Sanbot helps raise quality of life of people with disabilities

The biggest breakthrough for increasing the quality of life for people with physical disabilities has been robotics. For those who have lost limb functionality, many robots offer at least partial restoration of control. For those who have a harder time operating computers, text to voice and voice to input aims to make computers operable. From robots that connect your brain to limbs to robots activated through pressing buttons, they're all helpful. Now a new robot is helping people with disabilities, Sanbot.

For people who have disabilities that impair walking ability, Sanbot can help. Unless you use Sanbot as a cane, Sanbot doesn't directly help, but Sanbot does an important job nonetheless. The idea of falling and no one being around to help is a scary one. Sanbot can detect when you've had a fall and can contact family members. If there is no response Sanbot will contact emergency services: better safe than sorry. You can now walk assured knowing that in the event that you fall alone, you can still receive help.

Some disabilities such as blindness make it harder to operate computers. There is software out there to make operating a computer possible, but it isn't easy. The computer's operating system just isn't made to accommodate for disabilities. With Sanbot, you can access what is basically a computer solely through voice commands or by using a touchpad. It's more likely a conversation and Sanbot will provide great verbal feedback.

Sanbot also connects to wearable devices such as Fitbit to monitor vitals. If you have a health disability that requires vitals to be monitored, Sanbot can help. Here, Sanbot can even help with mental disabilities. For example, if Sanbot detects a panic attack, Sanbot can try to play calming music or light rain hitting the roof. If Sanbot finds a strategy to work well, she'll repeat it. For life threatening or otherwise dangerous vitals, Sanbot can contact health care providers or emergency services. This is far better than the alternative, worrying yourself by checking vitals every 15 minutes: causing a problem where there was none. Thanks to Sanbot's open API it can accommodate a large range of disabilities, and may even help with a few mental ones.