One hundred and fifty-three years since the world’s first panic button was introduced in New York City, a local South African company offers estate residents three different ways of summoning emergency assistance at the touch of a button.
Glovent’s SOS Suite is the company’s newest take on the panic button concept since Edward Callahan’s idea of a central monitoring station linked to emergency call boxes saw the 1871 launch of the American District Telegraph, familiar today to South Africans as ‘ADT’.
Glovent’s robust, mobile emergency alert system is unique amongst cellphone-based panic button systems as it delivers three customised layers of community resident protection.
The free first-level Individual SOS feature enables users to designate their own emergency contacts to receive immediate SOS SMS, email and push notifications.
The second-level Community SOS feature enables designated, opted-in community guardians (such as your estate or area security guards) to be alerted in the event of an emergency, and a central monitoring terminal can be added to this solution.
The third-level National SOS feature offers a comprehensive emergency response for those seeking a broader safety net, anywhere in South Africa. Once a panic is initiated, the system notifies a national operations centre, which responds appropriately.
“The advantage of a smartphone-based panic button lies in the fact that research by Morgan Stanley shows that 91% of adults globally keep their smartphones within arm’s reach. With SA now in its third decade of cellphone use, most people are likely to be familiar with smartphones,” explains Anton Potgieter, CEO of Glovent CMS.
With the first-level Individual SOS feature, users can activate features from anywhere in the world with mobile coverage. Whether at home or abroad, individuals can rest assured that their loved ones can be alerted in times of emergency.
The Community SOS feature, for its part, is geofenced. This means alerts are only sent when the user is within the designated perimeter of their community. This ensures that alerts are relevant and actionable.
When it comes to the National SOS feature, there are no estate geofencing limitations. Users can activate a panic alert from anywhere in South Africa with connectivity. Users can save necessary medical information upon registration, which is automatically shared with the emergency responders in a panic situation.
The Glovent SOS Suite is underpinned by the Glovent smartphone app, a community management system that enables smarter and safer ways of estate living. Improved connectivity, streamlined operations, enhanced safety and a vibrant community spirit are the goals of the user-friendly app.
With the Glovent mobile app, estate residents can effortlessly access essential information, receive real-time notifications from community managers, book facilities, generate visitor access codes, and submit help desk tickets – all from the convenience of their mobile devices.
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