SmartWatcher – A Personal Safety App With Irish Roots

By @TheMarkDalton

Imagine being able to call for help by pressing a button on your watch. That is the basic premise of SmartWatcher, an app that was released in December 2015. It was founded in Zurich by Dubliner Morgan Cohen who studied computer science in Dublin before moving to Silicon Valley to join his first startup.

At the Apple Event earlier this week it was announced that Apple Watch is the #1 selling smartwatch in the world but one of the most frequent questions I get when people see me using it is – “What do you actually use that for?”

While I have many uses for my Apple Watch, one thing that it could have great potential for is personal safety. The smartwatch has the perfect form factor, it is always there on your wrist when you are out and about and it is also quickly reachable.

When people are in emergency situations where they need immediate help, sometimes it is not possible to make a call. People can’t do it or they don’t have the presence of mind to do it. However, you could use SmartWatcher to call for help by simply pressing your watch.

In the case of violence, bullying, harassment and so on, the SmartWatch app has another advantage – discretion. Triggering an alert can be done without anyone noticing.

The company describes the system as a more sophisticated panic button. SmartWatcher Technologies has developed Continuous Safety Monitoring. Once this is activated, the app will periodically ask you to confirm that you are safe.

If you don’t confirm that you are safe when the app asks, the members of your safety network which you have added to the app when you first set it up will be notified automatically. Continuous Safety Monitoring may sound somewhat annoying when it is put forth like this, however it is not an always on feature and is perfect for walking home alone late at night or going through dangerous parts of town or whenever you feel unsafe.

SmartWatcher is available in the App Store and is free to download which gives access to the basic features. If you want to get access to all of the features in the app then it you will need to buy them via an in-app purchase. This will allow you to get access to tools such as Continuous Safety Monitoring.

You can download the app from the App Store here.

You can also download from Google Play here.