spa Passive assistive technology for aged care

Safer nights.
Surer steps.

The Snowdon System unites a passive monitoring Smart Pillow with a Proactive Walkway — predictive health insight and proactive fall safety that blend invisibly into the home. No wearables. No cameras.

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~60%
of residents fall each year
1 in 4
falls need hospitalisation
$2,494
avg. cost per injurious fall
0
wearables — fully passive
The Smart Pillow, a passive monitoring lumbar cushion The Proactive Walkway tile with warm guidance lighting

Why it matters

Falls and poor sleep are two of the most common — and most costly — threats to independence in residential aged care. The Snowdon System is built to address both, quietly and continuously.

elderly

Falls are frequent

Nearly 60% of residents fall at least once a year, and 1 in 4 of those falls leads to hospitalisation.

Wabe et al., 2022

payments

Falls are costly

A single injurious fall costs around $2,494 on average — before ongoing rehabilitation and lost independence.

Okafor et al., 2025

bedtime

Sleep suffers

More than 50% of older adults live with insomnia, and 84% report feeling too hot at night — lowering sleep quality.

Sleep research, 2022

Humanitarian impact

A small change, a lasting ripple

Preventing a single fall — or restoring one good night's sleep — never stops with the resident. The benefit cascades outward to carers, to facilities, and to the whole community.

health_and_safety

Better sleep, fewer falls

Passive monitoring flags risk early, and cooler, calmer sleep adds around 23 minutes a night.

schedule

Time given back

Every fall averages about two hours of staff time. Prevent it, and that time returns to care.

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Calmer carers

Fewer emergencies means less burnout — and more presence and patience for residents.

savings

Lower costs

Fewer injurious falls — roughly $2,494 each — frees facility budget to reinvest in people.

elderly

Longer, fuller lives

Confidence, mobility and dignity compound into healthier, more independent years.

Prevention compounds. That snowball — safer, calmer, more affordable and more dignified care — is the whole point of the Snowdon System.

Staff-time and cost figures: Wabe et al., 2022; Okafor et al., 2025. Sleep gains: thermoregulated-pillow research, 2022.

The Smart Pillow

Rest assured.
Intelligent comfort.

A passive six-sensor thermal grid sits just beneath the cover, mapping temperature across the night — no wearables, no charging, no setup for the resident. Just a normal, comfortable pillow.

  • device_thermostat

    Precision thermal grid

    Six TMP117 sensors in a 3×2 grid resolve micro-fluctuations in body temperature to ±0.1°C.

  • cable

    Seamless architecture

    STEMMA QT / Qwiic wiring feeds a TCA9548A I²C multiplexer for clean, reliable multi-sensor data.

  • wifi

    Real-time streaming

    A QT Py ESP32-S3 processes and streams readings silently over Wi-Fi to carers or dashboards.

The Smart Pillow exterior render Exploded view of the Smart Pillow internal components: outer cover, comfort layer, six TMP117 sensors, fabric carrier, pillow core, qwiic cables, multiplexer, ESP32-S3, USB-C cable and enclosure
The Proactive Walkway

Guiding movement with gentle light

Thin, interlocking floor tiles light the way at night while quietly analysing gait and detecting emergencies.

grid_on

Modular sensing tiles

Each tile is an independent node. At just 30 N of pressure the path lights up, guiding a safe route.

directions_walk

Gait monitoring

Continuous analysis of step timing, speed and stride helps flag mobility decline before it leads to a fall.

emergency

Fall detection & comms

An abrupt >50 N load across 4+ tiles without onward movement triggers an alert to nominated contacts.

The Proactive Walkway tile with warm perimeter lighting Exploded view of the walkway tile: top casing, border LED array, force sensing resistor, microcontroller, MOSFETs, DC jacks, TP4056, step-up module, perf board, battery and bottom housing

Engineered for reliability

personal_injury Algorithm

Advanced fall logic

Detects an impact >50 N spread across 4+ tiles at once, distinguishing a human fall from a dropped object using surrounding tile data.

filter_alt

Smart filtering

Spatial pattern recognition ignores canes, walkers and stationary objects to prevent false alarms.

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IP-rated housing

Sealed, water-resistant enclosures suit bathrooms, kitchens and entryways — the highest-risk zones.

battery_charging_full Power

Failsafe power resiliency

A rechargeable battery backup in the primary tile keeps lighting and fall detection alive through power outages — with a 15-year design life.

How it works

1

Step applied

Force-sensing resistors detect pressure on a tile.

2

Processing

The microcontroller analyses the input instantly.

3

Guidance

Warm LED path lighting activates simultaneously.

4

Synthesis

Speed, timing and consistency are aggregated over time.

Our commitment

Built with heart, for all communities

This project is personal. Our team lead, Gabriel, works in an aged-care home and meets these challenges first-hand every day — and many of us have family and close friends who either work in the industry or live in care themselves.

That closeness is the heart of everything we build. We're not designing for a market — we're designing for people we know and love, with our sights set on improving residents' daily wellbeing and helping them live longer, fuller lives.

It's a commitment to carers, too. Nurses, personal-care assistants and support workers — people like Gabe — are too often overstretched. When residents are safer and sleeping better, their carers can spend less time on emergencies and more time on care.

rocket_launch

Where we're headed

  • check_circle Validate the system through a 12-month pilot across 15 fully-equipped rooms.
  • check_circle Co-design every step with residents, carers and culturally diverse communities.
  • check_circle Evolve toward flexible printed sensors and AI-led gait prediction.
  • check_circle Extend the technology beyond aged care — into rehabilitation and sports science.
  • check_circle Grow into a sustainable social enterprise that keeps community impact first.
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Rooted in Blacktown

We're building a direct, lasting connection with the Blacktown community in Western Sydney — co-designing with culturally and linguistically diverse seniors and the people who care for them.

SydWest SSI PRONIA UNAA NSW

Through focus groups, multilingual large-print materials and on-the-ground workshops, we design with the community — not just for it.

Help your residents stay safe and independent.

Tell us about your facility and we'll show you how the Snowdon System fits in — starting with a single room.

mail [email protected]