Most families spend their evenings together gathered around the dining room table or television set, eating, talking and laughing. Conversations are usually light—“How was your day, honey?” or “What did you learn at school today, kids?”…
You won’t usually hear conversations about Bluetooth technology, a trip to the Consumer Electronics Showcase or when the next shipment from Hong Kong will arrive—that is, unless you’re at the Penix home.
We’re the Penixes , the founders and creators of ZOMM—the world’s first wireless leash for mobile phones.
I’m the ZOMM Mom, better known as Laurie Penix, wife to Henry and mother to Zachry, Olivia and Madison. A little over a year ago, a girlfriend called me complaining about how her husband lost his iPhone…AGAIN. I’d heard too many stories like hers, and I knew there had to be a way to prevent phone loss scenarios like what her husband had experienced.
I went to my husband, Henry Penix, to help me make my dream a reality. With the help of a team of Bluetooth technology rockstars, ZOMM was unveiled at CES 2010.
Being a mom, my kids are the most important thing in the world to me. So I named our new baby after my kids—Zachry, Olivia and Madison’s Mom—ZOMM.
Now I’m the Co-Founder and President of ZOMM and we’ve just released our wireless leash to market!
Tags: Bluetooth, bluetooth technology, ces, family business, henry penix, Laurie Penix, penix, wireless leash, zac penix, zomm
I think you might be missing the best feature and marketing angle ever. I’ve personally not heard much complaint about people losing their phones, but I constantly hear people complain about not being able to find their keys. You can always call your phone and see who answers or hear it ring, but that doesn’t work for keys. But I’m guessing that with ZOMM your keys will start making it’s noise if you forget your keys becausse you are talking on your phone or texting. If I want to find my keys I just need to get my phone 30′ away. (Would work even
better if you could trigger your ZOMM with your phone to find your keys anywhere. )
David-
Great point! Actually, you can do a little trick (Laurie loves this one) if you’ve lost your keys. Simply turn off the Bluetooth on your phone and your ZOMM will begin to vibrate, flash and sound an alarm. Then you can garb your keys and off you go!
Have you considered adapting this technology to help parents remember kids in the back seat of the car? Every year at this time the news is full of stories about children dying in hot cars. It seems like your technology could be adapted to a device that could attach to the straps of the carseat and would send the parents a message if they got too far from the car without the child. It’s just a thought, but it seems like it’s an untapped portion of the market. I really haven’t heard of any products that offer this safety measure, but it could save a lot of lives.
Actually my cousin Chris Edwards who works for NASA already developed the car seat alarm and has been featured on the Today show several times http://bit.ly/9z8xG4 and in the New York TImes. They have not had much luck getting someone to pick up the idea.