Markets
U.S. open in 0 hrs, 47 mins
BUSINESS NEWS
- Market News
- Earnings
- Recalls
- Recession Watch
- Tech News
- Financial Crisis
- Madoff Scandal
- BloggingStocks
- Luxist
- Money Videos
INVESTING
- Stock Quotes
- Stock Charts
- Stock Ticker
- Currencies
- Portfolio
- Stock Screener
- Broker Center
- Mutual Fund Center
- ETF Center
- Money
- 24/7 Wall St.
- Financial Glossary
PERSONAL FINANCE AT WALLETPOP
- Bargains
- Banking
- Budget
- Calculators
- College Finance
- Community
- Credit
- Deals
- Debt
- Economizer
- Food
- Home
- Fraud
- Insurance
- Interest Rates
- Loans
- Mortgages
- Real Estate
- Recalls
- Recession
- Retirement
- Saving
- Simplification
- Specials
- Taxes
SMALL BUSINESS
GeckoSystems' Mobile Robot Solutions Lower Healthcare Costs
Market Wire
CONYERS, GA -- (Marketwire) -- 07/09/09 -- GeckoSystems Intl. Corp. (PINKSHEETS: GCKO)
announced today that the seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day usage
dramatically reduces the time for financial payback for its mobile robot
solutions such as the CareBot(TM). GeckoSystems is a dynamic leader in the
emerging mobile robotics industry revolutionizing their development and
usage with "Mobile Robot Solutions for Safety, Security and Service(TM)."
Home environments' cost benefit analysis is complex and hence difficult to
quantify, so perhaps doing the breakeven analysis for a nursing home or
assisted care facility would be insightful. Let's assume, for the sake of
this illustration, that the CareBot only checks blood pressure and heart
rate for the designated care receivers for 7 days a week, 16 hours per day,
or 448 hours per month, automatically with only intermittent direct human
management.
A fully burdened cost of ten dollars ($10.00) an hour would be slightly
over thirty-eight percent (38%) minimum wage pay. (See Note 1, below.)
This infers a total minimum cost for a cost benefit of $4,480.00 per month
for 448 hours of utility. So if the CareBotPro™, a larger and more robust
version of the CareBot, sold for as much as $42,500, the "payback" could be
as quick as ten months. Electricity for recharging would be a few dollars
a month and maintenance needs would be only three to four hours per month
for the first two to three years depending on how much physical distance
the mobile robot has traveled.
"The foregoing cost/benefit analysis is why we believe that the
incorporation of an onboard blood pressure/pulse rate monitoring system for
our CareBots will further enhance their cost effective, utilitarian
capabilities," stated Martin Spencer, President/CEO, GeckoSystems.
"Our CareBot's ability to verbally remind a designated care receiver at
predetermined dates and times that their blood pressure/pulse rate needs to
be checked by this onboard, integrated robotic sensor system will enable a
higher level of safety, security and cost savings for those at home,
nursing homes, assisted care facilities, hospitals, etc. Since our
CareBots can also run unattended errands and/or automatically follow a
designated care receiver, the cost savings to the care giver person or
organization should be much greater for enhanced value to our customers and
increased ROI for our investors," concluded Spencer.
The CareBot is a multitasking personal robot incorporating advanced,
proprietary AI software engines such as GeckoNav(TM), GeckoChat(TM),
GeckoTrak(TM), and GeckoScheduler(TM). These disparate AI engines work in
parallel and/or serially continuously. Given the CareBot's WiFi network
connectivity and easy Internet and LAN accessibility, reporting of various
healthcare events outside of normal, can be quickly sent by telephone,
instant or text messaging, and/or email.
Note 1:
By the end of this month, the US minimum wage will rise to $7.25 per hour.
This figure does not include employer paid employee taxes, or any other
benefits such as paid time off for vacations, holidays, sick leave, etc. As
a rule of thumb, forty percent is generally added to base payroll to cover
taxes and paid time off for employees.
About GeckoSystems International Corporation:
Since 1997, GeckoSystems has developed a comprehensive, coherent, and
sufficient suite of hardware and software inventions to enable a new type
of home appliance (a personal robot) the CareBot, to be created for the
mass consumer marketplace. The suite of primary inventions includes:
GeckoNav, GeckoChat and GeckoTrak.
