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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.
Now we no longer need to pay any attention to our kids when they're near a swimming pool. We have technology to do it for us!
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Just use the standard sonar signature of the pool and alarm if it changes.
The wristband is the flaw. A kid who isn't supposed to go into the pool isn't going to wear their special wristband, especially if it isn't their pool.
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.
If the kid isn't wearing the associated wristband, and doesn't take it off, then the alarm sounds when it goes in the pool.
The neighbour kid, or your friends kids, or your own kids that aren't happy to wear a massive wristband around 24/7 can drown all they like.
The hundreds of existing wave based devices are bad because they will go off if other people are using the pool... other people that will watch a toddler fall into the pool and drown I guess.
This is a joke, right? Please tell me this is a joke. I am rapidly losing faith in humanity.
If the problem is unsupervised children falling into a pool, the solution is a fence.
After several minutes thought I find it rather hard to figure out the market for this product:
* It requires modification of the pool environment, but is inferior to wave based child detection systems because it also requires,
* Modification of the child via a large battery powered wrist strap, but is inferior to a leash because they can still fall in pools
It also looks suspiciously like vapourwear:
* no examples of it in operation
* all depictions of the prototype are actually renders
* any time the product is depicted "in use" it is a still photo with photoshop modifications
Easier cheaper solution; just use one of those really loud personal alarms and replace the pull out switch with a water sensor... and watefproof it. It works in your pool or your neighbors and lakes, oceans or rivers too.
I would think a wave-activated device, coupled with a security camera and some sort of mobile or web app, would be great (if I had a pool, which I don’t). It would work for neighborhood kids, which this wouldn’t. And, if I were away from the house, I could still call for emergency responders were it warranted.
This new “invention” seems like something we could’ve had in the 1960s. The only reason it’s even here is probably the word “KickStarter”. Hey, @whipslash, please consider adding the ability to filter out KickStarter stories, the way we can other subjects.
#DeleteChrome
Shock Collars and invisible fencing should protect your children quite nicely. And provide a handy guide for your robotic mower, which totally would never kill people instead of cutting grass. /s
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.
Supervision is the first line of defense followed very closely by 4 sided barriers.
Our state has very strict mandatory fencing laws enforced by inspection and they work.
A device that needs wrist bands and batteries and detectors in a harsh pool environment. No thanks, wouldn't want that liability as a manufacturer.
46137
Make it out of potassium. A bracelet made of Special K will make a modest audible alarm on contact with water.
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.
The problem is it's the kids who die when the parents fail.
If the parents died, then the problem would solve itself
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?
The problem is it's the kids who die when the parents fail.
They have the same DNA, so in the long run the result is the same.
If the parents died, then the problem would solve itself
Evolution doesn't work that way.
Small children should not be allowed to do their business in the pool. But that's reality, which is why I don't go into public pools.
Just because a parent its stupid, doesn't mean their children can't be better parents (providing they survive long enough to be a parent).
What's this got to do with evolution?
And if they dont eat it or disolve it in water they get 2 sugar cubes.
They forgot one thing to compare with the other products
Complies with pool alarm safety standards:
Aquaguard: Yes
Poolguard: Yes
Safety Turtle: Not sure
Pool Sonix: Not sure
Dolphin Alarm: No
There have been products that detect anything falling into the water for years; they're basically floating tilt-sensors that respond to waves and sound an alarm. No wristband needed.
Software Shouldn't Suck
E-mail: frank at jacquette dot spamless com (remove the spamless!)
Maybe have an alarm system that activates every time it detects anyone in the pool. Have the system make a voice announcement (like "marco") 10s before sounding the 131 whatever dBA alarm. During the 10s anyone can disable it by speaking out loud some kind of trigger word - like "polo".
Have it reset itself and require the trigger word to be spoken again every 15 minutes or so, or maybe if it detects no-one in the pool. Bonus points if it triggers the alarm immediately for any other keyword like "help" or "waaaaaaa" or "glg lg glllg gasp".
For all I know it could be programmed into Alexa
Nullius in verba
This product http://safetyturtle.com/ claims to have been around since the late 90s and I am sure there are other similar wristband type products that detect pool ingress.
If it ain't reinvinted, it ain't invented.
Brilliant!
I bet first round funding will be well over 100M.
All they have to figure out is how to get every child in the country a wrist band.... .
I like technological fixes as much as the next Slashdot reader, but I think this particular problem is a tricky one to solve with 100% reliability... and of course anything with "only" 99.9% reliability is going to get sued into the ground after the first failure, regardless of whether the failure was actually due to human error or not..
My recommendation (either instead of installing a gadget or perhaps in addition to it) would be to make sure any kid who is big enough to potentially get to the pool has also taken lessons on how to stay alive once in the pool (and ideally also how to exit the pool safely).
That way, even if the gadget fails, the kid still has a pretty good chance of survival.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Honestly, I'm less than impressed by a flawed design that require the kid to wear something.
