buddi wins £20 million in contracts, signs up with Care Innovations in US

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/lavender_set_34.jpg-buddi.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]buddi, a well-known UK personal tracker/tagger company, announced over the weekend that they have signed two contracts worth £20 million ($25.1 million). The first and most of interest is with Intel-GE Care Innovations for their new, quite attractive wrist-worn fall detector/two-way emergency alert/activity monitor. According to the Telegraph, it was designed by Sebastian Conran (left) and was ‘fully certified by the US government in recent weeks’ which may mean that it gained FDA clearance. The second was for their ‘Smart Tag’ used in criminal tracking with the New South Wales, Australia government. Care Innovations adds another consumer-facing device to the Lively activity tracker and iHealth fitness and telehealth devices. Timing for availability is not disclosed. buddi has come a long way since 2008 when TTA Founder/EIC Emeritus Steve first brought them to our readers’ attention when their then-chunky device was one of the first using GPS to track and provide remote emergency alerting for people, lone workers and pets. Over half of their revenue is from overseas contracts, enough to permit them to walk away from a two-year, endlessly changing Ministry of Justice tender earlier this year. Also Daily Mail/ThisisMoney.uk

(A CI note: QuietCare has quietly reappeared on the Care Innovations website for resident/patient activity monitoring, after a considerable absence. Editor Donna headed marketing for the developing company prior to the full GE acquisition.)