Ring eyeing a larger role in the smart home
Ring’s alarm system is part of the company’s shift from products to overall safety systems, says CEO Jamie Siminoff in an interview with Fast Company. Siminoff says the company is seeking to create an ecosystem of its own products and third party products that can leverage an alarm system’s state changes, and offer services accordingly.
dis-rup-shun: Translating the success of a hot product, like Ring’s doorbell camera, to enthusiasm for an entire ecosystem has proven difficult for Ring’s predecessors. Providing truly game-changing technology to control one’s home through a security system, without occupants having to arm or disarm their system, is the promise of AI for the smart home, being developed by a small number of players including People Power, Alarm.com and Vivint. Security systems not deploying machine learning/AI one year from now will be underwhelming.
Tech employees are demanding social responsibility
Employees of tech firms including Google, Microsoft, Clarifai, Amazon, Palantir, Salesforce, and others are demanding their bosses cease working on projects for weapons, immigration enforcement, censorship and other applications considered unethical. Some employees have voted with their feet, leaving companies working on projects employees don’t approve, and others have called for the installation of ethical standards oversight officers. AP News
dis-rup-shun: A rising prioritization of social responsibility over financial gain marks a shift from the Gordon Gecko inspired “greed is good” mentality of the 1980s. Workers of tech leaders are aware of and concerned by the unchecked influence of Big Tech, and their employers’ control of AI. Members of the Business Roundtable recently revised their mission statement to prioritize stakeholders, the environment and communities.
Myia Health uses wearables to monitor chronic illness
Wearables are not new, but Myia Health has developed a package of wearables that focus on congestive heart failure patients. The kit uses a gateway tablet, a blood pressure cuff, an under-mattress sleep sensor, a heart rate patch, an activity monitoring ring, and wireless scale. The company charges hospitals a monthly subscription fee. CNBC
dis-rup-shun: The connected health space shows tremendous promise with an acute shortage of care givers and an aging population, but business models in the care arena are complex. What is not complex, however, is the fact that CMS (the organization determining Medicare reimbursement policy) now penalizes hospitals who re-admit patients they have recently treated. Using home technologies to keep tabs on heart patients to ensure they won’t require readmission can avoid penalties and pay for itself. Expect connected health companies to become more effective at quantifying benefits of their products in an effort to influence CMS reimbursement policies.
Blood screening startup Baze offers inexpensive analysis
Switzerland based startup Baze offers a kit that, for $100, enables you to easily draw a small sample of blood which, after 12 days, is analyzed to provide an assessment of what supplements your body requires.
dis-rup-shun: Not claiming to transform the universe as did Theranos, Baze offers an inexpensive and accurate way to determine if you should be frequenting the health supplements store. Expect a large supplement retailer to acquire the company to increase awareness of the products consumers should purchase for increased health.