Media Articles and Coverage

Swimming Pool Alarms Let Parents Breathe Easier
By GRANT BUCKLER
Thursday, August 26, 2004
Special to The Globe and Mail

When Jack and Dorothy Hobbs built a lakefront home west of Ottawa last year, they worried about their grandchildren. Would the children and their visiting friends be safe playing at the waterfront?

So they bought six bracelets called Safety Turtles from Ottawa-based Terrapin Communications Inc. On each bracelet is what looks like a plastic turtle. When immersed in water, the monitoring technology inside remotely sets off an alarm at wireless base stations that can be placed around the property and in the home to alert adults that a child has fallen into a lake or pool.

Aimed mainly at the owners of swimming pools, such alarms and other monitoring technologies are a growing business in many countries. But while Canadian companies are among those tapping this global market, Canadians themselves have so far been relatively slow to dive in.

Paul Laurent, president of Allweather Inc., the Boucherville, Que.-based manufacturer of Pool SOS alarms, says most of his company's business is outside Canada. Interest is high in France, where every pool must by law have a perimeter fence or monitoring system, and in the United States, where some counties require pool alarms, he says. But in Canada, the only legal requirement is a fence around the property containing the pool. As a result, consumer awareness of safety technology is spotty in Canada and demand varies by region.

Bob Lyons, president of Terrapin Communications, says Safety Turtle sales have generally been good in Ontario, and lately interest has been growing in Quebec -- possibly because alarm sales often exhibit what he termed a "community effect." Once a certain number of people have the alarms, more start wanting them.

"There's a kind of a tipping point in a community," he says

There are two broad categories of pool alarms. Entry alarms signal when anyone or anything enters the pool. They detect waves or water displacement, and may either be mounted permanently underwater or float -- as Allweather's $79.95 Pool SOS does -- on the surface.

The second type is wearable, like the Safety Turtle, and protects an individual by detecting contact with water. The Safety Turtle wristbands cost $98, and more than one can be used with a $200 base station, Mr. Lyons says

Advocates of the pool-entry type point out that they protect anyone near the pool, not just those wearing alarm devices, and that parents don't have to remember to make their children wear special gear. Mr. Laurent says most pool drowning victims are children who jump fences to get into neighbours' pools. They won't be wearing alarms, he says, and it's easy to forget to put bracelets on.

Makers of wearable alarms maintain that a pool-entry alarm is no help if a small child falls into an occupied pool and isn't detected in time. Mr. Lyons says his company spent considerable effort designing the Safety Turtle so children would want to wear it. "Within a week they're the ones reminding the parents to put it on," he claims.

Ms. Hobbs, who created a "turtle club" to get kids to wear the devices, agrees. "They've certainly been willing to wear them."

Barbara Byers, public education director with the Lifesaving Society in Toronto, says the ideal would be to use both types of alarm. But she also warns that no alarm is a substitute for fencing and supervision, no matter how good the technology behind it.

Back to Media Articles and Coverage »