POOL WATCHER 360º
Wireless Networked Pool Alarm — Monitor and Watch Your Pool From Anywhere
Invented by Lee Richerson
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FEATURES
The Pool Watcher 360° is easy to install, it’s waterproof, and is solar-powered. It’s not just for pools – you can also use the Pool Watcher 360° as a security device for Koi Ponds and other bodies of water. You can even use it for fun! Record your kids swimming underwater and all the photos go directly to your phone.
About the Entrepreneur
Pool Watcher 360º is a smart safety product that enables 24×7 monitoring of private and public pools. Lee had the idea for this lifesaving product seven years ago: “I was inspired . . . because of the numbers I saw of people drowning every year, here in America.” The statistics on child safety around pools are discouraging; Lee points out that 72% of the children who drown in the family pool will die while their parents are home.
About the Entrepreneur
Pool Watcher 360º is a smart safety product that enables 24×7 monitoring of private and public pools. Lee had the idea for this lifesaving product seven years ago: “I was inspired . . . because of the numbers I saw of people drowning every year, here in America.” The statistics on child safety around pools are discouraging; Lee points out that 72% of the children who drown in the family pool will die while their parents are home.
Working with IdeaPros
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Pool Watcher 360º monitors the pool constantly while floats on the water, using video monitoring to view the entire bottom of the pool. If somebody falls in the pool, the alarm goes off. The video monitoring and alarms can be directed to electronic devices like your TV or phone. And sensitivity levels of the monitoring can be adjusted so that alarms don’t trip as frequently.
While Lee had the idea for Pool Watcher 360º seven years ago, technology needed to catch up with his creative vision. His initial attempt to turn his idea into reality began about four or five years ago when he engaged a firm to develop his product. They did a patent search and produced some professional drawings but didn’t have the engineering expertise to develop the product and progress stalled. Lee felt he didn’t get much for his financial investment.
A year and a half ago, Lee engaged IdeaPros. He relied on surfing the web to find potential partners and three or four different companies came up. Lee spoke with a few of them, but they didn’t seem excited about his product. Then he contacted IdeaPros and it was a very different experience. Talking to the partners at IdeaPros, Lee realized he had found “Someone who could share my excitement and at the same time understand the concept of what the invention was all about.”
As an inventor, Lee was absorbed in working on the invention: “All this other stuff is new to me.” The patents, social media, marketing, creating an LLC, consumer feedback, in short, the business side of launching the Pool Watcher 360º, were covered in his initial discussions with IdeaPros. When Lee I was through talking to the IdeaPro partners, he “knew what was going to happen from A to Z.” Lee comments that IdeaPros is very good at explaining their process, how your money will be spent along the way and how long it will take.
Currently, Pool Watcher 360º is in the prototype stage and Lee is working with engineering on the features. Since new technology products continue to appear on the market, Pool Watcher 360º’s features keep expanding – Lee says the team is adding connectivity to Alexa. Right now, Lee is working with IdeaPros on an e-mail blast. Lee is also spreading the word among his friends and connections using Facebook, Instagram and Twitter connecting his personal network to his product on the IdeaPro’s Launchpad. Lee is excited about the progress of the product since partnering with IdeaPros. However, for Lee, the success of Pool Watchers 360º will not be measured in sales. His ideal outcome for Pool Watchers 360º is to “prevent unintentional drowning” by bringing down the number of pool drownings and increasing pool safety awareness.
