CAN GO smart cane
From March 19 customers visiting Best Buy will be able to pick up the world’s smartest walking cane – the CAN GO.
Launched in May last year, the robust and sleekly designed cane packages together a number of connectivity features never before seen in a walking aid. These include a SIM card for voice calling, a GPS locator and, perhaps most intriguingly, unique mobility tracking features.
These almost bring the CAN GO into the family of health-tracking wearables like the Apple Watch and Fitbit but with an important emphasis on key elements related to mobility health such as gait speed scores, fall risk notifications and activity alerts.
All of the above data points can be shared with caregivers, family members and medical rehabilitation professionals via the CAN GO’s companion smartphone app.
"We are thrilled to announce our collaboration with Best Buy, the leading consumer electronics retailer. With this partnership, more people are now able to unlock mobility care programs when they purchase the CAN Go,” said CAN Founder and CEO Ahmad AlGhazi in commenting on the new partnership.
“Together, we want to reinvent the experience of care solutions, includingwhere people buy them.”
Ashley Ghilardi, Category Lead of Best Buy added, “Our collaboration highlights both companies’ commitment to providing people with the innovative tools they need for healthy, independent and active aging. The CAN GO transforms the way we look at mobility aids. It is a cool product packed with the smartest functions and maximum safety.”
The smart cane will be available for $399 at Best Buy and users will receive a free 12 month subscription to the device’s online services.
Enhanced visibility
The partnership of San Francisco-based CAN Mobilities and Best Buy represents a considerable boon for consumers of assistive technology who often encounter accessibility obstacles when it comes to exploring new products on the market.
The drivers behind this are complex but, at their core, stem from the fact that innovative assistive technologies tend to emerge from small specialist providers with limited marketing and consumer outreach budgets.
Not only do chronically disabled people often have to pay inflated prices for specialist products – required, in part, simply to maintain the manufacturer’s viability as a business – there is also a severe lack of visibility in the market and low levels of awareness around the latest smart solutions.
This is, perhaps, less of a problem for web-savvy younger consumers with disabilities who are more likely to have an awareness of mainstream technology trends and the necessary online research skills to make specialist products more discoverable.
However, for the older generation, this can be more of a pain point. They may need to rely on children or grandchildren to carry out research on their behalf or luck out in having a physical or occupational therapist who keeps abreast of the very latest developments in smart and connected assistive technology solutions.
Making the CAN GO highly visible by bringing it straight into the Best Buy product inventory is likely to turnout to be a considerable boon for aging and mobility-impaired customers. At the same time, Best Buy’s strong brand value should endow many with the confidence to try out the innovative new mobility solution for themselves.
CAN Mobilities is not planning to stop with just the cane and companion app and has ambitions to create tailored end-to-end mobility solutions based on leveraging the highly personalized movement data captured by the device. This will include the provision of online exercise classes targeting specific muscle groups contributing to the user's gait abnormalities and real-time granular data on their future impact on gait speed and stability.