The primary market for this product is the family for use in eldercare,
care for the chronically ill, and childcare. The primary distribution
channel for this new home appliance is the thousands of independent
personal computer retailers in the U.S. The manufacturing infrastructure
for this new product category of mobile service robots is essentially the
same as the personal computer industry. Several outside contract
manufacturers have been identified and qualified their ability to produce
up to 1,000 CareBots per month within four to six months.
The Company is market driven. At the time of founding, nearly 12 years ago,
the Company did extensive primary market research to determine the
demographic profile of the early adopters of the then proposed product
line. Subsequent to, and based on that original market research, they have
assembled numerous focus groups to evaluate the fit of the CareBot personal
robot into the participant's lives and their expected usage. The Company
has also frequently employed the Delphi market research methodology by
contacting senior executives, practitioners, and researchers knowledgeable
in the area of elder care. Using this factual basis of internally performed
primary and secondary market research, and third party research is the
factual basis for the Company's sales forecasts.
The Company's "mobile robot solutions for safety, security and service(TM)"
are appropriate not only for the consumer, but also professional
healthcare, commercial security and defense markets. Professional
healthcare requires cost effective, timely errand running, portable
telemedicine, etc. Homeland Security requires cost effective mobile robots
to patrol and monitor public venues for weapons and WMD detection. Military
users desire the elimination of the "man in the loop" to enable unmanned
ground and air vehicles to not require constant human control and/or
intervention.
The Company's business model is very much like that of an automobile
manufacturer. Due to the final assembly, test, and shipping being done
based on geographic and logistic realities; strategic business-to-business
relationships can range from private labeling to joint manufacturing and
distribution to licensing only.
Several dozen patent opportunities exist for the Company due to the many
innovative and cost effective breakthroughs embodied not only in GeckoNav,
GeckoChat, and GeckoTrak, but also in additional, secondary systems that
include: GeckoOrient™, GeckoMotorController(TM), the
GeckoTactileShroud(TM), the CompoundedSensorArray(TM), and the
GeckoSPIO(TM).
The present senior management at GeckoSystems has over thirty-five years
experience in consumer electronics sales and marketing and product
development. Senior managers have been identified for the areas of
manufacturing, marketing, sales, and finance.
While GeckoSystems has been in the Development Stage, the Company has
accumulated R&D expenses to date in excess of six million dollars
($6,000,000). In contrast, the Japanese government has spent one hundred
million dollars ($100,000,000) in grants (to Sanyo, Toshiba, Hitachi,
Fujitsu, NEC, etc.) over the same time period to develop personal robots
for their own eldercare crisis, yet no viable solutions have been developed
by them.
By the end of this year, the Company plans to complete productization of
its CareBot offering with the introduction of its fourth generation
personal robot, the CareBot 4.0 MSR. The Company expects to be the first
personal robot developer and manufacturer in the world to begin in home
eldercare evaluation trials.
What Does a CareBot Do for the Care Giver?
The short answer is that it decreases the difficulty and stress for the
caregiver that needs to watch over Grandma, Mom, or other family members
most, if not much, of the time day in and day out due to concerns about
their well being, safety, and security.
But, first let's look at some other labor saving, automatic home appliances
most of us use routinely. For example, needing to do two or more necessary
chores and/or activities at the same time, like laundering clothes and
preparing supper.
The automatic washing machine needs no human intervention after the dirty
clothes are placed in the washer, the laundry powder poured in, and the
desired wash cycle set. Then, this labor saving appliance runs
automatically until the washed clothes are ready to be placed in another
labor saving home appliance, the automatic clothes dryer. While the clothes
are being washed and/or dried, the caregiver prepares supper using several
time saving home appliances like the microwave oven, "crock" pot, blender,
and conventional stove, with possible convection oven capabilities.
After supper, the dirty pots, pans, and dishes are placed in the automatic
dishwasher to be washed and dried while the family retires to the den to
watch TV, and/or the kids to do homework. Later, perhaps after the kids
have gone to bed, the caregiver may then have the time to fold, sort, and
put up the now freshly laundered clothes.
