Some time ago, Chad Hervert 's son , Daniel, was diagnosed with benign Rolandic epilepsy, a type of epilepsy that, according to the Epilepsy Foundation, affects 15% of all children diagnosed with this disease, and, on the downside, most of them grow up without suffering any kind of seizure.
Unfortunately, there's a problem: Daniel experiences attacks late at night or very early in the morning, right while he's sleeping. This is very dangerous, so his father, Chad, decided to invest his money in a sleep monitor/alarm placed on his bed to give his son a better quality of life. This monitor detects when he's having a seizure.
At the same time as making this purchase, he began studying how the monitor worked in order to develop his own DIY alarm system powered by an Arduino Micro. The starting point was the " Knock " project, originally created by David Cuartielles in 2007 and modified by Tom Igoe in 2011. According to Chad Herbert himself :
While my wife was looking in the market for a monitor/alarm to buy, I was doing some research and learned a few things, such as that they are very difficult to find ; I think the one we ended up buying was made by a company in Great Britain; they are very expensive ; the price finally came to around $500; and they are very inconvenient. Once installed, you don't feel it's there, but if you have to move it, it's a real problem.
Once I understood these things, I decided to find a way to build a simple alarm that would trigger in the event of a seizure and that would be inexpensive and easy to transport. I'm sure there are people out there with children who suffer from seizures and who simply can't afford such expensive equipment, even though they really need it . Thanks to the people in the Arduino community, who were able to make this project a reality.
