Imagine it’s 3am in the year 1959 and you hear someone breaking into your home.
If you’re one of the few homes that even have a phone, you could be waiting minutes for the operator to answer.
As every second passes, you’re barely able to breath not knowing how long it will be before you’re manually transferred to the police.
And if you thought the wait time was your biggest barrier to getting help, it gets worse…
…Imagine knowing the perpetrator is getting closer, yet because your phone is attached to a chord in the wall, staying on the line meant you were a sitting duck!
Added to this, prior to the 1960’s there was no national 3 digit emergency number to dial. So if you were outside your home town, you would have to have known the local emergency number to call for help.
Thankfully, by 1961 Australia had introduced triple zero (000) as their national emergency number, and in 1968 the US adopted 911 nationwide. Great, so at least by the 70’s you no longer needed to pack a rolodex of emergency numbers into your luggage.
Fast forward to 2024, and at least our mobile devices allow us to become moving targets instead of sitting ducks!
There are key barriers to calling for help in an emergency depending on the situation you’re facing:
- Trying to push buttons on your keypad while you’re trembling in fear & simultaneously trying to deal with what you’re facing.
- Making an emergency call in such terror, your voice is garbled & the operator can barely understand you.
- Knowing you can’t make a call or state the nature of your emergency, as your perpetrator is within hearing distance.
Whilst we’ve come a long way forward from the days where 3 digit emergency numbers didn’t exist, today’s emergency responders still face significant challenges.
On top of this, emergency responders are faced with another challenge…
…People’s natural tendency to panic when faced with danger.
How many people have the ability to remain calm, speak clearly & relay their address when faced with a life threatening situation?
Especially given when you’re out and about, you probably have no clue what your exact location is in the first place!
Enter: Smart Safety Devices
The smart safety jewelry devices coming on to the market offer several promising solutions:
- Since they’re being hidden in jewelry, attached to key rings or clipped onto clothing, they don’t look like safety devices & nobody can tell you’re wearing them.
- They offer a discreet way to send an alert for help in situations that millions of people face each year: not being able to speak in front of their attacker.
- They eliminate the critical seconds wasted fumbling to find your phone and push the right numbers – when you’re in the midst of dealing with your situation.
- Instead of relying on only one avenue (the emergency operator), they can alert an entire network of people with your GPS location so they can act on your behalf.
Knowing that help is on the way is what provides many victims with a critical ingredient needed to survive…
…Hope
So let’s dive in to the features & benefits of some of the wearable safety devices hitting the market.
Smart Safety Devices That Can Send An Alert With Your GPS Location
A tiny gender neutral emergency alert system that comes with a wearable clip for clothing & easily attaches to a keyring.
» One click is all it takes to send an alert
» Sends alerts silently
» Alerts trusted contacts that you choose
» Sends contacts a link to your GPS location
» Emergency notification via text
» App includes a follow me option so contacts can follow you in real time
Price: Approx $
Wearable Bracelets With A Built In Emergency Alert System
A personal safety bracelet that comes in silver, gold, red, green and dark grey.
» Sends an alert by clicking the buttons on both sides
» Alert is sent silently
» Guardians install the app
» Alerts sent to guardians that you choose
» Sends contacts a link to your GPS location
» Emergency notification via text
» Built in microphone starts recording what’s happening in real time
Price: Approx $129.00
Smart Safety Necklaces With Hidden Panic Buttons
A Stylish personal safety necklace with a gemstone that comes in black, blue and green.
» Two clicks on the back of the necklace to send an alert
» Alerts sent to trusted guardians that you choose
» Sends contacts a link to your GPS location
» Emergency notification via text
» Follow me option so guardians can see your GPS until you reach safety
» Can alert a community of others who might be near by & have the app installed.
Price: Approx $60.00
And the best part is, most of these smart safety devices can send an alert silently. With the majority of violence against women being perpetrated by someone known to them, being able to send a discreet alert is critical.
The Domestic Violence Pizza Ad That Opened A Nation’s Eyes To Reality
If you haven’t yet seen NoMore.org’s previous Super Bowl ad, it brilliantly highlights a topic that people find hard to talk about: Intimate Partner Violence.
Their slogan: “When it’s hard to talk it’s up to us to listen” got the message across brilliantly. They drew attention to something most people never need to think about – the difficulty in making an emergency call when your perpetrator is present.
Kate Ranta’s Near Fatal Shooting Touches A Nerve That Many Of Us Fear…
How would I react if my life was under threat?
The truth is, what scares us most is we won’t ever know unless it’s actually happening. We ‘hope’ that our scenario might pan out differently to what we heard on the news.
But as Kate stated in an NBC news interview: “I called 911 from my cellphone but the operator couldn’t hear me and she also couldn’t locate me. And I had to repeat my address multiple times.”
Whilst wearable safety devices certainly aren’t a solution to the core issues of lack of resources and education we face as a society, they have the potential to get help underway in otherwise impossible circumstances.
Over to you…
Have you ever been in a situation where being able to press a button and send your GPS location with an emergency alert would have helped?
If you could contribute to designing a wearable safety device, what features would it have?
Would you want it to send a silent alert? Or would you want it to have an ear piercing alarm?
Should the panic alert button be a part of your stylish jewelry or something that hooks on to your car keys?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below. And remember to hit the social share buttons so that your friends get to contribute too!
