Sirens cut through the air. Smoke clouds the skyline. Somewhere, someone is waiting to be saved, and in those moments, confusion can be as dangerous as the crisis itself. Many deaths result not from the disaster itself but from panic, confusion, and poor decisions. Before acting, they determine: Who else is already On scene? Where are the injured located? Which areas are unsafe? Are the responders themselves safe and not in danger?
In today’s complex response environment, First Responders need more than disconnected radios and fragmented legacy systems – built on incompatible frequencies, formats, and platforms. These lead to slow coordination, create information gaps, and hinder multi-agency operations when every second counts.
AGIS, Inc. is about to change that with their LifeRing Responder system. The veteran-founded technology company has taken software originally designed for military operations and reimagined it for a different mission: saving civilian lives.
By leveraging ‘off-the-shelf’ devices like PCs, smartphones, tablets, and smartwatches, the LifeRing Responder system creates a secure, shared operational picture that connects together police, fire, EMS, hospitals, and emergency managers in a real time network, including to a Command Center that has visibility and communications with the responders to an emergency.
Command Center Capabilities and the Smartwatch
At the Command Center a Commanders PC displays the location of the emergency and map of the area along with the location of responders to the emergency based on digital messages sent from the Responders’ wrist worn AGIS Smartwatches. Smartwatches also enable encrypted Push to Talk (PTT) communications between all on the system’s Server network. The Command Center receives and displays the roster of personnel involved in the response along with their ID photograph, their pulse and other vital signs.
From the Command Center PC, the Incident Commander thus has real time visibility of his on-scene personnel and their activities. This is enhanced by enabling him to zoom in on the map and view the detailed locations of each of the Responders to the emergency.
Each Responders’ Pulse, Oxygen Level, Diastolic and Systolic Blood Pressure and Body Temperature is transmitted to the Command Center. Below see example screenshots of the emergency responder profile information that can be viewed. Even more detailed information is displayed by clicking the individual’s icon.
Each Responder’s current location automatically appears on a live map, visible to everyone else connected to the network. As they move, their icons on the map move in near real time also. This creates a constantly updated and shared operational picture once only reserved for military operations.
A firefighter entering a building, a medic navigating debris, an officer securing a perimeter: all can see where others are in real time. The fog of confusion begins to lift and the whole incident/ rescue operation begins synching systematically.
What makes the system stand out?
What makes the AGIS LifeRing Responder system especially powerful is that it does not demand learning an entirely new way of working but enhances what they already do. Firefighters still fight fires. Paramedics still treat the injured. Police officers still secure scenes. But now, each of them has a wrist mounted powerful Smartwatch that travels with them and is not tied to a vehicle or command post.
Information no longer sits in one place waiting to be manually relayed — it moves with the people who are making split-second decisions. In rapidly evolving emergencies, that shift from delayed updates to living, moving awareness can mean reaching a victim sooner, avoiding a hidden danger, or preventing teams from unknowingly walking into life changing risks.
There have been previous attempts to use Smartphones to provide these functions. However, the lack of the ability to use both hands to perform tasks while holding the Smartphone, as well as the requirement to stow the Smartphone when it is not in use and retrieve it when required, has proven to be a critical limitation for on the scene responders.
The military has tried to overcome this limitation by mounting the Smartphone in a flip down device mounted on the users’ chest. This approach might be acceptable except for the fact that the Incident Commander is often the first qualified person on the scene, and may not necessarily be equipped with a First Responders’ Smartphone device.
Now with the addition of AGIS’ Responder Smart Watch, AGIS has enabled each Responder to view the current situation or the Common Operational Picture (COP) in a hands-free wearable…taking a major leap forward in situational awareness.
Furthermore, in contrast to a PC or Smartphone, the Watch also provides real-time health monitoring of the wearer. Biometric health data is continuously monitored by the watch’s sensors and along with other data is transmitted to the Server which automatically relays the data to other watch wearers and the Command Center and its PC consoles.
Any user on the network can select the wearer’s symbol on the COP to access their real time vital signs—including heart rate, SpO2 , and core body temperature—and receives an immediate alert when any measure falls outside the normal physiological range. The Command Center can see all the Responders on the network and a bio-metric readout of the watch users’ vital signs color coded according to concern levels.
The wearer also has the option to declare themselves in an emergency with a tap of a finger. This has the added advantage in triage scenarios, where medics arriving at the location already will immediately be aware of the health and location of any injured Responders and can prioritize care.
The wearer’s Smartwatch location and the location of all the Smartwatches are displayed on the COP. All can communicate using any one of multiple communications methods, such as one-touch PTT, Encrypted Voice, Chat, and Must-Respond-To Commands.
Wearers can also send and receive chats by either typing them in or simply selecting their talkto-text option. When an order is critical such as “clear the building”, the Incident Command PC can send a Must-Reply-Order to which the Responders must reply with a HAVECO, WILCO or CANTCO response before their watch displays can return to show normal functions.
The Incident Commander immediately would know that the lack of a response may indicate that the wearer is in trouble.
The watch can also provide real-time alerts on UAV activity, to do so they simply say Hostile, Drone, Range 300 yards, Bearing 050. The drones’ identity and approximate location are thus defined within a set area, helping Responders stay aware of aerial threats. A sound and vibration on the watch alerts the wearer of the presence of a UAV, and then the system draws an azimuth line between themselves and approaching UAVs.
First Responder-specific map symbols can be added to the map by either typing them in or by using the talk-to-text option. These geospecific map symbols designate the location of an incident such as a Fire, an Active Shooter, Aircraft Crash etc.
The watch has a built-in compass that enables the wearer to report the bearing and range to a point of interest based on their current location. The watches software then resolves this data and places the appropriate map symbol at the correct location. Photos, videos and various files of the incident or people of interest and can also be attached to the map symbol and received by any Responder on their Smartwatch.
The Responder can select any of these map symbols for display and transmission
All these AGIS LifeRing Smartwatch features greatly enhance situational awareness at the scene by providing all responders with an immediate display of the COP and the sharing of accurate and timely intelligence data to the Incident Commander, up the Chain of Command, and to all on the network.
Our speech processing enables messages to be sent either verbally or by entering text.
AGIS’s journey into civilian emergency response was shaped by a painful realization after 9/11 where lives were lost not only because of the attacks, but because responders could not communicate effectively across disparate Federal, State, County, City systems.
AGIS began developing ways to use everyday devices such as cell phones, tablets, computers, etc., and developed software to form instant collaborative networks using commonly used devices and standard public networks.
The AGIS LifeRing software laid the groundwork for what is now a wrist-worn evolution of that vision as we realized that the size, weight, power, and access requirements and lack of ability to access data on the wearers wrist as we do with watches made smartphones less than optimum for fire and police individuals’ use.
Today, AGIS holds 23 U.S. patents, with more pending, in technologies designed to bridge communication gaps between different systems and devices.
The Road Ahead
Future versions of the First Responder Watch are expected to expand into support for Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) response scenarios, environments where coordination, speed, and information sharing become even more critical.
The fact worth mentioning is that the device does not look dramatic. It is not bulky or complex. It resembles a commercially available smartwatch. But inside, it carries something extraordinary that is military-grade situational awareness software that is adapted for everyday heroes.
In the seconds after disaster strikes, clarity can mean survival. And for First Responders racing against time, that clarity may soon come from a simple glance at their wrist. For more information on about this Smartwatch software contact beyerm@ agisinc.com or use this this QR Code.
