Forming An Opportunity Belief

What will it take to make the tragedy of losing a child or a pet in a heated car a thing of the past? Since these innocent beings cannot speak for themselves, we can devise a plan to protect them. There are plenty of health apps on the market right now telling us about our own health statistics. I know I’ve seen one where an elderly person’s stats show up on their daughter’s app alerting them to a situation. It may be this simple. But you may have trouble guaranteeing that an infant will wear a watch, for example. What about your pet? I don’t see too many watches or safety bracelets for them. But a pet could wear a safety collar and a baby could wear a safety bracelet or anklet.

If a mother, father, or caregiver leaves a child in a car too long, their temperature will rise, and an alert message could be sent to the person with the twin device. I would like to explore this idea further and see if it has already been prototyped or developed.  

I usually stop myself right here and think, oh, it’s already been done, “they” (all the top brains in the world) have already made one so perfect there is none better. What if that isn’t true?   

I interviewed someone at work who has small children: Erica McCallister. I was asking her about this device and what she thought of it. I said that car manufacturers may have a solution already. She has seen one solution where when you are leaving your car (removing your keys) an alert message reminds you to check your back seat. A pet owner, however, who runs in a store for a minute in Florida may not realize just how fast it gets really hot in a car and think that the pet is fine. I’m not sure if I trust that idea also because you would get desensitized after seeing that same message all the time. You may think you know there is nothing back there in that back seat. Erica said her sister had that happen to her. She said she has several children, and they all went in to Sam’s Club, or so she thought. Once inside, she did a head count and found one member missing. She was able to get back to the car to her little one in plenty of time. Erica said that so many people ridicule the parents, but she feels like it’s just an awful accident that could happen to anyone. I do agree that as a society we are so busy taking on so many things at once, more mistakes like will be bound to happen.

I interviewed a new grandmother to get her point of view: Sue Hill. Her son-in law and his wife just had Easton 3 months ago. She will be taking on the roll of caregiver on many occasions and I thought she would be a good person to interview for this project.

She believes the product is a great idea and even though there are similar products out there that this was one to consider. She said in the hospital, Easton had a bracelet that beeped if there was a problem. It alerts the nurses at the nurse’s station. Now if we could just fine tune that for parents and caregivers. She knows this issue is especially bad in Florida and we thought that it wouldn’t sell as well in another state, say Alaska, unless the alert was a general health alert system.

I interviewed a new mother to get her point of view. Karis Underhill’s daughter is 6 months old and getting in to everything already. She really likes the idea too but mentioned that there are similar products out there already. She also thought a proximity alarm would be helpful, beeping if you are too far away (I think this is what they may use in the hospital as well). It wouldn’t work as well for pets, she said, since they run around so much. That could also come in handy in the case of a child-napping situation. Maybe both items could be integrated into one device. The stats wouldn’t notify you if something was amiss unless it was set to alert you of a distress signal such as a high temperature.

My product has gone through some changes already as it has been thought out. I’m sure it will go through many more changes to keep it feasible, at a low cost, and to make it appealing. Baby anklets could be quite decorative for little girls and masculine for little boys or remain non-gender specific which is the new trend.

I like the feedback I received from my potential customers about this product idea. Has it been done before, yes, in similar ways, but not specifically for this purpose. If the cost can be kept to a minimum it would be a great addition to a family to keep that little new life safe. I believe that sales for children would be more likely than sales for pets due to the feeling of it not being as much of a necessity for your pets to thrive. I would love it for my dog since I’m at work all day every day.  She may not be overheating, but, if she was in distress otherwise, it would be good to know right away.