[00:00:10] Speaker A: Everything's coming up roses, and it's all around the town somewhere opening for the roses.
It's gonna be a wonderful place. Or a river.
[00:00:32] Speaker B: All right, keep talking. Keep talking.
[00:00:34] Speaker C: Okay, that's not something people usually request of me. Usually the opposite of stop talking. Do you hear an echo, or is everything okay?
[00:00:41] Speaker B: No, everything's good. We're just checking the volume settings here, guys, making sure echo cancellation is on. Sibilance. Sibilance.
Testing, 1, 2. Hey, hey. Testing, 1, 2.
[00:00:53] Speaker D: Hey.
[00:00:53] Speaker B: Hey.
[00:00:55] Speaker C: What is it?
[00:00:55] Speaker E: The.
[00:00:56] Speaker C: What's the line? The.
[00:00:57] Speaker B: The arsonist has oddly shaped feet.
Unique New York. Unique New York.
[00:01:03] Speaker C: Sibilants mean. At first, I thought you were referring to us being siblings, but in fact,
[00:01:07] Speaker B: sibilants might be from stepbrothers, actually, when they. I'm not sure, but when they are testing out the sound for the Catalina Wine Mixer, if anybody ever knows, knows what that's about. One of the greatest scenes of all time. Great movie, by the way.
[00:01:23] Speaker C: Great movie. Great movie.
[00:01:25] Speaker B: But anyway, you know, it may seem like it's off topic to be talking about tech and tech things, but actually it's not because it. Today we got some tech wizards with us that are going to talk about amazing, amazing new product that helps, I think, perfectly balance the line between safety and dignity in the home when you're caring for a loved one.
And, you know, it's tough to know where that line is because, you know, oftentimes you're just sitting around and you realize if it's not one thing, it's Joanna, and things just occur that are difficult. And so we've got a couple different ways that we've worked with it. Leaning into tech and then also saying no to tech. We got cameras. We've got the Apple Watch for fall detection. We got some childproof locks on stoves and microwaves, but we also did not on the pantry.
[00:02:13] Speaker C: Don't even get me started on the childproof lock on the pantry. That I still.
I never get it on my first try to the point where I actually. I might be making something or going to get a snack, and I will give up. I'll just say so. I know the device works. I just don't think it's necessarily working for its original.
[00:02:31] Speaker B: That's actually really good feedback. That means it's working outstandingly because before we got that lock on the pantry door, which is a special doorknob which we had installed, and there's a little type of pick key that you have to stick in this tiny little pinhole, like you're picking A lock open? Yeah. No, it's difficult. It takes a while to get comfortable with it. And. But before that, we would be greeted with mom having rummaged through every one of the spice jars just to make sure it wasn't something that she could snack on. And that wasn't wonderful to clean up.
[00:03:04] Speaker C: Cinnamon everywhere. I liked when she got into the flour, because flour is easy to clean up. Basically, once you start trying to clean it up with a sponge, you've got paper mache. And that was happening.
[00:03:13] Speaker B: So it's also an experimental phase to see if there's maybe some other things that you don't usually snack on that maybe you'd want to snack on. And I don't begrudge her that, but it'd be better if she can't do that on her own. So we did apply that, but as we were saying, no rugs. We kept the rugs in the house even though we were advised to get them out. And thankfully, so far, it's been fine. Yeah, we didn't put a gate on the breezeway to prevent her escape and another fall. And that's also worked out fine. Even though there was a phase we had to put a chair there for a little bit, but she's moved on from that, so. Yeah, but we're always interested in getting more technology that can help. And I can spoiler alert with what these guys are going to talk about. We could have also put a little thing on that door in the pantry so we could know exactly when she was trying to open it. Like, I can tell you, she would only open it toward late afternoon before dinner when she started to get peckish. And I'm sure if we had their software and the devices that track these things, we would be able to see, oh, it's always between four and five, so maybe just lock it then. I mean, that's like, decisions that you can make based on some of these.
These products that they have, but they're gonna do a better job of describing it and talking to you about this wonderful thing. It's available on the market now.
[00:04:26] Speaker C: Yeah. Love it. Yeah. I think that one of our conversations for a long time, actually, even well before mom was deep into the stages of dementia, were the conversations about cameras. Because we knew that we needed to have devices in the home that kept her safe when we weren't living there with her, when she was living there alone. But there was a lot of discomfort on our part about having cameras on her.
Although, in fairness, those cameras ended up being kind of a lifesaver one, she was forever leaving the phone off the hook. And so I could actually turn on the speaker in the camera and yell to her to turn the phone on the hook, which did freak her out, but it helped in that respect so we could get ahold of her. The camera. Also, if you go back to episode one, that was how we detected her terrible fall, which led to the move to assisted living. So I do think there are great benefits to the camera, but I also feel like, well, now you're living there and she has caregivers there. So while the cameras are helpful for when she's in a room on her own for a little bit, because she should be able to do that, or you want to go upstairs, or, you know, I'm checking on her in the short periods of time when she's on her own. It's great to have it. But I also feel badly that cameras are on her or the caregivers. Even though we're very clear that we're not watching our caregivers on the cameras, they can turn them around.
There is a piece to the cameras that I feel like, ugh, that really feels like the ultimate invasion. I don't love it.
[00:05:52] Speaker B: I don't mind it at all. But I've always been more on the side of safety than dignity. I have to be reminded a little bit. Even when she was in assisted living, I had to be reminded to, like, really try to think about that dignity piece and the cameras. We make it very clear with the caregivers that they can turn them around. It's not for when they're there, it's for when they're not there. I know that's a lot of theirs, but. And I turn it around every night. If I'm going in the family room to watch tv, I turn it around. So it's like, I don't think the cameras are a big deal at all. Certainly mom doesn't notice that they're on, and I don't feel like we're invading her privacy. I feel like that's the minimum that we should be having to do to keep her safe. And it's a huge help, especially like, when we're out, you know, and, like, she's in bed by seven and she's likely sleeping without incident through the night. But if I'm out, I might stay out for a little extra hour or so with friends for dinner or something. And I can just be close by logistically and look at the cameras and know that she's fine and actually get a motion alert. If something actually does happen, and 99% of the time that something does happen, she's fine anyway. She's just roaming around. But I think they're a great tool. That's not the only tool that's out there. And so I'm excited that we're going to talk to these guys from Nomos Smart Care and talk about the physical equipment that they have that helps in the house, along with their companion software application that collects a lot of information that really, really can help you understand what's happening and make real time decisions if necessary for things that are happening out of plan, that seem to be abnormal, like someone getting out of bed when they shouldn't. And it's really, it's a nice, unobtrusive way to track what's happening and keep everyone safe while maintaining their dignity.
[00:07:37] Speaker C: For sure. Okay, so we are going to get into our conversation with David Baer in Lindsay park right after we listen to mom sing some tunes on the piano.
[00:08:05] Speaker A: When you see the moon at light Gonna have a mother runner wonder wonder what it'll be tonight.
[00:08:25] Speaker C: And we are back with David Baer, who is the president of Nommo Smart Care, Lindsey park, who's the vice president of marketing. We really appreciate you joining us. We received our package in the mail yesterday. I love it. First of all, the colors themselves were just a jo joyful way to open up a package. And I had the opportunity to play around with it a little bit last night and also today. So thank you for joining us today to tell us about your product.
[00:08:53] Speaker E: Thanks for having me.
[00:08:53] Speaker D: Thank you for having us.
[00:08:54] Speaker C: We appreciate it. Lindsay and David, maybe you could just tell us just a little bit about yourself, about the product, about the app, what led you to create it?
[00:09:03] Speaker E: So I've been with Nomos SmartCare for about a year, leading all of our marketing initiatives.
Nomos SmartCare is a proactive caregiving technology that helps families know their loved ones are safe and well, even from afar. Nomo is on a mission to really modernize caregiving and relieve some of the burden that caregivers face every day and help empower aging adults, dementia patients, those with special needs or a disability, and individuals returning home after surgery to live independently, safely and confidently at home. So it's been a really, really exciting year.
I can give some background on how Nomo came to be or David, if that's something that you want to. You've been here a little bit longer than me, so.
[00:09:48] Speaker D: Sure, sure. Yeah. I've been here since the beginning. So Nomo really started with our owner and founder, Michael Shaughnessy, experiencing the loss of his father. His father had a stroke while he was living alone in, you know, in his house and geographically separated, you know, Mike and his father. And at some point, after not hearing, you know, for a while, as Mike's brother, broke down the door of his father's house and unfortunately found him there on the couch. And it was that thought, combined with some other business initiatives that we were taking in the security space where. The home security space where we thought, you know, people spend so much time and so much consideration about keeping the boogeyman out of the home, but no one's really thinking about, you know, taking care of our loved ones in the home. And that was really the touch point for thinking about and creating Nommo. And that was, you know, roughly around 2018. And it took us a number of years in R and D and development. We literally built. Built the product from the ground up. We're in the business of selling consumer products in thousands and thousands of locations and millions of units. And so our goal with Nommo was to engineer, design, and build it so that it could be manufactured and sold at the lowest price possible, so that it could be accessible and available to as many families and as many people, you know, across the country and across the world, frankly. So we didn't want to build in really super fancy, expensive technology. We wanted to have really great technology that did exactly what we wanted it to do, but did it at a commodity price so that we could really make it accessible to everyone. And after a number of years of development and testing and redevelopment and retesting, we launched the product about a year and a half ago in the marketplace.
[00:11:31] Speaker B: That's fantastic. And so how is it doing so far? Like, what's your penetration? How many people are using it? What is there any numbers that you can share?
[00:11:39] Speaker D: Generally, our growth has been continuing over the year and a half.
The interesting thing is that we're a new product in a new category. Things like Nommo don't exist. People don't know that there's a resource for them that can do what it does. Right? There's simple devices like emergency call buttons or pads that go underneath a mattress. So there's individual devices that can measure, you know, certain specific things that frankly cost more than our device. But there's really not one device that can really allow families the help and independence that that Nomo can offer. And so we spent a lot of time figuring out, testing, and sort of refiguring out what's the right message? What's the right way to explain and, and, and sort of let the world know that there is a product by Nommo. And, and as we continue to hone that message, you know, the penetration increases. You know, we're, we're, we in a number of locations. Amazon, Walmart, Target, Best Buy, our own website. We have some brick and mortar presence as well, although we sort of think this more of a. Of an online type of sale versus a brick and mortar sale.
[00:12:48] Speaker B: Excellent. Well, congratulations on getting this out there. This is fantastic. I mean, we have elements of what you're doing in different forms, and I would love to get into some questions about the functionality and actually how it works. I mean, we have in our house, we're using some cameras by Wyze is the company. And we also have some latches, like protective, childproof stuff that we put like on the microwave and the burners at the, you know, at the stove. And so we're like kind of like patchworking things together to protect mom from herself and to make sure that she's as safe as she can be while also trying to strike that balance of dignity. It's a tough balance to figure out. And so it seems like with your standard package, there's a couple different tools that come in it. And one, and correct me if I'm using the terminology, right, there's a pendant, which is kind of like the circuit thing that you can stick on certain doors and, or they can actually wear it, I hear then. And press a button for, for emergencies. And then there's also like the motion center hub where you can like, place it in a room and it's gonna track everything. And so is this. Is that right? First of all, are those two, two main expressions of the product when you get it?
[00:14:02] Speaker D: Yeah, maybe if it's okay, Andrew, maybe if I take just a little zoom out for one second and then sort of zoom in and talk about all the components, would that be helpful?
[00:14:11] Speaker B: Perfect. Great.
[00:14:12] Speaker D: Okay. So one of the key things that we designed Anomal around is privacy and dignity. Right.
We know that people living, you know, in their homes want to have the privacy of living in their homes. And so our system doesn't use any cameras. We don't have any active listening devices or stream audio to the cloud, et cetera, like a Siri or an Alexa. Our whole system was built around privacy and security. And so then when you sort of zoom into the next layer, we have a few different hardware devices that form the essential care kit. And then there's a number of accessories as well. The essential care kit is sort of what we've packaged to say, look in a normal kind of one bedroom home, this is a sufficient amount of hardware to kind of begin to measure and then of course you can add depending on what you want. And you're right, there are three different types of hardware. There's the hub, and that's the one device that sits in the main room of the house.
It's the hub for everything. It's the brains for everything. So all of our computing actually happens in that device. We don't stream data, sound things into the cloud and process that in the cloud. It actually is processed right in your home on that device. Again, for privacy and security, this device, the hub, also acts as a two way communication device. So there's a hands free speakerphone built into the hub which allows anybody to communicate into the home only by using the app on your smartphone. And there are also some sensors that are built into that. We'll talk about those in a minute. The next device is called a satellite. It's the size of a nightlight. It plugs into the wall and it measures motion and also has a night light built into it so that when there's motion moving across it, the night light will illuminate. So if it's in a bedroom or a hallway at night and mom gets up to go to the bathroom, it'll illuminate the path to help avoid falls. In addition, the satellites can detect temperature and humidity. So putting one of these in the bathroom is a great idea because it can detect when bathing happens. Right, There's a spike in temperature of the room and there's a spike of humidity in the room, likely that there's some sort of bathing going on. We also have built sound classifiers into that. So again, we're not streaming the sound to the cloud to listen for it. But we've built in things like fire alarm, so if our satellite hears a smoke alarm going off, it can immediately notify the care circle that there's a smoke alarm going off in the home. And we continue to add different qualifiers like running water or a toilet flushing, things like that. We continue to add those into the system, you know, as we further develop them. And then third, Andrew, the device you were talking about is called a tag. It can be worn as a pendant as you describe. It's about the size of poker chip and it has a button in the center.
So the tag does a few different things. One, it measures movement. So if you put this on anything that you want to detect movement on, like a door, a microwave, a refrigerator, medicine cabinet, pantry, you know, anything where you want to detect movement. It has two way stick tape. You just stick it right on and you're done. Also can be worn as a pendant. So we include a lanyard in the kit and you can just stick one of the tags onto the lanyard and it can be worn as a pendant and then it detects a fall. So if you're wearing the lanyard and your mom happens to fall, it will immediately escalate to the circle and the EMS if needed. Again, we'll talk about that in just a little bit as well. But it can be worn as a pendant to help fall detection. The third thing that it can do is it has a button on the center of it that's a panic button. So that can be again, pushed when you're wearing it. If you need help, we also recommend that you put these in areas where there might be a high likelihood of a fall. So for example, you put one in the shower because they're waterproof. You could put one at the bottom of the staircase because falls often happen, you know, sort of as. And someone, you know, unfortunately lands at the bottom of the stairs. In my mom's home, we put them at the bottom of her bed stand because a lot of times she'd get out of bed in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and lose her footing and fall. And immediately right there, there's a button for her to push. And so anywhere you think there's a fall hazard or anywhere you want there to be a panic button, you just stick one on. So those are the various hardware components in the essential care kit. We have additional hardware, like you can add additional tags or additional satellites. We also integrate with a few different health devices, so like a blood pressure cuff or a contactless thermometer or a glucose monitor. So those are three of the devices that connect right into our system and all that data then becomes available in the app.
[00:18:38] Speaker C: That's incredible. It's incredible.
[00:18:40] Speaker B: Amazing, amazing. Thanks for that explanation.
[00:18:43] Speaker D: Yeah, sure.
[00:18:43] Speaker C: Because I'm thinking about how we piecemeal all of these pieces and your device covers really everything that we have been kind of battling it out for years with our mom.
[00:18:54] Speaker D: Yeah, right. We probably should talk a little bit about the app, if that's okay too, because that's really the sort of the key thing that brings it all together. The hardware is non intrusive and sort of small. And the idea is, once you place that hardware in the home, it takes 10 or 15 minutes to set it up. It just disappears into the environment, right? So a lot of times you put the tags on the top of the refrigerator door, not like, right front and center, or you might put it on the inside of the cabinet, right? So that it doesn't, you know, it doesn't have to be seen. And so then that the hardware just disappears, which now leaves you the app. And the app is really kind of the magic of the whole system because it brings all of the hardware to life and allows what we call the Care Circle to have instant access to everything. So the care circle can be any number of people that you choose. You know, could be family, could be paid caregivers, could be a neighbor, could be a religious leader, could be a doctor, you know, could be any. Any professional, anybody that you want. You can have as many caregivers in the care. As many people in the Care circle as you choose, and each person then can download the app for free and use it. And. And then the. What the app does, it has all sorts of different information. But. But really, more importantly, what Nommo can do that nobody else can do is tell you when things don't happen. And so a lot of times, like if you've got a security system and, you know, the. The door beeps every time the door opens and door closes, you, like, all that stuff just becomes noise. And so what Nommo has conceptualized is the idea of normal motion, right? And so what we want to know during sort of the life of the day is what's normal, but more importantly, what's not normal? And I don't need to be notified. Everything that happens, every moment of the day when it's, you know, quote unquote normal. What I really want to know is when things change, when there's an anomaly, when mom starts getting up later, you know, when mom forgets to eat a meal, when mom gets up five times at night to go to the bathroom when she normally sleeps through the night. These are the types of things that Nommo can identify and tell you right away that other systems can. We do that by way of utilizing an AI model to build sort of what we call the normal motion of the home. So over the first few weeks of using Nommo, Nommo will begin to understand and digest kind of what's going on in the home, and we'll build out patterns, and then as those patterns evolve, it continues to educate itself. But when there's a deviation from one of those patterns, that's when it will give you notifications through the app. So one of the easiest ways to kind of describe this is how I use it with my mom, who is now passed, but also had Alzheimer's and lived on her own, really lived in her home until she passed away with the help initially of Nomo and then some caregivers as well. But as you guys probably know, one of the most important things for us and our family was making sure mom ate, because if a caregiver wasn't there to feed her, she'd often forget to eat. And which then leads to all sorts of things like weakness and falling and dehydration and even more confusion and all of those things. And so I had triggers set up. Triggers are notifications that you set up in the app to sort of let me know. Normally, mom would get up between 10 and 1030 or 11. And so if that didn't happen, I'd get a notification, or if it happened at 8am I'd get a notification. But if it happened in that normal time notification, I didn't need to be alerted that mom got up normal time. You know, then she'd usually go into the kitchen and have some coffee and have her breakfast. And again, we had sensors on the refrigerator, on the pantry, and on the microwave so that we knew that if she was, you know, doing opening any. Any one or more of those things, something was happening. But more importantly, if the refrigerator, the pantry, and the microwave did not open, I was confident that she didn't eat. And then I'd get a notification. Hey, there's been no activity in the kitchen. Mom doesn't look like mom had breakfast. Maybe it's time to check in.
And all that happens through the app. The app gives you all sorts of insights. You can build out those sorts of notifications in any way that you like. And mine can be different than my sister's. My sister, my oldest sister, who was really the primary caregiver for my mom before Nomo, would call her approximately 25 times a day, which was both annoying for my mom and my sister.
[00:22:52] Speaker C: And by the way, I just want to say that at that point, your mom was still answering the phone.
[00:22:56] Speaker D: Yes, she was. Except when she would leave it off the hook. Right. Because she forgot to hang it up.
[00:23:01] Speaker C: I know that one.
[00:23:02] Speaker D: And then the 25 times become 75 times. And then someone's driving over there because the neighbor's not home to knock on the door.
[00:23:09] Speaker C: I had a routine with my mom, because I live about a mile away that there were. I can't even count how many times I would just. I could see on our camera that the phone was off the hook. I would get in the car, I would drive to her house, I would walk in the door, I would put the phone on the hook, I would go back in my car and go home. It was a, you know, a 15 minute experience, but I get it happened all the time.
[00:23:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:32] Speaker D: And almost solved it because you push a button on your app and instantly connect it into the hub. Say, hey, mom, how's it going? Good, darling, how are you? I'm great. Hey, mom, you forgot you left the phone off the hook. Can you put it back on? Oh, I'm sorry. Yep, yep, I'll do that right now.
[00:23:43] Speaker C: Oh, my gosh. You know, that would have changed my life.
[00:23:47] Speaker D: That one function, right. Is like life changing.
[00:23:50] Speaker B: Yeah, it's really, it's fascinating what this can do. And I'm just, just curious, like, when somebody signs up, is it like separate pricing for the hardware and the software? Is it like a subscription model or like, how is, how does the financial model work for the clients who want to look into this?
[00:24:07] Speaker D: Go ahead, Lindsay. I'll let you talk for a minute.
[00:24:10] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:24:10] Speaker D: So I feel like I'm hogging the mic.
[00:24:12] Speaker C: We are.
[00:24:12] Speaker E: No, not at all. We, we are hardware and software based. The hardware is $199 flat, you know, fee, one time fee, and then it's a 1999amonth subscription. And the way I like to present it is, you know, people pay more for their Hulu, their Netflix subscriptions every month. And, you know, 1999 for peace of mind is invaluable. And, you know, really what they're paying for is the emergency services.
So like David mentioned, the difference between, you know, our device and others amongst many are that, you know, when a panic button is pressed or if a fall were to occur, your care circle gets notified first. So a lot of people are afraid, you know, to have these devices around their house for accidental button pushes. And they think, you know, the EMTs EMS are going to show up at their home over and over again. But the great thing about ours is it notifies your care circle first. They have the ability to intercept, connect into the hub. Ask mom or dad or whomever if they're okay if yes. Oh, I pushed it by accident. Great. You can resolve that right away within the app. But if not, you have the ability to escalate to EMS services immediately. So that's really what the subscription covers.
[00:25:31] Speaker B: That's amazing. I mean, just on that point specifically, we have gone through several waves of analysis and research on fall detection. And we were shocked that the assisted home that our mom was in for about a year before she moved back home had pendants, but they didn't have fall detection, which was kind of wild. So we went with the Apple Watch, which has fall detection, but found out that there is some issues with Apple watch because they don't have the option, at least they didn't back in the day to send only an alert to the family on every minor fall. And EMS was not called until there was absolute stop motion after a fall for like a minute. Because they assume that if your arm is moving around a little bit, you're able to look at your watch and press I'm okay. Or press services. Well, our mom couldn't even figure out how to press the pendant to call for help when she was in the home. So this was a little gap. And so we bolted it on with some other fall detection software that alerts us for those things. But that alone, even if you can cater, I assume you can cater how the alerts are sent and in what manner that they're sent. That would be just a huge benefit to people, I think.
[00:26:36] Speaker D: Yeah. And, you know, I don't know if. If your mom or others out there. Mom. Are like mine, but my mom would wear the pendant precisely when I walked in the front door, and she would take it off and leave it on the counter about two seconds after the door shut when I went home.
[00:26:49] Speaker C: Yeah, well, you're lucky. Ours just. Our mom just hung hers on the nightstand.
Little knob on the drawer.
[00:26:56] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because my mom was embarrassed. Like, what would people say if they saw me in a pendant? And I'm like, mom, you're in your home and no one comes in here but me or my sisters.
But it doesn't matter.
[00:27:07] Speaker C: Yeah, same.
[00:27:08] Speaker D: The nice thing about Nomo is while we don't have.
There are a number of other ways where we can meet people where they're at with respect to fall detection. Right. So, for example, especially with my mom, who, again, lived alone in her home, there's one thing that is certain after a fall, if someone doesn't get up, there's no motion. Right. So what you can do in Nomo, and we did this in our home, is we set a notification that said, look, between the hours of call at 11am and 7pm When I knew mom was home and she was awake and not sleeping, if you see no motion anywhere in the home for a period of two hours, then give me a Notification, because it might just be that she's laying on the couch watching CNN for six hours, because whatever. Or it could be that she fell and she can't get up. And so it's worth it to me that if there's no motion for two hours, I'm just gonna give her a call and say, hey, mom, how you doing? And so there are. And then again, I talked about putting the panic buttons in trouble areas. So even for those people that, you know, will not wear a pendant, or in some cases, don't, can't remember how to push the button of a pendant, you know, having these other ways of addressing a potential fall is really helpful.
[00:28:12] Speaker C: Yeah, I really like the idea of the no camera piece because, you know, for our mom, obviously we weren't gonna put this in the bathroom, and yet the bathroom is such a significant spot. The other piece that we were told when we moved our mom into care is that we couldn't have cameras. In fact, they made us sign a very specific legal form that said that we wouldn't have them. But when we chatted the other day, you mentioned that there are assisted living rooms that are allowing this. Have you found that to be the case that most places will allow that?
[00:28:45] Speaker D: Yes, yeah, we have. We, in fact, are working on a couple different pilot programs at the moment, directly with some assisted and independent living facilities, you know, where they might even provide these to their residents for a number of reasons. And one of the things that's, you know, that they actually like about it is that especially in the independent living and sort of lower levels of assisted living is their staff doesn't need to get involved in it, you know, because they're so concerned about liability and all this other stuff. But it, again, it allows the family, even when you're in independent or assisted living, it allows the family to sort of manage more care and really be in control and sort of drive sort of the bus, if you will, on taking care of dad or mom, you know, even when they're in a facility where there is some services.
[00:29:28] Speaker E: Yeah, yeah. Just to add to that. No, no, no. Just to add to that, my grandma lives in an assisted living facility. She has a paid caregiver who comes 12 hours out of the day, 8 to 12 hours out of the day. And for my mom, who's really her caregiver, she is able to track when the caregiver came, when she left, you know, when the shower door opened to make sure that she showered at the appropriate time, you know, when the refrigerator door opened so that she Knows she ate lunch. So it's a way for her to track and manage without being invasive in the everyday. And even with a paid caregiver and knowing that somebody's there, it's still, you know, the peace of mind to know that everything is on track. It's one less thing to worry about. You know, she's part of the sandwich generation. You know, she has me and my brother and then she has her mom, who she's taking care of both. And so it's a really great way for her to track and manage, you know, everything going on outside of her control.
[00:30:27] Speaker C: Well, and the other piece, you know, we have these cameras like we said, but I wouldn't want our care team, our lovely caregivers, who we trust and feel very confident about, to feel like we're watching them on the cameras. And in fact, we've even said to them, look, we have these in here in case Andrew needs to run upstairs or isn't sitting by her. Her side when they're not there. But, you know, we are often turning the cameras around or, you know, just to let them know, hey, we're not watching you. But this doesn't feel invasive in that respect, and I think that's really meaningful. The other piece that I find interesting is that you mentioned at the beginning that it isn't necessarily just for elderly, whether they're aging in Place or Elgin aging in a facility. I like the idea that you talked about for special needs individuals or people who are post surgery. I mean, I have a friend, I just was having a chat with her this morning at yoga because she was saying her dad's been in the hospital, he's gonna be coming home in the next two weeks. She's freaking out. He's not an old man and he wants to continue his independent living. And I said, I think I have a device for you, because when someone comes home from the hospital, they're gonna wanna resume their independent lifestyle if they're able to. And yet as a family member, you wanna be able to keep track of them. I think this serves more needs than just the elderly, which is pretty incredible.
[00:31:47] Speaker D: Yeah, thank you. Yeah, we do too. You know, it's one of those things where really you can envision this sort of helping with almost anyone. You know, I mean, kids that come home from school after school, you know, and mom or dad are at work. Right, right.
[00:32:02] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:32:02] Speaker D: I mean, frankly, your college age student that lives in the dorm, you know, if you can convince them to do it, like there's no recording, you'd have to hide that. That they got home. Right. You know, we have a big partnership with the Elizabeth Dole Foundation. Right. So our military is a huge opportunity. Right. Because they have so many things they have to deal with. And so we have a partnership with them. And we have some really great testimonials from veterans and neurodivergent. I mean, there's just all these populations that really could be helped by nomo.
[00:32:33] Speaker B: I found it very interesting. One of the aspects that I saw, correct me if I'm wrong, one of the functions of the app is that the caregiving team can use. There's a notes function in there, like to.
[00:32:43] Speaker D: That's right.
[00:32:43] Speaker B: Because we actually. It's another thing that we're bolting out. We have an old school notebook, a physical notebook with pens and paper that they write on, and it's quaint and nice and they do a great job and everybody reads that before they start their work to see what's been happening. But it's a great way to obviously digitize that process. And I'm just wondering, you know, a couple questions into the data and the AI aspect of this. I'm assuming that over time you're able to scroll those notes with AI or do certain searches for keywords like BM or something like that, and find out trends and things that have been happening based on the notes that the caregivers are leaving. Is that possible within the app?
[00:33:22] Speaker D: Yep. Yep, absolutely. And again, just to touch on that, because you're right, the app function is really nice because not only does it allow you all to communicate, but then when, you know, mom goes into the doctor, whoever's with her has that phone, has the app and has all those notes, you know, and for example, all the readings from the blood pressure cuff and the thermometer and sort of all that's in one place. And the other important part I want to point out is that we have the highest levels of security for all that stuff. We are SOC2 compliant, we're HIPAA compliant. So we take data and privacy very seriously. And so sort of all of that stuff is at the highest level of security and safety, you know, under industry standard.
[00:33:58] Speaker B: And on that point about data and security, imagine.
And this is just my personal view, but I think there's a challenging balance between obviously being compliant and protecting someone's personal data. But there's also some value in getting summary data from, for example, your whole client base and trends and how people are using the functions and what's working, maybe what's not, what's more important, what's less important? How are you able to walk that balance? Are you guys able to collect data in an anonymous way or something to learn how the thing is going?
[00:34:31] Speaker D: You know, certainly we can, we can aggregate and collect usage data, you know, on anonymized and de identified basis. Right. Which is sort of kind of what industry standard is. But we don't, you know, we don't use the data for anything. We don't sell the data, we don't give the data. No one has access to any of the data. We, we do look at that stuff ourself for, you know, overall system health, making sure, you know, we don't see any anomalies in our system, to make sure the app is running, to make sure all the hardware, the firmware, all that stuff is running, to see how people are using it, you know, for our future development, et cetera. So we do have the ability to see that, you know, within our, within our own team. But, but none of that is ever shared or, or leaves our company.
[00:35:12] Speaker B: And so, so far from what you've witnessed about usage, any surprises like what seems to be working great. What's not as much as you expected? Any stories that you've been able to glean so far?
[00:35:25] Speaker D: Well, I can tell you one of the most, one of the most often used notifications that we have is the one I described earlier about the waking up. That is the most popular notification, you know, that, that we have operating right now. The other really interesting fact that we've developed from the data is actually from our third party call center, you know, which is the, which is the company that escalates any, any call that needs to go to ems. We have a third party licensed call center that handles those and they handle those sorts of calls from other similar PERS devices, the buttons and other things. And what they've shared with us is that our escalation and then activation of EMS is, and the various false positives that come from that is significantly lower than any of our competitors. Which is really a testament to kind of the ability of the family to intervene when necessary and really manage the care more effectively versus having ambulances and fire trucks being sent to places that they're just not needed, which just makes the system better for everyone.
[00:36:32] Speaker C: Yeah, not to mention that there's a cost factor there. You know, for my mom, if she wasn't, if EMS came and she wasn't transported to the hospital, we got a massive bill and yet there were many times where she didn't need to be transported to the hospital, especially in the assisted care facility. You know, I can think of several times where I, I mean, fortunately or I guess I don't know if it was fortunate, unfortunate. At the time, I was teaching 8th grade English in the school now next to my mom's assisted care facility. One of the reasons we chose that location, there were several times where I had to hurry up and leave my classroom, which is, by the way, not always easy for everyone around me who had to cover my class while I rushed to the hospital because they didn't have enough data and they had to take her to the hospital. And I understood that. But one, there were enormous bills, two, I've got now people having to cover me. And three, she didn't need to be there. We wouldn't have known that. And that would have really impacted a lot of different factors that could have gone much better. Not the fault of the care facility, really, just the fault of the detection that wasn't.
Yeah, the system for sure.
[00:37:36] Speaker D: Yeah. And, you know, we have lots of really wonderful testimonials that, you know, we continue to add to our website and our social channels. You know, I mean, one that really stands out to me, you know, is a woman whose, you know, mother, she's a occupational therapist, right. Her job is to find ways for, to discharge people from hospitals in ways that are safe. And she fell in love with NOMO because, you know, it was a way to help her clients, you know, maybe that those that didn't need to go into a intermediate care still get the ability to go home from the hospital. But her mother had cancer and was in remission, but she put a NOMO in, in her house. And at some point in time she was noticing that her sleep was extending, like she was sleeping more and more and more every morning. And you know, sort of being in the healthcare field and knowing sort of her mom's history, she knew, boy, I need to check this out. And so within a week of sort of seeing these sleep changes, she was in the oncologist's office. Turns out her brain cancer had come back. But they were able to treat it because it was found so quickly, and they were able to put her back in remission, you know, because of that. Now if, you know, according to her, she's like, I would have never known my mom was sleeping later or there were any changes in her sleep patterns had I not put that NOMO in her home. You know, so it's things like that that are just really powerful that kind of reinforce the fact that really there's not a person in this country that couldn't benefit from for sure.
[00:39:00] Speaker C: Even people who live alone who are, you know, don't want an invasive situation in their house. But it would be nice for someone to just have a gentle eye on them. Which I know that you have the options with your app to decide how much or how little you want, which I think is amazing, especially when we consider we're aging in place longer. People are living longer. Most, you know, in many cases people are living longer with fewer health problems, which is great.
But having a community, and this is really such a focus of our podcast, is the idea of the community and who's involved in your care and what level do they need to be involved? I think what you created here is something that really is a game changer for those of us in the caregiving community and the people who we're watching out for.
[00:39:44] Speaker B: Yeah. And I would just like to add, I just feel like the pricing is very agreeable. I mean, it's for 200 bucks and the 20 bucks a month prescription, a subscription. That sounds like very reasonable for this amazing product that you guys have developed. Congratulations on getting it out there and thank you for getting it out there. It's going to be continue to be really helpful for everyone.
We'll get you out of here on this or anything else. Either you want to. Either of you want to add just about the product and where it's going or any comments that you want to make about it.
[00:40:15] Speaker D: No, Lindsay, anything from you otherwise.
[00:40:17] Speaker E: I mean, we just very much appreciate you giving us the platform to talk about the product and continue our mission on, you know, relieving caregivers around the world and having this in every home across the United States. So thank you so much for the opportunity to be here.
[00:40:34] Speaker D: Yeah. Really appreciate the opportunity. Thank you.
[00:40:37] Speaker C: We're grateful that you spent your time with us, that you have created this incredible product. We are excited to be able to share this with our listeners.
[00:40:44] Speaker B: Thanks, guys. And now, as always, here's mom with a little ditty.
[00:40:52] Speaker A: I dream a dream gone by.
When Hope was wonderful for living.
I hope that I always would be here for Michael and his buddies would always be here.
[00:41:26] Speaker B: And we are back. What a thrilling discussion and what a revelation of what's happening out there and what they're doing with Nomo Smart Care. Really excited to dig into it deeper and over time, maybe come back and give you some reports of how it's working within Mom's house and Karen takeaways.
[00:41:44] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, number one takeaway I Am really impressed with the scope of this product.
