
Right.

Janet Engel (25:55.702)
Right? So by the time you're 60, 80 years old, you definitely are having impaired vision. Okay. so things like eliminating steps. So every house should have one entrance that has no steps.

It could either be because you remove the steps and you create the slope that you need in order to create a zero step entry or perhaps it's through a lift or maybe it's through a ramp. But you should have at least one entrance that has no steps. And then we need to have walkways that are at least 36 inches wide and that includes furniture. Your furniture cannot be within

that 36 inches that we just described and have doorways that are at least 32 inches wide. And this is very important in the bathroom because one...

Cathy (26:46.514)
Mm.

Cathy (26:53.968)
What's the 36 inch, you know, what is the significance of that measurement? that?

Janet Engel (27:00.108)
Because if you have a mobility device or let's say a caregiver that's helping you, or let's say you have a service animal, you need to have at least a 36 inch path in order to not run into obstructions. And then with your doorways, they need to be at least 32 inches wide. And when I was an OT, I worked in home health for most of my career.

Cathy (27:02.61)
Mm.

Cathy (27:19.122)
Makes sense.

Janet Engel (27:29.659)
And it was very common for people to not be able to bring their walker inside the bathroom.

Cathy (27:38.13)
What about just simple things like the rugs and lighting and things like that?

Janet Engel (27:42.6)
Well, know that so lighting, I'm glad you brought that up because lighting is one of the main reasons why people fall is most people's homes are poorly lit. Okay, even if they are well lit when the lights are on, the lights don't get turned on because people are trying to save money on their electricity bill. Older people also become very afraid of being victims of a criminal act.

with good reason. And most people aging in place are women living alone. And so they keep their blinds closed. No light is coming in. No natural light is coming in. And then they're also not turning on their lights. So it's a perfect storm to create a disaster. But yes, then we have floors that are not non-skid.

Cathy (28:22.834)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Cathy (28:35.687)
Right.

Janet Engel (28:42.018)
We have, for example, if you have an older home, this is very common in older homes, where they used to be built with one type of flooring in the kitchen, another type of flooring in the bathroom, another type of flooring in the living room. Well, guess what that means? When you have multiple different types of flooring, you also have transitions. And transitions put people at risk for falls, unless they're a fourth of an inch or half an inch beveled.

Cathy (28:51.632)
Raise. Raise.

Janet Engel (29:11.734)
Most the time they're not. So it's a long list, but making your home safer, starting with eliminating steps to an entrance, creating a travel path into and throughout the home, and improving lighting. Those three things go a long way.

Cathy (29:13.68)
Right. Right.

Cathy (29:37.478)
Right. And it's such logical and pretty easy fixes, right? And then like a wisdom system could go along with that kind of as like an extra, you okay, we've done this, now we're putting wisdom in, like we're set. And psychologically it is because you've worked with many older adults. And like you said, you bring a, you know, a baby comes home from the hospital, there's no question that this has already been done, right?

Janet Engel (29:49.261)
Yes.

Janet Engel (30:05.88)
Mm-hmm.

Cathy (30:06.054)
before you walk through the door. What are, do you have any tips in terms of how or kind of to understand that planning, you know, if you, is really key to that independence, like being reactive is what is going to be a problem later.

Janet Engel (30:24.046)
It's when people are reactive, that's when they have fewer options. So if you do this ahead of time, well now you can plan a modification, which the reality is that 90 % of the homes in the US, the housing stock was built before 1980. So that means that most people are due for a home remodel.

Cathy (30:33.158)
break.

Cathy (30:49.703)
Mmm.

Janet Engel (30:53.8)
Anyway, so if we're going to remodel our homes, then why don't we also, and we're over the age of 50, then why don't we also implement universal design features like motion sensor lighting, non-skid flooring that is low maintenance, and the same throughout the house, having smart features like

Cathy (30:54.652)
Great.

Cathy (31:03.526)
brave.

Cathy (31:08.656)
Right. Right.

Cathy (31:17.116)
Right.

Janet Engel (31:20.256)
either touch activated or voice activated faucets, lever handles, having smart appliances, many things that we can do to our house that will help you age in place that really have nothing to do with age or do not or traditionally have not been associated with aging.

Cathy (31:41.074)
break.

Janet Engel (31:48.738)
but they will definitely help you age in place.

