How Senecta works for your agency

1. Order

We send you an order link for the homes and pods you want, with the service agreement already signed by Senecta. You enter your agency's details, sign, and add a card or bank account. Nothing is charged until the pods arrive; then it is $149 a month per home, month to month (see pricing).

2. Consent and the response plan

Before a pod is switched on in a home, your agency gets the client's consent, or their legal representative's, and any other consent the law requires; in all-party consent states such as California, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Washington, that includes everyone whose conversation a microphone could pick up. We give you a consent form to start from.

The same conversation sets the response plan: who receives alerts, in what order, who covers nights and weekends, and what the client wants to happen if they cannot answer. We record each home's address and emergency contacts and test an alert with the family before the home goes live. Between visits has a response plan you can adapt.

3. Setup in the home

1. Choose the rooms. Start where people fall alone: the bedroom, the bathroom, the kitchen and the hallway between them. Three pods are included per home.
2. Place each pod on a surface with a clear view of the floor, away from heaters and direct sun, following the placement guide.
3. Plug it in. The pod connects over its own cellular link; nothing to join to the home's Wi-Fi.
4. Set it up in the Senecta app, which caregivers you give access to use to add the pod to the client's home.

4. What the pod notices

A low-resolution thermal sensor sees the room as heat, and a microphone listens for the sounds that go with a fall. Neither is an ordinary camera or a recording device: both are analysed in real time and not stored, except the moments around an event the system classifies as a possible fall, which are kept to confirm it and to share with the people responding. What the pod looks for is less the fall itself than what comes after it: a person who goes down and stays down, rather than one who picks up a dropped pan and carries on. How Senecta detects a possible fall explains the method and its limits, and our research publishes how well the AI behind it does.

5. The check-in

When the pod notices a possible fall, it speaks to the person in the room: “Are you okay?” A clear “I’m okay” ends it there. Silence, a call for help, or an answer that does not sound right moves it to the next step. The check-in is what keeps a dropped remote or a pet from becoming a phone call to a daughter at 3 a.m.

6. Alerts and calls

If the client does not clear the check-in, the service alerts your agency and calls the emergency contacts on record, one after another, until someone answers. A contact who answers can talk to the client through the pod. From there, people decide: a coordinator calls the client, a neighbour with a key goes over, a caregiver is sent, or someone calls emergency services. Senecta does not have a staffed monitoring centre; your response plan is what turns an alert into help.

7. What your team sees

Your agency's account lists your homes, the pods in each and the employees you give access to. Caregivers you add use the Senecta app for setup. Where your care management software offers an open API, we connect Senecta to it on request so events sit next to the care record.

What Senecta does not do

Questions agency owners ask

Does the client need Wi-Fi or a smartphone?

No. Each pod has its own cellular connection and needs only a power outlet. The client does not wear or press anything.

Who answers the alerts?

The people in the home's response plan: your agency and the family's emergency contacts, in the order you agree. Senecta places the calls; people decide what happens next.

Can the pod see or record the client?

It has no ordinary camera. Its thermal sensor sees heat, and audio is analysed in real time and not stored, except around an event classified as a possible fall.

How long does setup take?

Placing and plugging in the pods takes minutes per room. The longer part is the conversation with the family about consent and the response plan, which is also what makes the service work.