It’s like Ring, but for swimming pools.
That’s the idea behind Morningstar SOS.
Similar to how Ring, the camera-equipped doorbell, notifies homeowners when someone comes to their doorstep, Morningstar SOS lets you know when unscheduled activity happens around the pool.
The internet-connected security device, with dual cameras positioned top and bottom, floats in a swimming pool to monitor the surroundings. Once triggered by motion — say, an unsupervised child wandering too close to the edge — the device sends a notification to the owner’s smartphone. Upon receiving the message, the user can tap into the camera to see what’s going on. They can even tell the child through an external speaker on the star-shaped unit to go back inside.
Morningstar also has a failsafe feature. If, for whatever reason, the pool owner misses the first notification and the child ends up in the pool, the bottom camera will focus on the activity and send a second alert. Again, the user can tap their phone for a live feed to see what’s happening under water.
“The purpose behind that is to prevent time being wasted where nobody knows their kid is drowning until it’s too late,” said the inventor, Lee Kambar of Gilbert, Ariz.
Because every precious second counts in a potential drowning situation, the Morningstar app provides a shortcut to contact emergency services. Simply tap a button in the app to reach 911.
But the potential for Morningstar goes beyond alerting homeowners when someone is in danger. Kambar is exploring the possibility of enabling Morningstar to send a unique signal to emergency responders the second a drowning incident occurs. “Sometimes they’ll get to a crisis not knowing how long it’s been,” Kambar said. “When they get [a Morningstar alert] they will have this peace of mind that this just happened and they can do something about it.”
Kambar says the software is already developed, and he expects a prototype of the hardware in the coming weeks. The next stage will be a crowd-sourced fundraising campaign for $150,000, which he says will be enough to go to market.
The pool industry has lately seen a surge of IoT products — that’s Silicon Valley shorthand for Internet of Things. Some of them have become quite successful. Take pHin for example. The floating “smart water” monitoring device that notifies pool owners when chemicals need to be added was recently acquired by Hayward.
Kambar hopes the industry will embrace yet another slick device, albeit one with lifesaving potential. “This is your child’s life,” Kambar said. “Can you afford a second wasted?”
He expects Morningstar to retail for less than $1,000 and plans to make the product available to pool/spa retailers.