Cathy (31:51.868)
Yeah, I think it's interesting. Something just as simple as bars, you know, in your shower or bathtub, I can say at any time, they're great to have. Doesn't matter how old, right? I mean, there's when you're a kid or you're trying to, I remember I would be maybe at my parents' house giving my kids a bath if we were, you know, there for the night or something and just, right. And it's interesting that those don't, there's not more, like you said, of an effort at any.

to just put those features in a home.

Janet Engel (32:24.962)
And I think it's because the market is mostly reactive than when people do make those changes in their home, they're ugly and they look institutional. And so no one wants that, right? So why would I actively go and try to seek that? But now if someone told you, hey, Kathy, you have a shower that has a five inch threshold or you have a tub.

Cathy (32:35.09)
Mm.

Janet Engel (32:53.902)
and you want to remodel your bathroom anyway, why don't we put in a curbless shower, which is going to look gorgeous. It's going to increase your resale value. It's going to look really contemporary. And if you ever have some kind of issue where, let's say that you fell and you broke your ankle, like that happened to my neighbor when she was 50, right? Now,

you can roll into the shower. Or let's say your grandchild comes over frequently and your grandchild is two years old. Well, you know that when kids are very young that they fall a lot, right? So if we remove the threshold, we've made it that much safer for someone to access the shower area without doing anything that looks institutional. And in fact, we did the exact opposite, right? And we don't necessarily have to push

Cathy (33:35.41)
Mm-hmm.

Cathy (33:43.218)
pray.

Cathy (33:48.082)
Brave.

Janet Engel (33:51.49)
grab bars down people's throat because if we just install wall blocking behind the walls, well now that's called adaptable design. So now we can add grab bars if let's say your mom starts having balance issues or her vision deteriorates further. Well now it's easy, all we have to do is attach grab bars. We don't have to do any construction because the wall blocking is already in place.

Cathy (34:20.454)
Right. Yeah.

Janet Engel (34:21.678)
So you see how much money that saved you? In the process when you were remodeling, you just spent maybe $100 on lumber, added the wall blocking, be in the shower area, behind the toilet, behind the sink, if you ever wanted a wall hung sink. Now it's easy to just adapt your bathroom if your needs ever become more significant.

Cathy (34:26.672)
Mm-hmm.

Cathy (34:40.016)
Right. Yeah.

Cathy (34:49.938)
You know, it's really interesting just in general the topic and it's about education and changing perceptions. Obviously the two of us can't do this on our own, but it's like changing perceptions. I like a simple analogy is when I was growing up, no, you know, people still didn't use seat belts. You know, you'd go into the front. mean, we had, I was like a child of the seventies and the eighties, but there was like the panel.

know, station wagons and we were like bouncing in the back seat without the seatbelt. And you know how that's actually now you can't even think about like there was a time where there was actually children that were in a car without a seatbelt. It's hard to imagine. Yeah. And, yeah. And, and the other, and the other one I always think about is sun's sunscreen. So like, you know, you had the, people might laugh at this, like the Noxzema ad, you know, you'd come, it was like,

Janet Engel (35:29.016)
Right.

Janet Engel (35:32.32)
Me, me. I was one of them. Just moving around.

Cathy (35:46.586)
badge of honor, he'd spend the day at the beach and then it was like, like burned, right? And of course you would be shamed on every ton of social media if you were a mom that was like at the pool and wasn't like loading your kid up with sunscreen. So at some point that just practical guidance around safety made its way from what was not really even mainstream to just something that was a must have. So I just, I'm hopeful that

Janet Engel (35:48.302)
Yes!

Yeah.

Janet Engel (36:06.392)
Yeah.

Cathy (36:14.342)
the things that we're talking about become just that practical thinking and must have, that sort of, like you said, a bar is, you know, ugly, that just becomes like that stigma or that sort of thinking goes away. And I think it's gonna have to with the demographics that are staring us in the face.

Janet Engel (36:34.498)
think that's example that you brought up about the burning because I have brown skin, I don't burn, I just get darker. And so I was always jealous of my girlfriends that had lighter skin and they would peel, because I would never peel.

Cathy (36:42.428)
Right.

