ROAR Athena – smart protection for women

Earlier this week we wrote about a new smart ring from Neyya. Although it looks like a nice piece of jewellery, it can actually be used as a sort of fancy remote control to scroll through pages in a presentation or even turn the volume up and down when listening to music via Spotify etc.

Now we’ve been sent details of another piece of smart jewellery, albeit one with a very different purpose. Called Athena, it’s from a company called ROAR and is being billed as the latest piece in ‘safety jewellery’ for women.

Basically it’s a bit like an old fashioned rape alarm, but looks like a nice piece of jewellery you can wear around your neck like a necklace or a clip on pendant that can be attached to a T-Shirt, jeans, handbag etc. It’s available in three colours (silver, black and gold) and is smaller than a 50 pence piece.

The idea is that if you do come under attack you can press the button and after three seconds it will emit an 85dB sound, the LEDs will light up and messages will be sent to your friends or family members via a smartphone app along with your location.

Alternatively, you can set it up in silent mode – if you feel like something is not quite right, say you are being followed or are in a cab and are worried about the driver. In this case, you just press the pendant three times and your location will be sent to your friends and family.

The Athena safety pendant can be worn around the neck like a piece of jewellery
The Athena safety pendant can be worn around the neck like a piece of jewellery

I think it’s a great idea and one that should make women everywhere feel a lot safer. Currently you can place your order on crowdfunding website Indiegogo here for $75 (these will be shipped May 2016). Alternatively for $100 not only will you get one of the devices but so will a woman in need of one via the Women Against Abuse initiative.

ROAR has also partnered with The One Love Foundation with ten percent of proceeds from this campaign going towards raising awareness about the warning signs of abuse and helping end relationship violence.

So far the Athena project in Indiegogo has raised nearly $500,000, over 600 per cent of the original $40,000 goal required with just three days left to go.

 

 

 

Chris Price