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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.
Just use the standard sonar signature of the pool and alarm if it changes.
If it depends on the kid wearing a "water activated" wristband of some sort, it's a bit of a non-starter. The kid learns first that if he drags his arm through the water, big excitement ensues. Next he learns that if he takes the wristband off and throws it in the pool, even greater amusement ensues. Finally, the parents get rid of the thing out of irritation.
That is all.
A much better idea would be a to have adults wear the sonar device to act as an inhibit for a wave based alarm sensor.
It really inspires confidence in a safety product when the website describing its operation says "When the wrist band makes contact with water the transmitter sends an acoustic signal to the pool alarm which emits a loud penetrating"
Penetrating what? Tentacle to rescue your drowning child?
It's not even an HTML rendering issue, it's an image.
They also feel the need to state "WRISTBAND TRANSMITTER - The Wristband is worn on the wrist" Where else do you wear a wristband?
When I first read the summary the first thing that went through my mind is the Super Freakenomics book mentions children are more likely to die from falling in a swimming pool than accidental gun death at home.
How about the sum of accidental and deliberate gun death?
A lot of kids fall into pools or drown swimming in the USA and something like this (perhaps the new generation of this tool) could be helpful.
Or teach them to swim before letting them out of sight near a pool or lake?
And bathing together with them until they can swim.
Sometimes tech solves problems that don't exist. At least not for people with common sense.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca