ATU669 – AngelSense with Katalin Daigle and Jeannie Callahan

Hi, this is Jeannie Callahan. I’m the special accounts manager at AngelSense.

And my name’s Katalin Daigle. I am the director of business development with AngelSense.

And this is your Assistive Technology Update.

Hello and welcome to your Assistive Technology Update, a weekly dose of information that keeps you up to date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist individuals with disabilities and special needs. I’m your host, Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. Welcome to episode 669 of Assistive Technology Update. It is scheduled to be released on March 22nd, 2024. On today’s show, we are super excited to welcome the folks from AngelSense on. Listeners, I do want to take a moment to thank all of the guests that came out, either in person or online yesterday for our full day training for assistive technology and aging. So a huge thanks to our presenters. It was a very great training, and again, thanks to all the folks who came out in person and everyone who joined us online. If you would ever like to join one of our trainings, you can go to eastersealstech.com/fulldaytrainings. But for right now, let’s go ahead and get on with the show.

Folks, if you’re listening to this show, it’s obvious that you like assistive technology and you love podcasts. Well, if you like assistive technology and podcasts, have I got a treat for you. Assistive Technology Update is not our only podcast here at the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads. No, we actually have two others. Assistive Technology Frequently Asked Questions or ATFAQ is a question and answer show where we take your questions as well as questions that we receive through our other programs and do our best to answer those with our panel of experts. I use that word very loosely, but usually it’s myself, Brian Norton, and other members of our team sitting in to try to answer your questions. This show relies on our listeners not just for our questions, but sometimes for the answers. Let’s not lie, we do not know everything that there is to know, so we always kind of try to throw those questions out and sometimes our listeners feedback. Well, we get to learn stuff as well, which is always a great thing.

Or if perhaps you’re short on time, we also have Accessibility Minute. Now, Accessibility Minute is just a little taster. It’s going to give you just a little bit of information about a new piece of assistive technology, a new app, program, or something else cool that might be able to help individuals with disabilities and they give you some resources where you can go and check out more about it on your own. So remember, if you like this show, if you like assistive technology and you like podcasts, check out our other shows, Assistive Technology Frequently Asked Questions, and Accessibility Minute to go along with Assistive Technology Update, which you’re listening to right now. You can find those over at eastersealstech.com or anywhere you get your podcast. Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and give us some comments and feedback. We always love hearing from you, and thank you so much for listening to this and all of our programs.

Listeners, I feel like elopement is just one of the questions that we get most here around INDATA. How do I assist my family member with this or other needs just really related to elopement and kind of keeping track of folks, making sure that they are where they’re supposed to be, doing what they’re supposed to do and giving them the independence to be able to do that. Well, our guests today are from AngelSense and they’re here to tell us all about AngelSense and how it can assist with elopement as well as some other needs. Katalin, Jeannie, welcome to the show.

Thank you.

Thanks for having us.

Before we get into talking about AngelSense and all the great things that it can do, could you tell our listeners a little bit about yourselves?

Well, I’ll go first if that’s okay Katalin. I’m happy to be here first and foremost. So just a background on me, I am from New York. I had a career in education, then I got married, then I had my children, both children were diagnosed with autism, so I did have to leave my job, or I should say not return after maternity, after all of the diagnoses happened. I’m sure many people out there now, being a mom is a full-time job, but when you have kids with special needs, you need to be there pretty much 24/7. My younger son, Tommy, when he was just under three years old, he was nonverbal. He had eloped from my home. We did not know he was gone for about 15 minutes and I was living on Long Island on the water, so you could imagine what the panic was like for me.

Once we realized he was gone, we were searching in the water and up and down the streets for him. He was fascinated with letters and numbers and was following cars and license plates. We did find him barefoot running towards a major thoroughfare on Long Island, and thankfully got him in time. It happened again about a month and a half later. We were in Upstate New York in a wooded area, and again, he was gravitating himself towards the main road, most likely to be seeing the trucks going by because like I said, he was fascinated with cars. So we ended up researching something that could help us with him, and we found AngelSense and he did elope since. But thankfully, his elopements went from 30 minutes of terror to one to two minutes given the technology and because AngelSense does hire users of their technology, I jumped at the chance to work for the company since I know firsthand how amazing this technology is, and I’ve been with the company for seven years since.

Wow.

Yeah. And my story is not as exciting as Jeannie’s. I’m just a dog mom. I don’t have children, but I’ve worked in the disability community basically my entire life. My mom was a para educator and I always went to her classroom, and then even when I was in school, I worked in special needs classrooms and I became a substitute teacher as soon as I was able to. Then I actually graduated college and I became a therapist with autistic children. So I really understand what that terror and fear is because you’re holding somebody else’s child in your care and I’ve had to take off across a parking lot to chase after someone, and they’re so quick. You turn your head for a second and it’s done.

And then also my grandma and great grandma, and I’m sure we’re all going to get it, has Alzheimer’s. So the wandering and elopement issue is very, very serious. Nobody wants to have those heart dropping moments. So if you have tools like AngelSense to be able to help you. I heard about the company and I was like, how did I not know? And I just want to bring attention and awareness to anyone and try to help fund it for anybody that can use it.

Awesome. Awesome. And Jeannie, I can relate in some kind of ways. I do have small children. They do not really have special needs, but I know I can just turn around and they’re gone especially and I’m checking locks, I’m doing everything else, and they’re hiding behind a bookcase or something like that, so. And I know the fear and the anxiety and the, oh, just absolute terror that comes from that. So yeah. And I kind of said in the opening this, I’m not going to lie is one of the main questions. Folks reach out to us with questions about assistive technology, and I swear elopement is just one of the main ones that kind of seems to really come up. Let’s get on to AngelSense. You started mentioning it a little bit, but can you tell us kind of what is it?

Well, basically AngelSense is an assistive technology. It’s really designed to ensure maximum safety, remote support, and greater independence for all individuals with special needs, whether they be a young child with autism or an elderly individual with Alzheimer’s or dementia. I mean, the spectrum is so wide and limitless really when it comes to what this assistive technology can do. And just to kind of summarize what it’s all about, it includes this AI-powered proactive monitoring and alerting system, and it has an app for multiple caregivers and it also has a wearable device with an assistive speakerphone and SOS button. So it really just kind of encompasses everything that any type of a special needs caregiver or mother or father or daughter would need to have to be able to properly support their loved one. It also, like I had mentioned, offers amazing customer care because everybody in our support team are either parents or children of individuals who do use this device.

So when families call, they’re not just speaking to a call center of people that are just reciting answers to them based on what the technology can do. We’ve been there, we’ve done that. We completely understand where these families are coming from because I mean, when you think about it, a parent that’s going to call a company like Angelsense to get more information is probably one of two people. They’ve just recently had a diagnosis for something like a special need like autism or even dementia, Alzheimer’s, or they’ve been involved in a wandering incident, so you know their level of anxiety is through the roof. So it really is nice that they can actually talk to somebody who has kind of been in their situation. And there’s two device options with this. We have a wearable device that can be attached to clothing, and we also have an Angelsense watch that can be worn just like any other smartwatch. And it really just depends on the individual and what needs they have in terms of what type of assistive technology they want to use. That’s the gist of what it’s all about.

Awesome. And we’ll dig a little bit deeper into the devices and everything else, but I guess because Jeanne your personal story of kind of getting on there with Angelsense and everything, but kind of when was Angelsense started and kind of why? Was that from a personal experience as well or?

Yeah, no, it started around 2015 and the two quote, unquote founders of Angelsense, one of them, their son has autism and unfortunately there was some mistreatment on, I believe it was the bus and things like that. He worked in the technological field and pretty much left there to try to design something specifically for special needs individuals. So that could be a remote support and there could be a way to just be able to sort of be on top of them without being on top of them in a way and just really ultimately ensure their safety. And the other founder has special needs individuals in his family as well. So it really was a mission for both of them to design something specifically for the special needs community.

And I think the bottom line was just that there was nothing really out there that was that reliable that you can get. Of course there’s all these other devices and everything, but none of them were as good as they expected. So they are working and still working very hard at making sure that this is exactly what you need.

Yeah. And I always have to ask that question because it seems like at least some of the best, the most useful kind of assistive technology always comes from individuals who have some experience with it. And I also assumed if it’s kind of a goal to hire individuals who use and understand the technology, not just from the technology part, but from the what it can do and why it’s important, I kind of figured that had to be some kind of a story out there of how that all kind of came. Well, you said that there’s two kind of options on the device. Can you kind of tell me about them and maybe the differences or whom they might be more suited for? I know everyone’s completely different, but maybe just some of the needs they kind of meet.

Sure. And we always say no two kids are the same, and I mean no two individuals with special needs are the same as well, so. Yeah, so the two devices that we offer, one, it sort of, I know that there’s no visual here. It kind of resembles a key fob or almost like a teardrop shaped key fob. And the other one looks exactly like a smartwatch would look, just a plain old watch that is on their wrist with the digital time that tells not only the time, but your steps and your heart rate. It really depends on the person. So the one that, I’ll just call it the wearable device, that’s the one that kind of resembles the teardrop fob, probably geared towards people most definitely who might have some sensory issues that might not accept something on their person. So just to put this in perspective, when my son was three, trying to put anything on him, he was so sensory conscious, he had a really tough time and it’s designed so it can’t be removed.

So it comes with these fabric sleeves and these fasteners where you can actually putting it inside the sleeve, fasten it to their clothing so they can’t remove it, and the parent has a key that they’re able to use to be able to remove the device from their clothing. There’s a bunch of different accessories that go along with that first device, the wearable device from belts that go around the waist. So if they do remove their clothing, it stays around their waist to lanyards, belt clips, wristbands, undershirts with a pocket, sports bras with a pocket, bike shorts with a pocket. We’ve tried to come up with so many different ways that it can be worn to suit that individual because like I said, no two people are the same and what works for one may not work for the other.

With the watch, that’s probably geared more towards a young adult and beyond because of just, you wouldn’t put this on a little three-year-old. It’s a little too big. And we have a number of different types of wristbands that go along with it based on the sensory sensitivities of the user. And we do now also have a lockable option as well, if that’s something that would need to be used. So you might have a young adult or beyond who needs to wear something like this but might take it off. So we do have options where it can be locked onto the wrist by the caregiver so it can’t be removed. So those are the two basic devices and how they’re worn.

Nice. And you already answered my next question because I was going to say, I can’t even keep socks on my children without them taking off the shoes, taking off socks, throwing and putting the shoes back on and leaving the house. So I love that you did say that they can be kind of locked on. So just to make sure that, because if I was going to elope, the first thing I do is take off my device before I ran out the door. So,-

Exactly.

I like that they can kind of do that. So let’s talk a little bit about kind of how it works, I guess, and we don’t have to get too techie on that, but let’s say I have an individual in my family with a disability, kind of some issues with elopement and they go run off or go outside of their area. Kind of what does that look like? What all happens?

Well, basically, it’s so user-friendly. It’s a joke around here, like I’m the least tech-savvy person in the company and I literally can tell you if I can use it, anybody can. It’s designed to be unbelievably user-friendly. All you need to do is plug the device in and download the app and you’re good to go. So what it does is it automatically starts working from the moment it’s plugged in and it’s going to create what we call geo fences around locations. So it’s basically, if you’re looking at the app, you’re basically seeing a location that the device is in and you’re seeing a circle around that location. And I had mentioned in the beginning that 15 minutes had gone by before we noticed that my son had taken off the first time. Because of these geo fences, the moment they cross the geo fence wearing AngelSense, you’re notified immediately that they had left that location.

So when I said my elopements went from 30 minutes to one to two minutes, it was completely legit because literally you’d see that they’ve left and boom, you could go find them because once you get that notification, you don’t even have to have the app open. By tapping on that notification on your smartphone, it automatically pulls up the live location in real time of that person using the device. So you can find your way to them very, very quickly. And I know we’ll probably get into this more, but just to give you a few extra things that the app has, it has location sharing as well, which is huge because if you needed someone to assist you with finding an individual by just having their cell phone, you can share the location by a link that they get to their phone where when they open it, they have the live location of the person so they can assist in a search.

It also allows you to take a picture of your loved one daily if you want to. And so you’re not just looking for a dot on a screen, but you can even see what they’re wearing and what they look like. When you think of law enforcement, even if they need to get involved and help out with the search, you can share that location with them and they have the live location and also the exact clothing and look of the person that they have. In addition, it does have that two-way speakerphone, which is huge. My son’s 11 now, he can’t use a cell phone, but I can call the device and it auto picks up. He doesn’t have to push a button or anything, and I can have either a conversation with him telling him to stand still or with people around him and they in turn can speak to me. So there’s a lot of other things that it can do, but that’s sort of the crux of some of its uses.

Oh, that’s really awesome. And with the two-way speakerphone, could he call you as well? I mean,-

Yes.

Oh, awesome.

Absolutely.

Awesome.

It has an SOS button. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to cut you off. It has an SOS button on it where if they push it, it alerts the guardian that they need assistance and then you can call them to see if everything’s okay.

Oh, that’s great. Because I’m sure sometimes, yeah, there’s kind of that fear of I don’t know where I am, or maybe the individual doesn’t know they kind of got out or as a parent, a myriad of situations kind of come to mind of when an SOS button would be super, super-duper helpful.

Sure.

And you mentioned location sharing and things like that. Do you have to set up certain kinds of contacts or something to share that information?

You can do it in two ways actually. You can do it where you can pre-enter what we call a first responder into your app where they have no access to the location of the user on a daily basis. It’s only in an emergency. And then that link would open up the live location so there’s no downloading of an app. And then if you need to kind of do it on the fly, you could just get the cell phone number of an individual and then you’d be able to send them that live location as well.

Oh, excellent. Excellent. So you could even do that with law enforcement, with somebody else who maybe you’re not sure who’s going to be that kind of support network person, so.

Yeah.

Excellent. Excellent. And I know that with the devices there’s also maybe some different kinds of plans available. Can you kind of explain the difference in those to me?

Oh, sure. So when a person, if they were to go online to purchase this, we always have different types of promotions, but they can choose to purchase this on an annual basis, which is a little more cost-effective in the long run, but if they are unable to do that, they can purchase on a monthly basis as well.

Nice. Nice.

And everything that goes along with the app is included in that monthly service. So it’s not like there’s a la carte types of app features. Some of the accessories are a la carte items, but in terms of pricing, the cost of service is roughly around $50 a month or around $540 a year.

Awesome. Excellent, excellent. Well, Jeannie you kind of shared your kind of personal story, and I’m sure you probably have quite a few of these just kind of over the time that you’ve kind of built up, but could you tell me a story or two kind of about someone’s experience with AngelSense and really how it assisted them, not just with the utter dread and anxiety, but maybe kind of just how it was able to assist them?

Sure. I can give you a situation that happened very recently actually. In Florida, we have a police department that is using AngelSense with some of their, they call the repeat offenders, the frequent elopers in their community. And a little girl with autism who uses AngelSense did elope from her home. Her parents were not at home at the time that she did so. So typically if she was to elope, her parents would be able to get to her immediately because they would be close by. But since they weren’t, they had to alert law enforcement. And when they called the police, the police said, “We are sending so-and-so out, this is his phone number. Can you send him the live location?” Which they put into the app and sent it to the police officer and he didn’t really know much about AngelSense at all.

He just clicked the link, saw where she was and collected her within, I think it was about three or four minutes. So when you think about an elopement situation, and it’s heartbreaking when you hear of these situations across the country, any news that comes up when a child goes missing. Those first moments are so crucial and the fact that the time it took for him to get to her was almost instantaneous because they were able to see the location immediately could have meant the difference between just a good situation and potentially tragic one.

