Introducing MYLO, A 24/7 AI Virtual Lifeguard Built to Make Home Pools Safer
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Installing a home pool is like creating your own oasis from summer heat and afternoon boredom, but there are a few key additions that’ll make your pool safer, and more enjoyable, for everyone. A top-notch robotic vacuum pool cleaner helps keep it clean, pool toys keep everyone entertained, and the MYLO 24/7 AI Virtual Lifeguard is there to keep everyone safe.
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Child drownings in pools are, unfortunately, much more common than one might think. 1 in 4 child drownings happen in swimming pools, and fatal drowning is the leading cause of death in children between the ages 1 and 4, and the second leading cause of unintentional injury death in children 5-14 behind motor vehicle crashes.
A large fence, alarmed enclosure and other safety measures can help prevent children accidentally entering a pool without adult supervision, but if those measures fail there’s nothing left to prevent the worst possible outcome. MYLO is here to change that.
MYLO 24/7 Virtual Lifeguard
Pre-Order Now $999.00
The MYLO Virtual Lifeguard is built to make residential pools safer, with AI Monitoring Technology and an Underwater Computer Detection Camera that alerts and notifies you about pool entrances and potential drowning incidents. MYLO is currently available for pre-order for April 2023 delivery.
What is MYLO?
MYLO is an AI virtual lifeguard for residential pools that was created by Coral Smart Pool, a company named after Coral, a young girl who drowned in 2017 in a suburb of Tel Aviv. One of the company’s co-founders heard about the incident and decided to use her PhD in computer vision and AI to create a product that could prevent tragedies like this from happening in the future.
MYLO is available to pre-order now with a prospective delivery date of April 2023, just in time for next summer.
“She heard about this incident and thought that if computers can make cars drive then for sure they can save such girls and such incidents,” said Shadie Bisharat, CEO of Coral Smart Pool.
After a successful prototype launch in 2020 they’re bringing MYLO to the masses, hoping to guard as many pools as possible around the world. The product is currently available for pre-order at $500 off its original price.
How Does MYLO Work?
AI Computer Vision Technology
The MYLO has a camera above the water and below the water built to detect people and their movements, each equipped with AI computer vision that’s been honed by years of simulation drownings and real pool incidents.
It has three layers of safety protection through safety alerts sent to an app on your phone — a pool entry alert if the pool hasn’t been used for more than 5 minutes, a pre-drowning alert and a drowning alert based on the activity within the pool. The MYLO also has an alarm on the unit itself that sounds if it detects a drowning.
When children under 5 drown it’s often silent, whereas older children splash, thrash and bob up and down as they try to breathe on the surface. MYLO is built to detect the age of the person, roughly, relative to size and which drowning behavior they’re displaying. Whether it’s a lack of movement under the water or clear distress — MYLO is designed to alert you to it via an app on your phone.
“With children under 5 it is usual a silent drowning, they just sink to the bottom of the pool like a rock. They don’t make noise and splash water like we see in the movies, no they just sink to the bottom of the pool and the AI is trained for such incidents and in 10 seconds after the drowning it sounds an alarm.”
“In addition to the computer vision there’s a GPU inside the box, inside the MYLO, so all the algorithm is inside the box, not on the cloud, so even if you have a problem with your internet connectivity it will still detect the drowning and make an alarm.”
Pool Protection and Surveillance
I asked Bisharat about existing pool defense strategies like fences and alarms and he noted that while these are great tactics for drowning protection when a pool is not in use, most drownings happen when people are already in the pool, so you need 24/7 surveillance in addition to use obstacles.
“All other layers of protection are obstacles to get into the pool when the pool is not active. And that’s very good but that’s not enough because 88% of drowning for children under the age of 14 happen when there’s an adult nearby and when the pool is active,” said Bisharat.
“All those products finish their job when you go into the pool and MYLO, our virtual lifeguard, starts its job then. It will alert you when someone enters the pool, of course, but then it starts monitoring that activity and detecting a drowning incident and that’s the big differentiating factor.”
Setting Up MYLO
MYLO only requires a poolside docking location as well as a power source to work. It’s designed to work in all types of residential pools, but should be placed in an area where it can see as much of the pool as possible.
The makers of MYLO are developing a model with a solar panel power source and other accessories for future versions, but for now they’re trying to keep costs as low as possible.
The MYLO is designed to be easy to set up in five minutes or less, and start providing protection as soon as it’s live. Once your phone is synced to it via the app you’ll get alerts there that you can respond to or dismiss as a false alarm, teaching the machine more each time about what is and isn’t an emergency (a pet swimming in the pool, for example).
“Eventually our goal is to create the peace of mind. A pool at the house is the most fun place but it’s also the most scary place. So when you have that extra set of eyes in the water you have that peace of mind,” said Bisharat.
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