Many people guzzle down energy drinks and coffee to stay awake while driving. Now you can forget all that – a new bracelet has been designed that will not let you fall asleep at the wheel. It will zap you with an electric impulse.
Steer is a wearable device that is packed with 16 sensors that constantly measure the user’s heart rate and skin conductance (galvanic reaction of the skin) – as per the product’s Indiegogo page.
When you switch on Steer, for a minute, it analyzes your normal heart rate and skin conductance, and then it refers to these indicators to determine whether you are getting tired or not. If it senses your heart rate decreasing, it sends you a warning with a strong vibration and flash of yellow light. Think of it like a quick slap reminding you to wake up.
If your heart rate keeps dropping despite the warning, the device will think you are about to fall asleep and will try to jolt you awake with an electric impulse.
After you are shocked, the designers say, the levels of serotonin, noradrenaline, and cortisol in your body will increase, and the level of “sleeping hormone” melatonin will decrease. These changes will make you feel fresher and less drowsy and will return your heart rate to normal.
This is when you should probably hand over the wheel, pull over, or find somewhere to actually get some sleep. The company says that, “To wake up on the road, drivers drink coffee, energy drinks, listen to loud music, smoke… These methods are harmful to our bodies or even dangerous to some of us.” If the device works like it says it will, it certainly looks like a safer alternative to other means of trying to stay awake while driving.
The Indiegogo campaign, based out of Riga, Latvia, was funded 647% in September 2017. The latest update as of June 8th from the company’s Indiegogo page is:
“We are working on the accuracy of the sensors, completing research and tests. After that, other manufacture process steps will be happening.
After completing each step, we will be updating you on our progress. We will do that each month, but if something will be completed in less than a month, we will write an update earlier to inform you.
In two weeks we will receive all parts needed and we will start manufacturing.”
Startup
A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend to become registered, startups refer to new businesses that intend to grow large beyond the solo founder. At the beginning, startups face high uncertainty and have high rates of failure, but a minority of them do go on to be successful and influential. Some startups become unicorns; that is privately held startup companies valued at over US$1 billion.
Actions
Startups typically begin by a founder (solo-founder) or co-founders who have a way to solve a problem. The founder of a startup will begin market validation by problem interview, solution interview, and building a minimum viable product (MVP), i.e. a prototype, to develop and validate their business models. The startup process can take a long period of time (by some estimates, three years or longer), and hence sustaining effort is required. Over the long term, sustaining effort is especially challenging because of the high failure rates and uncertain outcomes. Having a business plan in place outlines what to do and how to plan and achieve an idea in the future. Typically, these plans outline the first 3 to 5 years of your business strategy.
Design principles
Models behind startups presenting as ventures are usually associated with design science. Design science uses design principles considered to be a coherent set of normative ideas and propositions to design and construct the company's backbone. For example, one of the initial design principles is "affordable loss".
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