BBC Click's Lara Lewington looks at some of the latest personal safety technology.
Self-study activity:
Watch the video and say whether the statements below are true or false.
1. You always need to unlock the device before using it.
2. Only your contacts will receive your alert.
3. The alert can be activated verbally.
4. Currently, the police can receive your filming of the incidents.
5. The device is free at the moment.
6. 33% of adults are victims of violent crime.
7. The follow-me function of the device keeps track of your movements.
8. The alerts are not so easy to activate.
So this is what the finished product will look like. To avoid false alarms, you need to unlock it before pressing the buttons. At the point it’s been activated, it will send an alert with your location to the emergency services and also not just to your contacts of choice but the contacts who are closest to you at that point. It will also send an alert to other people who are on the platform who are nearby at that time, who hopefully will have phone signal and internet connection in your hour, well, seconds of need.
An alert can also be activated by a smart watch by simply using a safe word, asparagus.
We’ve got several ambitions for the future. One is that when you see somebody needs your help on your phone, but as you arrive close to where they are, the map on your mobile phone will dissolve and your camera will turn on, so we'll start… you'll start filming the incidents where, where you are and will stream back to the police.
Another shortish-time ambition for us is you want to make this as common as possible because the more people that have it, the more people can come to your rescue, so for us we’re driven by how cheap can we make this or free so when we put it in as many people's hands as possible.
The most recent figures for England and Wales suggest adults have a 1 in 33 chance each year of being the victim of a violent crime. But despite the fact that they’re unlikely to ever need to use a gadget like this, just knowing it's there may give you that extra peace of mind.
You're walking home alone or going out for the day and you want to feel that someone who cares about you is watching over you, well the follow-me function on the React app could come in handy. They’ll be alerted to keep an eye on you and track your GPS location for your chosen duration, hopefully there won't be a problem and once you arrive at your destination, they'll be able to see where you are plus you can actually tell them that you're fine.
Alerts to contact your friends, family or even the emergency services can also be activated any time by pressing this red button on the app or this physical button. This is called the react sidekick and syncs up to the app.
On first testing it seemed pretty glitch, but then it became apparent I needed to have the settings right, which weren’t obvious. You must accept the option to track your location even when not using the app, and you also need to make sure that your chosen contacts are stored with their international dialling code.
So with this and indeed all these devices, it's probably wise to do a test run before you start relying on them.
Key:
1T 2F 3T 4F 5F 6F 7T 8T