Cathy (36:50.534)
Don't be jealous. Yeah. That was not fun, fun. Yeah. Sitting there with like, you know, the cold presses, but it was true. There was just like, you'd go down and I know this is kind of a funny example, but it's just like, when you think about it now, so there's gotta be a point where you're like, how could you not have these types of things in your home as you're getting older, right? So like, I think it just requires this people pushing forward and education and just...

practical decision making.

Janet Engel (37:20.654)
I think it's education and then also showing that universal design is beautiful and it's going to increase the value of your home. And if people just saw that, then they would easily say yes. Because if they implement universal design, it's going to be better than anything any interior designer suggested that wasn't universal design.

Cathy (37:28.466)
Right.

Cathy (37:43.782)
Right, right. And some people might not know what universal design in, could you give it like a two minute little...

Janet Engel (37:51.98)
Well, Universal Design is products and services that are usable by all people, regardless of your age, your ability, and they have general market appeal. So we see examples of Universal Design every day. So that motion sensor faucet or voice activated faucet, that falls under Universal Design. All of your smart appliances.

Cathy (38:14.876)
Hmm, right.

Janet Engel (38:21.688)
fall under universal design. Luxury vinyl plank and tile, that's universal design. Having the VLX windows, the ones that go on your roof, that falls under universal design. Your energy rated windows, that's all universal design.

Cathy (38:34.546)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Cathy (38:46.45)
Interesting. I mean, one of the things we're doing in the future with wisdom, because we're creating the system itself is architected as a private network in your home. you'll see it, you'll see your Wi-Fi, and then you see wisdom comes up. So when you install the sensors, one of the nice things about wisdom is everything's self-discoverable. So there's other competitive solutions or older solutions that you sort of have to pair the devices up.

Janet Engel (39:02.734)
time.

Janet Engel (39:15.619)
Right.

Cathy (39:16.284)
your phone, you go in the car, out of the car, your speakers, Bluetooth, which one is hooking up. That's a very common way to add devices and sensors. Ours do not operate on Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. They're self-discoverable on the network. So you literally plug in the router, you plug in the sensors, and everything, it finds each other. It's like, I'm here, I'm here, and then it connects automatically. And if the power goes out,

It also reconnects automatically similar to like maybe your Wi-Fi network would. So we want to add other smart home devices. And there's some protocols that are out there now, like there's Matter and other things. how to get, I talked to one of your colleagues with the OMEI, the smart knobs, or there's a lot of lighting. There's the blinds, to your point.

I was thinking about the lighting when you're talking about the blinds to make sure the blinds go up automatically and down automatically maybe for privacy. But smart lighting lights up like a runway to go to the bathroom, comes back. So there's a lot of things to add to wisdom depending on the person. So you can kind of have a little bit of a marketplace of things to add depending on what you need. And so that's something we're definitely... Yes.

Janet Engel (40:38.286)
think adding motion sensor lighting would be one of the key features that would really improve safety.

Cathy (40:44.346)
Right, that's.

Cathy (40:48.114)
And those are very easy to do. So that's not necessarily where it requires some machine learning software, or, know, like some of the other sort of brains of wisdom, but yeah, having that, those programmed in and just make the house, whether there's kitchen, whether there's sort of, we actually saw at CES a couple of really interesting products, but one I really liked, which we are talking to this company to partner, is it's the smart pill boxes.

But specifically, they have a smart cap. You know, all of the prescription drugs are the same size, right? So you just put the cap on, you get home from the pharmacy, you know, because my mom, for example, throws it in her purse. So she's not gonna be as maybe great to leave it in like the automatic pill box. It's gonna get taken other places, but it'll send an alert if the pill box hasn't been opened.

Janet Engel (41:17.123)
Mmm.

Cathy (41:42.25)
or eventually it'll have sensors to know how many pills are left and like where you are with your prescription. It's super easy, but very powerful because who doesn't, know, everyone forgets. It's very hard to keep track of your medication, especially if you're taking more than.

Janet Engel (41:58.018)
Personally, think the best thing, the best method if you don't have cognitive impairment is to organize your medications ahead of time in this very simple, old fashioned. Yes, this is the best thing because you can do it for a week or maybe you have the one for the whole month.

Cathy (42:10.193)
Right.

Cathy (42:13.467)
Right, you're right.