Yeah.

That’s one. I mean have so many, I could probably fill your podcast [inaudible 00:21:50].

We could probably talk all day about it for sure from all the stories we’ve heard. But we also have a couple users. We just did a tech talk and one of them is a woman in her young 40s who is actually using it with her remote service provider so that way she can do independent transportation, Uber’s, Lyft’s and stuff like that because she’s not able to drive and she feels more safe because she was really scared of that. And then we also have another individual in his mid 30s that is also using it and he just uses it with his wife because he’s like, what if my phone does die? And he is in a wheelchair and all of that kind of stuff and he does have a shunt in his brain.

So he’s like, if my shunt fails, she can, because the device does have fall detection as well. So if his shunt fails or anything like that, she can make sure to relay that information to the first responders who are on site before she can actually get there just to let them know this is probably what’s happening and explain the situation. So it’s used for so many different things. It’s amazing.

Yeah, and you kind of bringing that up, especially with the two-way communication or being able, like you said, to tell first responders and save those kind of precious seconds because they kind of might know what’s going on or be able to check that as they’re checking the stuff. Well, you mentioned the fall detection. What other things did we kind of forget to talk about, about the kind of features? I got so caught up with the elopement and all the other cool things that it did. I want to make sure I don’t miss anything.

Yeah. So fall detection is great. I mean, you could imagine with my 11-year-old son, I don’t need it. I’d be alerted all the time,-

Constantly.

Given his rough and tumble behavior. But my mother is 87, she wants to age in place. She actually uses the device as well because she is prone to falling. So as she put it, if I fall down, I don’t want to speak to a call center, I want to speak to my daughter. So if she was to fall, I get a notification she might’ve fallen. And because I can call the device, I have a direct line to her because who’s to say if she fell, she would have her cell phone anywhere near her? So I could call and check to see if she is okay. It’s been, honestly, the key to her being able to still live independently is because we are able to have her use AngelSense because that is our one biggest concern with her.

Oh, for sure, for sure. And like you said, I mean, and not to say that just the older generation, myself included, I get home, I put my cell phone down somewhere, so if I’m going to fall, there’s no way it’s anywhere close to me. So yeah, just having that and kind of like you said, I’m not getting a call center and not knowing what I get. She’s getting you on the other side of the line to be able to get the assistance she needs or to just say, oh, I dropped it, or, you know what I mean? It wasn’t really a fall. It was kind of something else. So that is absolutely great. Well, if our listeners want to find out more kind of about AngelSense, about the devices, about just all the really great stuff, what’s a good way for them to do that?

So they can go to our website first and foremost, which is www.angelsense.com. They can also reach out to us at info@angelsense.com if they have any initial questions. Our support center is open during normal business hours. We also have a live chat on our website. So even if they just have any question, nothing is too weird or they probably never heard this before, we probably have heard it before. So those would be the best ways to reach out to us and we can always talk them through additional questions, concerns, or anything like that to help their decision, just be more informed.

Awesome. Awesome. Well, Jeannie, Katalin, thank you so much for coming on the show, for telling us all about AngelSense, all the really amazing things it can do, and really just helping with a need that I know affects so many individuals with disabilities and with folks trying to age in place. So thank you again for your time and for telling us all about it.

We appreciate you having us. Thank you.

Do you have a question about assistive technology? Do you have a suggestion for someone we should interview on Assistive Technology Update? If so, call our listener line at (317)-721-7124. Send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org or shoot us a note on Twitter at INDATA Project. Our captions and transcripts for the show are sponsored by the Indiana Telephone Relay Access Corporation or InTRAC. You can find out more about InTRAC at relayindiana.com. A special thanks to Nikol Prieto for scheduling our amazing guests and making a mess of my schedule. Today’s show was produced, edited, hosted, and fraught over by yours truly. The opinions expressed by our guests are their own and may or may not reflect those of the INDATA Project, Easterseals Crossroads, our supporting partners or this host. This was your Assistive Technology Update. And I’m Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. We look forward to seeing you next time. Bye-bye.