It all starts with an amazing lady named Jan. She is a retired Registered Nurse. Jan isn’t your typical retiree living alone – she walks 6 miles a day, has walked in all 50 states, and even led her own walking group in The Villages in Florida. She’s also a tech whiz who has an iPhone, Apple Watch, and even teaches classes so other retirees can learn how to better use their smartphones.
Jan is in excellent spirits, but she shares the same concerns a lot of other single retirees do. Living alone, with a health condition, she worries what would happen if she had a medical emergency. Since she has a heart condition and has previously had an incident while sleeping, she may not be able to call for help if something happened, and people might not know for multiple days. By the time help arrived, it could be too late for her or her pet.
So, Jan went looking for a solution.
This isn’t very friendly!
She considered a medical alert bracelet like Life Alert but didn’t like what she saw:
The Life Alert pendants are ugly and would make her look old. Plus, they didn’t seem to use her iPhone at all, and were based on old technology.
They were really expensive ($50/month!)
They only worked if they were on you and you remembered to press the button.
She is very active and independent, and hates the language Life Alert uses: ‘Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up’ is insulting.
Jan decided to take matters into her own hands by reaching out to the makers of another app she used, called Patronus. She got on the phone with the CEO, shared her problem, and her solution: a feature that would check in on her every morning, and call for help only if she didn’t respond. This got their wheels turning, and within the next week the Patronus team sent over some designs for a new service specifically designed to solve this problem.
Jan was elated and gave them her feedback. The team kept working, designing it to be simple and reliable. Eventually, Jan’s local Apple User Group and Walking Group from The Villages helped test it. They also gave it a name, Snug.
The testing with Jan’s group went great:
93% of the retirees who tested Snug felt more secure.
90% said they would recommend Snug to others.
Now, with Jan’s inspiration, Snug is available to help anyone living alone feel safer.
Life Alert® is a registered trademark of Life Alert Emergency Response, Inc.
