Cherish Serenity sits in the home and is able to detect falls across multiple rooms.
In 2020, when Cherish Health Founder and CEO Sumit Nagpal set out to create Cherish Serenity, a health and safety monitoring device that can detect falls across several rooms, he was told that the product would be impossible to build. One person told him, “People have been trying to do this for 40 years, what makes you think you can pull it off?”
Now four years later, Cherish Serenity has officially launched and is available to consumers. Boston-based Cherish Health announced the launch of the product on January 9 during the CES 2024 conference.
The product looks like a speaker (and functions as one) and goes in the corner of a room in people’s homes. It goes online with AT&T cellular connectivity and leverages radar technology and AI, which allows it to track people’s body position and movement and therefore detect falls. In addition to falls, it also monitors heart rate and respiration. If it detects an emergency, it will notify a caregiver or response center for help. Cherish Serenity can do this without a wearable device or camera.
“We ultimately landed on [a design] that looks like an old-fashioned transistor radio,” Nagpal said. “The whole idea here is that this is something that reminds you of the good old days. … It sits there and plays your favorite radio station, your favorite classical music or whatever you like as you go about your day. While it’s doing that, it also looks out for you.”
Cherish Health launched Cherish Serenity in partnership with Alarm.com, which is bringing the product to market through its dealer channel. These dealers, which include security company ADT, will then sell Cherish Serenity to consumers. The product costs about $250 to $300 with a monthly subscription of $39.
“Cherish Serenity’s novel approach provides detailed insights into safety and activity from a single privacy-oriented device,” said Dan Kerzner, president of platforms business at Alarm.com, in a statement. “This is a new and compelling combination that we are eager to share with our service provider partners so we can enable more people to stay safe and healthy while remaining in their homes.”
The company has raised more than $23 million in funding, including from Alarm.com and healthcare network Northwell Health. Northwell Health did not immediately return a request for comment.
Medical Guardian and Apple (through its Apple Watch) also offer products to detect falls. Nagpal didn’t directly mention these companies as competitors but said that Cherish Serenity differs from other products on the market because it doesn’t require a wearable device. Remembering to wear a device “is a real challenge for people, especially when you get into later stages of life.”
The launch of Cherish Serenity comes at a time when there is a growing focus on prevention and care in the home. This supports that movement, Nagpal said.
“How do you assure the continuity of health rather than the delivery of sick care?” he said. “How do you prevent bad things from happening before that ambulance ride, that hospitalization? All of that begins in the home. That’s where you can pick up signs of rising risk. If you can intervene early in the home itself, you can imagine all the costs we can take on, all the hardship we can prevent. That’s our mission.”
Photo: Cherish Health