I'm surprised nobody made some sort of sensor (heat, light curtain, motion detection, sound recognition etc.) that will have a near perfect efficiency (or anything better than a fence around the pool). And why not coupling this to an emergency drain connected to the aqueduct to empty the pool in case the alarm isn't aknowledged in like 30 sec (to give the time in case of a false alarm in the middle of the night).
Elok
Does it come with a roll of bubble wrap and a crash helmet too?
Health and safety gone mad!
If you gave me a choice between a printer and a giraffe with explosive diarrhoea, i'll get my ladder and my raincoat
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
Isn't he just...
Interesting idea, but pool guarding systems based only on video is pretty common. Like PoolView, SwimEye, AngelEye among others. It has existed for many years. As a matter of fact, my brother used to code for one of these systems. It's all underwater video monitoring with pattern detection and works fairly well.
The only scenario where I could see this sonar-version would be practical is in Hotel resorts or other closed areas where visiting kids are given this wristband and then left to roam the premises unattended. Going for private households might be the angle required for Kickstarter, but all in all this seems like a product more suited for the business market, IMHO.
And compare that number, if you will, to the shockingly brief amount of time that it takes for someone to drown.
What magic technology are you imagining that could drain the pool fast enough that it would even have the smallest chance of stopping drowning?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
...try to sell the wristband as a tsunami warning system.
you mean to tell me that human children can't breath water?!
The invasion planning committee will be quite interested in this bit of intelligence!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Well, the speed of the water depend of the volume of water that can pass throught the drain. So, yeah the idea I had was a few dozen drain that cover roughly the half of the spool floor area and sides.
Another alternative could be an elevator floor that would work even better : https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
All are expensive options of course.
Elok
Regardless of how many drains you had in the pool, they would be bottlenecked by the pipe that all the water would eventually have to fit into.
An elevator pool floor is a good idea, however. I had never seen that before, and although it seems its intended use was for ergonomics, I can see its applications for safety as well.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Adult supervision is the top priority, but given that inattention happens, a couple comments on achieving decent pool safety.
For toddlers too little to understand rules, you need properly functioning fences and self-closing gates. Don't let anyone bring a toddler inside the gate unless you have reason to believe they (the adult) are capable of proper supervisory action.
For older kids, idiots will die. For your own kids, get them swimming lessons, and even more important teach them that they are never ever to go to the pool without an adult present. Again, idiots will die.
In fact, adults should observe the same rule: never ever go swimming, anywhere, without another capable adult present. I know of people who drowned after suffering a heart attack or an epileptic fit while swimming alone.
People who can't follow safety rules die. YCFS
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
Of course there would be a bottleneck, but could water flow faster there?
As for elevating floor, I don't think the one in the video are strong enough to lift one person though, but it's a matter fitting stronger valve.
Elok
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.
This is better.... the kid doesn't have to wear a special watch that could accidentally be lost, OR the kid could take it off, or the parent forgets to attach it, OR there are not enough watches available for the number of kids.
My suggestion:
(1) Use the simple wave-activated alarm devices
(2) Put a good fence around your pool with gated access and latches on outside the gates above reach of young children. No unattended children have access to the fenced-in area. They can play outside the fence
(3) Cover the pool area itself with motion detectors and a monitored intrusion alarm
(4) Keep locked with code required to open the gate from outside while nobody is using the pool.
(5) OK... fine the new wristwatch-based alarm toy might be suitable for children while attended with multiple adults present: to draw quick attention to the problem in case an accident occurs.
When small children who have no business going into the pool on their own are out playing near it, they wear a special wristband.
This idea is already useless. I'm trying to think of a person who is so terribly irresponsible as to let a small child play out near a pool alone, yet responsible enough to install this piece of equipment and remember to put on the wristband every single time the kid goes out to play alone near a pool.
182 comments and no one mentions it exists already? "The Safety Turtle Child Kit is a pool monitoring system that uses wristbands and pet adapters to track children and pets to make sure they are not in the pool. When the wristband or adapter gets wet, the Safety Turtle sounds an alarm to ensure that you know someone is in the pool" http://safetyturtle.com/safety...
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
I don't want to get up earlier than necessary to save the little basterd.
And part of me imagines someone getting annoyed at the beeping and turning it off w/o even looking. (and then blaming the company that made this)
Nobody else notice this?
This requires active safety (ie, something attached to a kid), which already assumes you know the kid is in the area and near the pool.
The vast majority of child drownings tend to involve children who no one knew was anywhere near a pool in the first place. In the case of kids playing in pools supposedly supervised, wristbands come off (for that matter, children will take them off!). A lot of cases are neighbours kids playing around the pool and in some cases have scaled the security fence. (It's not going to help in the case of the neighbours' cat either)
This is the wrong solution to the problem and may actually make things worse by engendering a false sense of security. Short of some kind of retractable cover capable of being walked on and incapable of letting anything fall through I don't know what the solution is (and I suspect that such a solution would still not save everyone)