And for someone like me who does not love the idea of cameras, I feel like this solves this in such a simple and meaningful way. The idea that there's motion sensors that you can keep an eye on something that it's actually solved some real problems that aren't just relating to elderly people who are aging in place. I mean, I love the idea that someone's coming home from the hospital. What if, you know, I live by myself and every. When I was teaching, I used to get the worst case of bronchitis and pneumonia every year. And I would have these panic attacks in the middle of the night of oh my God, what if something happened to me and I live alone and you know, who will know that? I mean, I'm certainly not saying, oh, I should have a device in my house for people to keep an eye on me. But it isn't the worst idea for someone who's living alone, who might be going through something, maybe someone's post surgery, maybe someone has the flu, maybe it's something that you need in that moment. But the idea that it really is a game changer for people who are aging in place, that's the piece that to me I feel like this could solve the needs of so many people who are trying to keep an eye on a loved one who is not living in their home with, well, and
[00:43:02] Speaker B: within the aging in place world, there's this whole section of people who are in that independent living area. And so as you start to move towards, I don't want to say the end, but getting more and more diminished, you're going from your home then probably into an independent living, but it's kind of like an apartment, but there's some services and then there's assisted living and then there's memory care. Now there's a lot of people in independent living that probably should be in assisted living living, but it's much more expensive and they need some extra help because they probably are in a place that isn't the most safe for them. But if there's all these other tools that can help them live safer, especially in that environment, I think it's fantastic. And I would also just like to say that I'm very impressed with the software and the data aspect of what's happening with what they're doing. I come from a background of being on the data side within the logistics industry.
I was working on databases, software for inventory management. In the entertainment industry, I was working on consumer insights information to help creators and Advertisers better address the needs of consumers. And so I'm always listening for how information can be used in a positive way. And although data collection gets a bad rap sometimes because of social media and all that, in the senior care world, it's so refreshing to see how people are really embracing it and realizing that it's nothing but a good thing to help people live safer lives and age in place better. And it's really important to be able to measure the progress of what's happening. I remember one of the first things I asked Kelly when we had mom move into the assisted living facility was how they were able to measure all the activity and all the performance of their caregivers. And she was quite honest with me that because of different regulation guidelines or the lack thereof for private care facilities, there's not a lot of measurements that are embedded that are in place. And so. So anytime you can have a solution that is monitoring simply what is going on, what is the activity, Are there any trends that are happening now that are changing within this senior and what their habits are and what their activities like, it's very useful to then obviously direct the appropriate care based on that information. It's not just you having a vibe or a feeling. Yeah, it seems like she's doing better, it seems like she's doing worse. You know, you can have some, some real useful information that grows over time and gets to know the situation and is able to give you a lot of good direction on where to go for care and that's some invaluable stuff.
[00:45:40] Speaker C: Yeah, I would agree. I also really like the idea that senior living communities may allow this. I would imagine there isn't any reason why they wouldn't. Whereas for sure they don't allow cameras or most of them don't allow cameras. And, and I think that's a huge factor because the fact is that even if you are in a senior care facility, there is no way that they're going to be able to keep an eye on you 24 7. And I mean, I remember mom had several falls when she was there. And I think the idea that you actually have eyes on someone or sorry, not eyes on someone, but tracks of movement really are incredibly helpful. And I think this is a real game changer device in the industry. And I'm excited that we got to share this with everyone today.
[00:46:25] Speaker B: And Lindsay was kind enough to offer us a promo code. If anybody wants to try Nomos Smart Care and wants to see what it can do for you or your family, there is a Listener code.
And that code is Joanna10.
And that will get you $10 off the Nomos Smart Care essential care kit. And you can find
[email protected], we'll put all of this in the show notes. So they wanted us to make sure we mention There is a 60 day app trial and that the hardware is HSAFSA eligible. Erin, can you explain to our audience what that means?
[00:47:06] Speaker C: Yeah. So if you are using a health savings account or a flexible savings account, then you could use this as one of your expenses in that account. So most people who use those kinds of accounts have a certain amount of money to spend on items that might not be covered by medical insurance, for instance. And so that's a real bonus that you used that.
[00:47:26] Speaker B: Right. When you were a teacher. You had one of those bonuses for sure.
[00:47:28] Speaker C: Yeah, I did. And it was incredible. And I actually think even in retirement I'm probably eligible. I should look into that. But yes, it's a great way for you to basically get some reimbursement because you're spending this on essentially a medical device.
[00:47:41] Speaker B: Amazing. Amazing. All right, well, thank you, Lindsay and David, for introducing us to the product and for these great promotions that our listeners can take advantage of of.
[00:47:50] Speaker C: As always, we appreciate it when you, like, share, subscribe to if It's Not One Thing, It's Joanna. You can also follow us on Instagram or Facebook. Also called if It's Not One Thing, It's Joanna. We have videos and photos. You can see mom at the dog park, which is very exciting.
So we hope that you will share our podcast with anyone you think would benefit from from the information that we are sharing with you.
[00:48:18] Speaker B: As always, here's mom to play us out.
[00:48:44] Speaker C: Pretty. I like it.
