Could the technology used for a kid's shoe save the life of a first responder or military personnel?
The makers of the tech behind High Beam Shoes think so. The engineers at GTD Corp are using the same technology that was developed for a kid's shoe with "Syncing" capabilities.
Kid's Tech As a Base
Last year HB (High Beam Shoes) announced the, soon to be released, "Syncing Technology". In short, these shoes can pair and recognize friends when they come near.
The footwear uses a patented combo of various transmitters and receivers to identify friends.
The syncing tech allows users to add friends or remove them via the phone app. (not required).
Here’s the important part- When a friend comes within proximity, the Led shoes light up and play music! Pretty cool for Kids, and well, pretty cool period.
GTD used the original design for HB's Syncing Kids light up shoe as a base, the team put together a "wish list" of features and capabilities for the perfect first responder boot. Once they fined tuned the wish list they worked backward from there.
"Keep in mind the space constraints in a shoe, wear and tear and power limitations are a constant problem and its not so easy to do all that you would like to do",
Joe Goodrich explains. Joe is a partner at Goodrich International, the managing company of High Beam Shoes.
The Engineers at Goodrich Technology Development were up to the challenge and over the next few months, in spite of all of the obstacles, and power supply troubles, an amped-up version was starting to come together. Utilizing the same basic tech, engineers realized that not only could they make the shoes recognize friends and find Pokémon, but it could save lives in combat and ultimately first responders.
Bringing It Together
It wasn't long after HB announced they would be releasing the first prototypes of the children's shoe, that GTD Corp started collaborating with certain areas of the Government on a Combat boot for the Special Forces. And HB would be the manufacturer.
The boot would be jam-packed with tech from chemical and gas detection to situational awareness and....You guessed it, Friend/Foe awareness.
Exploiting Kid's Technology
When the engineers dug into it, they were able to exploit the tech even more by providing other safety duties such as "Hot Weapon/Dead Weapon".
GTD Corp had started working on a Combat boot that was aware of their team's positions,
in order to curb accidental friendly fire and to help with coordination of teams when satellites are inaccessible. When the engineers dug into it, they were able to exploit the
tech even more by providing other safety duties such as "Hot Weapon/Dead Weapon".
Hot Weapon/Dead Weapon is another amalgamation of the same Kid's tech. In its simplest terms, if you are wearing an American boot, Weapons and Vehicles fire, and drive fine but, if your not......nothing works.
The idea is to prevent our own weapons and vehicles left behind from being used against our own Military.
Helping First Responders
So how does all of this work to help firefighters like the ones fighting the blaze in California?
There is a lot of coordination required to fight these fires. Teams need to know where other teams are as well as individuals within the teams. Working in conjunction with aerial
firefighting aircraft, these wildfire-trained crews suppress flames, construct fire lines, and extinguish flames, evacuate, protect people and property and still have to exit safely, together.
"Our struggles getting to this point are far less important than getting from this point to production." "Getting this technology into the mainstream is the most important task we have as a company"
The basic technology has already been developed and patented by Goodrich Technology Development Corp and is currently in pre-production testing for mass distribution. The management company for HB, Goodrich International has had an uphill battle getting this technology off the ground. According to Joe Goodrich, they have had funding issues, hurricanes, tech limits and those ever-present doubters and naysayers. "Our struggles getting to this point are far less important than getting from this point to production." "Getting this technology into the mainstream is the most
important task we have as a company". Unfortunately, the tech won't be available for this year at least, but the hope is that it will be ready soon.
It is our hope this technology is ready for the next fire season. According to GTD Corp, they should be testing in the next few weeks and Prototyping in the next 4-6 months.
Who would have thought that an Idea for a child's shoe could benefit our military and help coordinate and keep our firefighters safe?