Janet Engel (42:23.234)
and then you have it organized and you've taken the time, either you do it or a caregiver does it, and then your medications are all right there because if you're going through five medication bottles, which let me tell you is very, very common as we get older, you're gonna miss one or you're gonna take two of one. And a common reason why older adults end up in the hospital is taking medications incorrectly.

Cathy (42:38.342)
Right.

Cathy (42:42.524)
Yeah.

Cathy (42:46.62)
Right.

Janet Engel (42:52.78)
which means that they've too many or not taken them at all. Both of those issues will put you in the hospital.

Cathy (42:52.998)
Right.

Cathy (43:00.326)
Yeah, I think there's work to be done still on that, you're right. Sort of the old school method is great. And as you mentioned, there are some situations where they just might forget. There might be some issues there to make sure someone gets reminded, but it's a challenge for so many. in some cases, it's pretty shocking how many prescriptions someone is taking.

Janet Engel (43:25.314)
Well, it's one of the main reasons why people fall according to the CDC. It's one of the four reasons taking medications incorrectly. So, Cathy, tell me how Wisdom is installed in the home. And then I also want you to tell us, since we're getting close to time, when will your product be available?

Cathy (43:29.788)
Mm-hmm.

Cathy (43:33.946)
Right, yeah. So.

Cathy (43:50.768)
Yeah. Thanks for asking that. So the installation right now, we're going to assist in the early installation or have partners that can help do that installation. We want to, there's, like I said, there might be six sensors and some other ones that go in the house, depending on the areas and some other partner products that could fill in, let's say a laundry room or something like that. But we want to have full coverage. The main sensors we do want to have wired right now. So

I have been talking to some smart home engineers and other people for devices and they said kind of the worst device is a long lasting battery. And the reason is most people forget that there's a long lasting battery in one of their, you everyone thinks it's a nice to have, but it actually creates a lot of risk. So although it's a little bit more upfront, we'd like, there's ways to wire it up with ethernet. There's all these new ways to do installation where you can actually get power to a device. There's,

Janet Engel (44:39.512)
Peace.

Cathy (44:48.858)
light bulbs with different powers. So we're trying to make it very easy, but we want power to our sensors. So it'd probably be, but the system itself can get installed in under 30 minutes. It's pretty easy to do. We'll have different suggestions on how to get the coverage. And then the router is as simple, plugging in a couple of ports and just having that sort of powered up.

Janet Engel (45:02.765)
Okay.

Cathy (45:16.25)
and then we can help configure the app and other things. Right now we're running in a number of controlled test homes. So we're testing the training data, we're making sure everything's working, we're continuing to kind of improve it, get user feedback. That'll probably happen for another 45 days or so. And then we plan in March when we're hooked up to our, we have the full emergency response center.

Provisioned to go to paid test homes. We have a waiting list right now That's been growing and we're looking to go off that waiting list first and you know We're not sure how many will do but it'll be several dozen or you know, probably like maybe we get up to 25 or 50 homes for like an a test home situation and then We're looking to launch commercially a GA product in June. So those are our three big milestones and

The products, the software's done, right? So that was the hard and heavy lifting for 2024. That was a bit a lot of work and really proud of that. And now it's just about kind of putting the components together and the polish on it and getting that app. We're really working on the design of the app because even though the secret sauce is in the software and actually the fault detection algorithms and the radar, how the radar is working.

Janet Engel (46:20.757)
Mm-hmm.

Cathy (46:45.094)
people love the app, right? You're using the app every day. So that user experience needs to be perfect and really easy to use. So we're excited. Yeah, we've come a long way. We have a good scrappy team of people and some great supporters and investors. And so we're off to the races this year.

Janet Engel (47:08.552)
Alright, well congratulations. Are you the, and I don't know this, but are you one of the only tech companies that is founded by two women?

Cathy (47:22.732)
definitely doing this. mean, there's a lot, there's some, there's a lot of, there's a lot of software companies, some women doing different things, but I can say, Janet, I've looked around this industry and I don't think that there's a company that has as close of a real understanding of the people and the problems than Dawn and I have with wisdom. We've, I've looked, I mean, I've spent endless hours. I'm like, you know, looking at our

competitive landscape. That's something that I said from my marketing background. There's some really, there's some good, very good products out there, but we feel like we can really get in the minds, especially this vulnerable older woman that is going to be living solo. This is a big area of errors. And actually most of, many of our investors are women in this category who just feel such a

Janet Engel (47:52.588)
Mm-hmm.

