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Engineer Develops Sonar Alarm System To Monitor Kids In the Pool (newatlas.com)
British electrical engineer John Barstead created a sonar alarm system that will warn parents or nearby sunbathers if a small child has accidentally fallen into a pool. The Dolphin Alarm, as it is called, is currently raising production funds on Kickstarter. New Atlas explains how it works: When small children who have no business going into the pool on their own are out playing near it, they wear a special wristband. If they should fall in, the wristband will generate a three-tone sonar signal as soon as it's immersed in the water. That signal will be detected by a hydrophone contained within a receiver unit that floats in the pool. When that happens, the unit will emit a 131-decibel alarm. It will also transmit an alert to an indoor remote unit located up to 150 m away (170 ft), which will likewise sound an alarm of its own. While there are other child-in-the-pool alarms, most of them are wave-activated and have to be shut off when other people are using the pool.
Unless the wrist band falls off
or It's battery goes flat
or it gets damaged
or someone forgets to put it on
or it gets dirty and the ultrasonic transducer doesn't make a sound
or it gets dirty and the water detector doesn't trigger
or the detection microphone is fouled
or the floating detectors battery goes flat
There is already a solution for this problem. You can buy a system that detects disturbances in the water. They automatically arm themselves when the water is calm, you temporarily disarm it when you use the pool and it rearms automatically then you stop disturbing the water.
When something disturbs the water, like a child falling in, an alarm is triggered.
They're designed by real engineers to solve this specific problem as an alternative for pool fencing where it's legal or in addition to it as extra protection.
They're designed to protect all kids, not just the ones you remembered to attach a wristband to.
I fail to see a market for this and I hope no one gets lulled into a false sense of security by it.
Itâ(TM)s not tragedy, itâ(TM)s evolution in action. If you managed to combine your genes with someone elseâ(TM)s and the random combination produced is a moron, itâ(TM)s better for the future of humanity to weed it out early, instead of allowing it to procreate with other similar moron combinations. You can have another child easily, but once that moron child has its own, then humanity is a step closer to doomed.