Inspiration
Three years ago, Jone's grandmother, Kathy, was diagnosed with dementia. Since then, her symptoms have progressively worsened. She has begun wandering away from home and family gatherings more frequently, and her ability to sleep well at night has significantly declined. Witnessing these challenges inspired us to focus on the often-overlooked struggles of caregivers—typically family members—who dedicate themselves to supporting loved ones with dementia. Our mission is to empower these caregivers by providing them with the tools and resources they need to deliver compassionate, high-quality care while still maintaining their own well-being and fulfilling their personal lives. Together, we can make a difference in the lives of both caregivers and those they care for.
What it does
The Wander Bracelet is a cutting-edge cyber-physical system designed to enhance the safety and well-being of individuals with dementia while providing peace of mind to their caregivers. This innovative device offers a suite of powerful features: it tracks the wearer’s GPS location in real-time, monitors their movements, and alerts caregivers instantly if the wearer leaves a designated safe area, such as their home. Leveraging advanced AI technology, the bracelet can gently guide wearers back home by creating personalized audio messages—based on 1-minute recordings by a familiar voice—to help reorient them.
The Wander Bracelet also integrates seamlessly with SMS, enabling caregivers to receive location updates, activity reports, and notifications without needing to download additional apps. For added safety, the bracelet is equipped with lights and vibration motors to alert both the wearer and those nearby in case of wandering incidents. Additionally, the SMS text agent provides caregivers with access to advanced analytics, offering valuable insights into the wearer’s patterns and behaviors.
With its combination of real-time tracking, AI-driven guidance, and user-friendly communication tools, the Wander Bracelet empowers caregivers to provide compassionate care while ensuring the safety and independence of their loved ones.
Iteration and Feedback
After researching the problem, we found that 66% of Alzheimer’s patients experience wandering at some point. This period of restlessness and wandering is most severe during sunset, a phenomenon known as sundowning.
From there, we spoke with and surveyed over 20 caregivers who had family members with the disease to determine if they faced the same challenges as Jones. Based on our research and the pain points highlighted by potential users, we created low-fidelity prototypes. Finally, we built our final prototype and observed people interacting with it to evaluate its effectiveness.
Core Components
The Wander Bracelet system is a sophisticated integration of two core components: the physical hardware and the cyber software.
Hardware
The physical system is a robust hardware platform developed in C++ and powered by an ESP32 microcontroller. It features a suite of sensors and actuators, including vibrational motors, waterproof LED strips, and a GPS module, all meticulously soldered and assembled into a cohesive, wearable ecosystem. This hardware foundation ensures reliable performance and durability, making it ideal for everyday use by elderly patients.
Software
On the cyber side, the system leverages advanced AI agents to manage data flow and automate incident response. By analyzing GPS movement data and user inputs, the Wander Bracelet integrates cutting-edge platforms like OpenAI, ElevenLabs, and Twilio to intelligently guide and redirect patients who may wander. For example, it can use AI-generated audio prompts—personalized by loved ones—to gently steer individuals back to safety.
Cyber-Physical Layer
Connecting these two layers is a seamless communication framework built on MQTT and Firebase, enabling real-time data transmission, collection, and response between the device and the cloud. This ensures that caregivers receive instant updates and actionable insights, while the system autonomously manages critical situations.
Together, the Wander Bracelet’s hardware and software create a powerful, user-friendly solution that enhances safety, provides peace of mind, and empowers caregivers to deliver exceptional care.
Challenges we ran into
During the development of our project, we encountered two primary challenges that tested our creativity and focus.
Hardware Limitations and Time Constraints
One of the biggest hurdles we faced was the size of available technology and the time constraints of the hackathon. Working with bulky, modular components limited the form factor of our product, making it less sleek and user-friendly than we envisioned. However, throughout the design cycle, we gathered valuable feedback from TreeHacks participants—including fellow hackers, mentors, and sponsors—which helped us iterate over several wearable versions to determine the best form factor. These insights will guide future iterations to create a more compact and wearable design.
Scope Management
The problem we aimed to solve is complex and impacts millions of people worldwide. Narrowing down the scope to create a meaningful and impactful project within the hackathon timeframe was a significant challenge. We had to carefully prioritize which features to implement, ensuring that our solution remained focused and achievable while still addressing a critical aspect of the problem. This experience taught us the importance of balancing ambition with practicality to deliver a functional and impactful prototype.
These challenges not only pushed us to innovate but also reinforced the value of user feedback and strategic planning in creating solutions that truly make a difference.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are thrilled to showcase the groundbreaking AI integration we’ve achieved with Eleven Labs, which has enabled us to implement a suite of innovative features, including Automatic Voice Cloning, Conversational AI, and AI Agents. These cutting-edge tools have allowed us to create a project that sits at the exciting intersection of AI and elder care, offering a truly transformative approach to supporting individuals with dementia and their caregivers.
Beyond voice-based AI, our application leverages powerful machine learning algorithms to analyze and translate sleep and activity data. By utilizing scikit-learn, we’ve developed advanced models trained on sleep pattern datasets from Stanford University, enabling us to uncover meaningful insights into dementia progression and care patterns. This complex data is then distilled into an intuitive, user-friendly interface, empowering caregivers with actionable insights to improve the quality of care.
Our work represents a significant step forward in combining AI innovation with compassionate care, and we’re excited about the potential to make a lasting impact on the lives of millions.
What we learned
One of our greatest takeaways was the immense value of a cross-functional team. Despite our diverse backgrounds and areas of expertise, each team member’s willingness to contribute and unique knowledge base enabled us to tackle the wide range of challenges that come with developing a cyber-physical product. From technical complexities to business viability and design excellence, our team’s multi-disciplinary approach was instrumental in creating a product that is not only functional but also innovative and user-centric. This collaboration allowed us to deliver a solution with impactful features and a seamless integration of hardware, software, and AI—proving that diverse perspectives are key to building something truly extraordinary.
What's next for Wander
The Wander team brings together a diverse mix of expertise in business strategy, design consulting, and industrial systems engineering. With our combined experience and shared passion for innovation, we are confident that the Wander system has the potential to extend far beyond Stanford and create a meaningful impact on aging populations worldwide. Our unique blend of skills and dedication positions us to deliver a solution that not only addresses the challenges of dementia care today but also evolves to meet the needs of tomorrow’s global aging community.
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