Designing a Medical Alert People Actually Wear | Jean Anne Booth, UnaliWear

Jean Anne Booth (0:03)

One of the biggest ones is, will you wear it? And that comes back to that stigma question, right? Go up to any older adult and say, hey, how do you feel about wearing a garage door opener around your neck? And they're going to go, oh, well, that's, you know, I have always been waiting to be there.

Not. And, you know, there's this belief, which is very mistaken among younger people, that old people know they're old, and they don't mind anything that's ugly, because they know they're old and it doesn't matter anymore. And of course, nothing could be further from the truth, right? Because when you look at yourself in the mirror, you see a younger you.

Logan Plaster (0:53)

Jean Anne Booth, CEO and Founder of UnaliWear, thanks for joining me here at StartUp Health.

Jean Anne Booth (0:59)

Thank you for having me, Logan.

Logan Plaster (1:01)

Talking to you reminds me of the benefit of working with folks at StartUp Health over many years and getting to watch your journey unfold, go from an idea to a great product, to really market validation and acceptance. It's exciting to get this update, but I want to start for folks who are watching this, who maybe haven't been on that journey. Get us up to speed on what UnaliWear is, what your Kanega Watch does, and what makes it special in 2026

Jean Anne Booth (1:29)

So the UnaliWear, let me just start with what our name is. So Unali is Cherokee for friend, and Kanega, which is our watch brand, is Cherokee for speak. So here is the friend who speaks to you.

And that was a completely different thought about anything for older people, you know, designing products back in 2013 when I actually started the company.

Logan Plaster (1:56)

What was so unique about it? What were you seeing in the market that you were like, this is not working? And what was your connection to that market?

Jean Anne Booth (2:03)

Yeah, so in my background, I'd already built and sold two semiconductor companies. I'm an electrical engineer, and I was retired, and I was working as a dive master on a liveaboard dive boat. It was quite awesome. And then my mom turned 80

And my mom was a model. She was absolutely drop dead gorgeous, just stunningly stylish and everything else. And when she turned 80, I showed up at her place, I had a little spreadsheet, here's all the things that are on the market. You can get a blue button or a pink button or a yellow button. And she looked at me and she goes, don't you get that for me? I'm not wearing it. And I was like, whoa. And actually realized, I mean, I'm a nerd. I am totally a nerd. And I wouldn't wear one of those garage door openers around my neck. So the thought of my mom, the model wearing a garage door opener around her neck, it just wasn't gonna happen. So I came back to her a couple of weeks later and I said, okay, mom, how about I make you a watch, you talk to it, it talks to you, it can help you out. What do you think?

And my mom goes, what the window?

I said, fine, mom, you're hired. And she was our Senior User Experience Advisor. And she personally weighed in on everything user facing that we did during design with focus groups with over 400 people across the US.

Logan Plaster (3:35)

So what I'm hearing is like, stigma was really the launch point. And I think it's really important that we do not let this idea that I don't want this clunky piece of technology on me. Like I care about what I'm wearing just like everybody else does. Just because I'm over a certain age doesn't mean all of a sudden I want this silly button hanging around my neck. But then it grew into so much more than just something more stylish. So kind of walk me through a little bit of that journey of saying, how can we actually improve on this technology that exists?

Jean Anne Booth (4:03)

Yeah. So really, the thing that actually made me come out of retirement to build UnaliWear and the Kanega Watch was actually when we came up with our battery system in the band. So we have a patented battery system that means you never take it off to charge, so that it's there to help you with falls in the bathroom at night.

People kind of underscope the importance of falls in older adults. But the truth of the matter is, that's the number one cause of injury death. And so the question is, what happens when you fall? Because it's not going to be a question of, are you going to fall? The answer is yes. So then the question is, what happens when you do fall? Can you get help? Does anybody know you fell? How long do you lay on the ground? Are you conscious?