Lifeline Response is a Chicago based mobile app development company that develops applications that intended to provide personal safety. It utilizes natural human reaction to respond to emergency situations by immediately alerting authorities if the user is in need of help. It incorporated GPS Location & Route Tracking technology and based on touch sensation, with Microsoft’s Bing Maps for GPS tracking. The app is currently available in AppStore and Google Play. The product has got attractive pricing since it cost only $21.99 for an annual subscription while $ 3.99 for monthly subscription. Since it was founded in 2012, the app delivers outright service within the USA and have received a fair acceptance within the country. It has been received a seed round funding of $0.37M in March 2014. The company has partnered with U.S. Cellular and has enterprise agreements with universities, hospitals and corporations around the US.
The working of the app is briefly noted. The app is available on the gadget’s home screen. When selected and made it engaged, it senses the user’s thumb on the screen. The moment that thumb is removed, a countdown begins from 20 seconds during which time the user could enter a deactivation code for the app if it is activated accidentally. Instead, if you were attacked, your thumb would naturally come off the screen. Even if the phone was confiscated, once the app has been activated, there is no reversing the process without the proper code. After seven seconds without a code an alarm will begin to sound and when the countdown ends, app’s response verification center will be contacted. The center would call the user asking if they are in an emergency. Incase if the attacker finds something wrong with the situation and tries to turn off the app- by providing this code instead of the proper deactivation code, the app identifies the user is in an emergency. At that point, the app makes a call to the local 911 who would respond via GPS coordinates to the phone’s location. Likewise, if the phone isn’t answered, the same procedure would occur. The company provides 24/7 support and an option for 7 emergency contact numbers to be saved to which distress alerts will be sent, to make the service more promising.
The app is directly focusing on female population especially the university students. As a part of this, the company has two versions available for purchase viz Personal edition and Campus edition. Thus, the company has made enterprise agreements with major universities and colleges(30+) within the state with a reasonable cost of $2 to $7. As the alternative solutions are costly and include either personnel or infrastructure or both service, the company could directly make an entrance into the standard population.