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Wooden compass with single red arrow leads people with dementia to their homes
- sejje 10mo agoI like this, but of course the location it points to should be programmable at any time. Then it's useful for everyone without dementia as well, and a bigger market is better. For me, this is the perfect motorcycle navigation. In fact, I use an app that turns my smart watch into exactly this product--an arrow pointing to my destination at all times, no other information (distance might be nice though) Actually, if it's for people with dementia, I think it should have a couple words on it. "Home", an actual arrow, and a distance. Two of those could be static additions, if the designer will allow their minimalism to be sacrificed for the actual goal of the product.
- kotaKat 10mo ago> motorcycle navigation Have you seen the Beeline app/hardware? Pretty much a similar concept of 'follow the arrow' to get to where you need to go. https://beeline.co/ https://beeline.co/ > programmable at any time I assume a caregiver application could reprogram the location pushpin as a feature.
- sejje 10mo agoI hadn't seen Beeline, but it looks sweet. I may pick one up. I always wonder if I'm just buying future ewaste, though. Looks like it requires their app, which requires their live servers. One acquisition away from end-of-lifed.
- kotaKat 10mo agoThe Beeline app lets you start navigation and 'simulate' a Beeline on screen, if you'd like to try one.
- cluckindan 10mo agoRemembering how ”easy” it is to navigate with such an arrow in GTA, I would expect this to fail in unimaginable ways. It could point at a river instead of the bridge over it. It could point at an airport instead of the route around it. It could point at a cul-de-sac, a dangerous neighborhood, a construction site, etc.
- scotty79 10mo agoThat depends on the implementation. It could use GPS and map to trace walkable path to destination and point the needle in the direction that you need to move towards to follow the path.
- simulator5g 10mo agoExcept this doesn’t work on smartphones. Have you ever tried using GPS? It doesn’t understand what direction you’re facing unless you’re steadily moving forward.
- scotty79 10mo agoIt's because maps apps don't trust builtin compass. Which is reasonable since it fairly often loses calibration.
- estimator7292 10mo agoThat's because GPS is not directional. It's a positioning system. Direction can only be inferred as the difference between locations. GPS fundamentally has no way of determining your direction. It was never designed for anything other than giving you a single fixed 3D location on the Earth's surface.
- robocat 10mo agoRubbish: from first principles it is obvious that direction can be calculated. You are correct for phones, which have omnidirectional antennas that can't calculate direction (also built up areas with multipath would make direction finding difficult). Marine navigation systems are the most familiar example. Many boat GPS units advertise “GPS compass” or “true heading at zero speed.” . The antennas contain two GNSS elements, fixed a known distance apart, and the direction is found using phase comparison: they look at the tiny difference in arrival time of the same satellite signal at the two separate antennas. Either (a) don't answer if you don't know what you are talking about or better (b) double check your "facts" (using Google or AI) before answering.
- arcastroe 10mo agoDoes everyone's phone compass just work reliably? For me, it seems like the most unreliable part of navigation. I traveled to Italy recently and heavily used Google Maps with walking directions, and it was frustrating the number of times I started walking in the wrong direction, due to the compass saying I was facing a direction I wasnt. If this device uses a similar technology as your phone, then I don't see it being reliable.
- scotty79 10mo agoI'm fairly often doing figure-8 with my phone in front of myself to realign the compass.
- voakbasda 10mo agoHave you done orienting in the past? One of the big tricks is to realize that magnetic north (where your compass points) is usually not the same as geographic north (where maps are drawn). The adjustment is local; here, I think magnetic north is 7 degrees off from north. In the US, the USGS topographic maps contain the required adjustment for the covered area. Not sure about Italy.
- integralid 10mo agoI don't think that's it. For me sometimes my phone compass is (roughly) right, but sometimes points in a completely wrong direction, for example 90 degrees off. It calibrates after a while when I start walking but I guess this is what OP had in mind, not a few degree difference.
- jiggawatts 10mo agoiPhones can regain the compass fix if you move the phone along a figure eight path while holding it flat and level. Worked pretty well for me in the past.
- peterbecich 10mo agoThoughtful concept but agreed. I.i.r.c the phone can assess the inaccuracy of the compass and prompt the figure-8 movement. But that is not practical here.
- oniony 10mo agoGreat, I wish you all well looking for this device — in addition to their keys — for two hours every couple of days. After several weeks I once found the lost TV remote in the Scrabble box. However it was short lived: we had to replace it at least another five times over the next couple of years.
- tsol 10mo agoAh good point. I think the solution to this is simple. A second, smaller compass that points towards the first one
- roughly 10mo agoYeah, but where do I keep that one?
- cardiffspaceman 10mo agoBody modification?
- cdaringe 10mo agoSomething something something built in airtag-like finder?
- kelseyfrog 10mo agoHow do they remember to take it with them when they leave their home?
- DonHopkins 10mo ago[flagged]
- thisrod 10mo agoPeople with this level of dementia won't be able to live independently, and there will be someone else to check that.
- NedF 10mo ago[dead]
- DonHopkins 10mo agoHopefully it computes a pedestrian safe path to your front door and points that way, not as the crow flies, otherwise it could walk you over a cliff or into a pond.
- cdaringe 10mo agoId like to see a DIY variant! A couple of radios and homebase software. Could be a fun one to try an emulate.