Vitality's GlowCap - SlashGear's Top 5 Products At Show Stoppers
There's a growing market for anything having to do with medication and prescriptions. The baby-boomers are getting up there in age, and they're living longer and better thanks to technology and new medications. However, they haven't made a miracle memory drug just yet, so that's where GlowCap comes in. GlowCap is prescription bottle with a special cap that uses a wireless connection to keep track of a patient and their prescription-taking behavior. The cap can communicate with doctors to let them know if the patient is taking their medications or not, and will also remind the patient that they have to take the pill. It can also communicate to family members through phone calls.
GlowCap extends beyond simple reminders too. It can communicate with CVS or Walgreens Pharmacies when the prescription is getting low so that the pharmacy will have a new prescription ready for the patient. Yet the biggest draw of GlowCap is the social networking aspect. GlowCap can connect to Facebook (at the user's discretion, obviously) and let friends and family know if they're taking the medication. You might be thinking "why would I want to do that?" Chemotherapy drugs are particularly difficult to take, and have a tremendous impact on the patient, who may after a while, become discouraged and stop taking the treatment. The social networking feature of GlowCap will allow friends and family to build a support base for the patient to offer encouragement and create a guilt complex in the user if they let their friends and loved ones down (ok, the guilt isn't intentional, but it's a good motivating factor).
GlowCap is produced in a Chinese toy factory to keep costs low, and the caps use 900 Mhz wireless radio to communicate with USB sticks that will access and upload the information. That version is available now from Amazon.com, and Vitality is working on a version that can be used free of the USB sticks for those patients that aren't terribly versed on computers or the internet.
