South African’s are bound to be more familiar with Black and Decker in their guise of power tools manufacturer but, it turns out, the company has ambitions beyond making all the tool brands you’re especially fond of.
The company, in kind of a surprising move, has launched a new health division. It’s started out with a line of products called goVia, which are intended for older folks living at home alone. They’re called personal emergency response (PERS) wearables. Guess what they do?
The health of Black and Decker
We’re using trackers and wearables for just about everything else, so Black and Decker’s new goVia product lineup makes serious sense. There are four devices in all: the goVia Move, the goVia Mini, the goVia Home Classic and then the goVia Home Wireless (which would be a waste of time here in SA because it relies on the American AT&T cellular network to function).
All of these connect to a base station, at ranges from 92 metres away (for the wrist-based Move) to 400 metres (in the case of the landline-based Home Classic). They’re all basically the same thing — waterproof panic buttons, to be used in case of medical emergency to contact an operator who will use the GPS systems to dispatch emergency services. In the case of the two Home devices, fall detection is also an optional feature.
The devices all rely on a monthly subscription to Medical Guardian, an American service, for R575/pm and all of them can be purchased via Amazon at this point in time. We’ve checked whether they ship here but goVia’s reliance on American infrastructure makes a purchase extremely hard to recommend right now. It’s a really cool idea, though, thought up by Black and Decker of all companies.