Sure doesn’t look like a cell phone
Someone needs to run with this idea ’cause there’s money to be made.
Many rehab hospitals and other short-term healthcare facilities prefer residents to use cell phones. Indeed, temporary in-room phones (like you’d find in hospitals) are often not available.
However, a cell phone is much more difficult to use than an old-style phone for residents who are elderly, who have a tremor, or who lack fine motor control.
So, why not design a hybrid: all the electronics and working parts of a cell phone, but housed in an old-style phone like the one pictured here:
Key design points:
- Large number pad
- Volume control (preferably a dial that can be turned, rather than up/down arrow-type controls)
- No buttons or controls on the receiver
- Heavy base to keep the phone stationary
- Input ports, if needed, located on underside and protected with covers
- Power cord plugs into wall outlet
Since many times the need for this design is temporary, perhaps the cell phone companies could lease the units by the month. Maybe they could collaborate with the healthcare facilities, reprogramming a unit for the resident’s existing cell phone number to facilitate billing.
Anyone out there with ties to the cell phone industry, or know someone who does? Please run with this, and let me know where it leads.
This is brilliant – you should not have posted it on here, you should have patented it!