So what does a CareBot do for the caregiver? It is a new type of labor
saving, time management automatic home appliance.
For example, the caregiver frequently feels time stress when they need to
go shopping for 2 or 3 hours, and are uncomfortable when they have to be
away for more than an hour or so. Time stress is much worse for the
caregiver with a frail elderly parent that must be reminded to take
medications at certain times of the day. How can the caregiver be away for
3-4 hours when Grandma must take her prescribed medication every 2 or 3
hours? If the caregiver is trapped in traffic for an hour or two beyond
the 2 or 3 they expected to be gone, this "time stress" can be very
difficult for the caregiver to moderate.
Not infrequently, the primary caregiver has a 24 hour, 7 days a week
responsibility. After weeks and weeks of this sometimes tedious, if not
onerous routine, how does the caregiver get a "day off?" To bring in an
outsider is expensive (easily $75-125 per day for just 8 hours) and there
is the concern that medication will be missed or the care receiver have an
accident requiring immediate assistance by the caregiver, or someone they
must designate. And the care receiver may be very resistant to a "stranger"
coming in to her home and "running things."
So what is it worth for a care receiver to have an automatic system to help
take care of Grandma? Just 3 or 4 days a month "off" on a daylong shopping
trip, a visit with friends, or just take in a movie would cost $225-500 per
month. And that scenario assumes that Grandma is willing to be taken care
of by a "stranger" during those needed and appropriate days off.
So perhaps, an automatic caregiver, a CareBot, might be pretty handy, and
potentially very cost effective from the primary caregiver's perspective.
What Does a CareBot Do for the Care Receiver?
It's a new kind of companion that always stays close to them enabling
family and friends to care for them from afar. It tells them jokes, retells
family anecdotes, reminds them to take medication, reminds them that family
is coming over soon (or not at all), recites Bible verses, plays favorite
songs and/or other music. It alerts them when unexpected visitors, or
intruders are present. It notifies designated caregivers when a
potentially harmful event has occurred, such as a fall, fire in the home,
or simply been not found by the CareBot for too long. It responds to calls
for help and notifies those that the caregiver determined should be
immediately notified when any predetermined adverse event occurs.
The family can customize the personality of the CareBot. The voice's
cadence can be fast or slow. The intonation can be breathy, or abrupt. The
voice's volume can range from very loud to very soft. The response phrases
from the CareBot for recognized words and phrases can be colloquial and/or
unique to the family's own heritage. The personality can range from brassy
to timid depending on how the caregiver, and others appropriate, chooses it
to be.
Generally, the care receiver is pleased at the prospect of family being
able to drop in for a "virtual visit" using the onboard webcam and video
monitor for at home "video conferencing." The care receiver may feel much
more needed and appreciated when their far flung family and friends can
"look in" on them any where in the world where they can get broadband
internet access and simply chat for a bit.
Why is Grandma really interested in a CareBot? She wants to stay in her
home, or her family's home, as long as she possibly can. What's that
worth? Priceless. Or, an average nursing home is $5,000 per month for an
environment that is too often the beginning of a spiral downward in the
care receiver's health. That's probably $2-3K more per month for them to
be placed where they really don't want to be. Financial payback on a
CareBot? Less than a year. Emotional payback for the family to have this
new automatic care giver? Nearly instantaneous.
Safe Harbor:
Statements regarding financial matters in this press release other than
historical facts are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of
Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 21E of the Securities
Exchange Act of 1934, and as that term is defined in the Private Securities
Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The Company intends that such statements
about the Company's future expectations, including future revenues and
earnings, technology efficacy and all other forward-looking statements be
subject to the Safe Harbors created thereby. The Company is a development
stage firm that continues to be dependent upon outside capital to sustain
its existence. Since these statements (future operational results and
sales) involve risks and uncertainties and are subject to change at any
time, the Company's actual results may differ materially from expected
results.
Contact:
GeckoSystems Intl. Corp.
GeckoSystems Intl. Corp.
MARKET WIRE
2009-07-09 06:00:16
COMMENTS ( 0 )