A Paraguayan software engineer developed a free application to send emergency alerts to family members, an idea that emerged after his cousin, who suffers from seizures, faced difficulties asking for help during episodes.
José Salinas, from Caacupé in the Cordillera Department, was motivated by episodes where his cousin could not alert her own son or husband in time when she felt a seizure was about to occur. She explained she has only three to four seconds between the onset of the sensation and the seizure episode.
Salinas researched existing solutions and tested Android's native emergency setting, which requires pressing the power button five times consecutively to make a call. He found that the rhythm of pressing the buttons was crucial for the function to work and, since the system made a phone call, it did not meet his cousin's specific need, as she often could not speak.
Faced with the complexity of other available applications, the engineer decided to create his own solution. The app, called Nugon, was designed to send an alert in under three seconds. The user only needs to press and hold a button on the screen for approximately 1.5 seconds without releasing it for the alert to be triggered, with the phone vibrating to confirm the send.
The alert can be sent via SMS, over the internet (ideal for those who mainly use Wi-Fi and have no credit), or through both methods. The function works even with the phone locked and does not interfere with volume controls.
Thinking of families, Salinas included multi-family support, allowing the monitoring of several people through the same system. The tool was initially published on GitHub for free and open access, and the developer is in the process of improving and submitting it to the Play Store, making installation more accessible to the general public.
Although created for people with seizures, Salinas has already received feedback indicating the application is useful for elderly individuals or anyone who needs to quickly alert their contacts about a health emergency or other inconvenience.