Start-up launches easy-to-use mobile phone
If you have ever tried to explain to an elderly relative how to use your mobile phone, you will understand why Mobi-Click AG is generating excitement with its new range of phones that work using just three buttons.
The product line emerging from the canton Zug-based start-up primarily targets older people, the blind and children.
To make a call or set off an alarm, the user has to press just one button to connect to a pre-programmed telephone number, for instance emergency services.
The manufacturer expects the new technology to be used for emergency one-touch calling systems, as a baby-monitoring phone and as an alarm system.
Low-cost
Another thing making the device attractive is its low cost. It’s probably the cheapest alarm system on the market, including fixed line systems, says Peter Keller, head of sales and marketing.
According to Keller, the firm is also working on a phone that locates the user, broadcasting their location to the screen of another mobile or emergency service company.
Deals are underway with Vitaphone, which offers special services for handicapped, elderly and blind customers in partnership with Vodafone in Germany.
The low cost is achieved by outsourcing manufacturing steps and by buying in modules from competitive sources. For example, Mobi-Click uses a module that it buys from Paris-based SAGEM, which used once to manufacture its own branded handsets, but now offers components to what would have been its competitors.
The firm, which employs three full-time staff, has made rapid progress since its founding, spending only SFr1 million ($800,000) of the founder’s capital to launch.
It helps that the founder, Gerhardt Pütter, is an experienced high-tech entrepreneur, whose other company, TSL Semiconductor AG, based in Neuhausen, manages the manufacturing for Mobi-Click.
by Valerie Thompson
Mobi-Click has produced a mobile phone that operates using just three buttons.
It’s aimed primarily at the elderly, blind and young children.
Be pressing a pre-programmed number the caller can be connected to emergency services or a relative or carer.
Another advantage of the device is its low cost.
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