Cathy (48:16.956)
connection to this problem and what's happening and want to help us be successful. So it's been great to kind of get have them give back a little bit. But it is, you know, I wouldn't say we're the only but I think I think we're uniquely positioned to understand the problem. And then we both have 30, 30 years of operator and execution in corporate America. So we're like, we're not just coming at this from a caregiver, we've, we've both worked

in high pressure executive environments for many years. So we're kind of like trying to take all everything we ever learned and a little heart and soul, the wisdom, like the heart and soul and kind of the different and Dawn's computer science, she's the CTO, she's really the brains behind the product. She's been building it. It's something she always dreamed of doing. She built Wall Street systems, but actually owning like her own product development has been something that has been sort of.

Janet Engel (48:55.532)
your wisdom.

Cathy (49:14.268)
something she's always aspired to. So it's been great to see her in action. And yeah, I'm kind of the front of the house, like out doing fun podcasts like this.

Janet Engel (49:23.694)
Well, sounds like, well, you know, both of you have been breaking barriers in your own careers prior to developing wisdom because you were in male dominated areas.

Cathy (49:42.256)
Yeah, we always laugh at that. We had a meeting, I won't say where or what, but it was a meeting with, we walked into a big board meeting. It was one of our potential partners and it was like 14, know, kind of similar looking guys. And I said, I haven't been in a meeting like this since like 1993. was like, like a great, you know, it was just remembering, you know, kind of those barriers we did have to break through both of us, which is why we have a great, you know.

Janet Engel (50:01.933)
Really?

Cathy (50:11.846)
The way wisdom is like, no, what's nice about working with women, and we have a lot of women that are on the team, really no egos. And we always make the joke, like, if you want something done, give it to a middle-aged woman that's busy. You know, like, like make decisions and we like, we execute without a lot of hemming and hawing, you know, just like go and talk through. We don't always agree on everything. We talk through things, but we're like, okay, let's go.

Janet Engel (50:27.746)
We are, right?

Cathy (50:41.382)
like agree to move forward. So it's really nice. It's good and great. I know you've probably experienced similar and going off and yeah.

Janet Engel (50:45.806)
Mm-hmm. You know, I agree.

Janet Engel (50:53.77)
It was my birthday a few days ago and my husband wrote me a card and he's not someone who communicates his feelings very often, very well. And in his card it said, I don't know what I would do without you. I think I would cry. And I was like, yeah, I think you would, because I do so much.

Cathy (51:02.79)
Right.

Cathy (51:10.674)
Aww.

That's amazing. I love that. Right. Well, that's great that he's seeing that brilliance in you. yeah, so we'll see where the year takes us. We're excited.

Janet Engel (51:27.95)
Yeah, well, I wish you the best. think you guys have a great product and I can't wait to see how

Cathy (51:30.651)
You too.

Cathy (51:35.632)
Yeah, we'll keep you posted as we hit these milestones. Like I said, the next six months is really important, but we're on track and got the resources that we need. So we're real. really excited to get it out to market.

Janet Engel (51:39.116)
Yeah.

Janet Engel (51:50.382)
Kathy, can you give us information, number one, your website, and then also if someone wanted to participate to be a test home, how could they do that?

Cathy (51:56.05)
Sure.

Cathy (52:00.644)
Mm-hmm. Yes. Thank you for asking. Our website is, HTTP it's my wisdom.io. So, if you just hit wisdom smart home on Google, it'll come up. but it's yeah, it's my wisdom.io and on our website is a, is a button to join the wait list. And so you can subscribe there and then we'll send updates, on how, you know, what the timing on all of that.

Janet Engel (52:24.291)
Okay.

Cathy (52:30.778)
And you can also send an email info. actually get those emails personally, or anyone can send me a DM on LinkedIn. I try to respond to almost like all my direct messages and everyone has a parent, you know, so it's just reach out. I'm happy to take it calls and talk to everyone who has an interest.

Janet Engel (52:55.244)
Well, it was so nice talking to you and learning a lot more about your company. And I'm excited for you and Dom.

Cathy (53:06.502)
Thanks, Janet. Thank you for having me on today. It was fun.

Janet Engel (53:10.029)
You're welcome.

Cathy (53:11.27)
Great, take care.