Emergency Tools Can Save Lives

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/02/16

Kenny Kelley, CEO of Silent Beacon, is a former stuntman turned entrepreneur passionate about saving lives. His journey from high-risk Hollywood to founding the world’s only Bluetooth panic button that directly calls 911 showcases his dedication to innovation, safety, and empowering individuals in emergencies. Kelley designed Silent Beacon to protect high-risk situations, benefiting industries such as healthcare, education, and social services. The device boasts real-time GPS tracking, two-way communication, and a patented beacon-to-beacon alert system. After refining the initial version based on user feedback, Silent Beacon 2.0 offers extended battery life and enhanced mobility. Kelley emphasizes the importance of innovation, addressing challenges like irrelevant reviews, and adapting to evolving legislation on workplace safety.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Silent Beacon is a revolutionary emergency alert system featuring the only Bluetooth panic button that can directly call 911. It was founded by Kenny Kelley, our guest today, a former stuntman. The device offers life-saving solutions for high-risk situations.

Its features include real-time GPS tracking, silent alerts, and workplace notifications. These features enhance the safety of healthcare workers, individuals in danger, and first responders. It represents a new approach to personal and workplace safety. Were specific policies or mandates implemented in various workplaces that made this seem the right time to launch the product?

Kenny Kelley: We shifted our model from consumer-focused to business-focused for the 2.0 version, the new product that has been released. Yes, laws, such as Alyssa’s Law, require certain states to have panic buttons for teachers. For example, Texas and Florida have implemented this, along with seven other states. Legislation is also in progress in about 13 additional states, and this number keeps growing.

Additionally, there are laws targeting other industries, such as hospitality. For instance, Washington State has legislation requiring protections for retail employees. More legislation is being passed regarding panic buttons because of the growing emphasis on safety and the need for companies to ensure their employees can access help as quickly as possible in emergencies.

Jacobsen: How does Silent Beacon differentiate itself from other emergency systems?

Kelley: First and foremost, our product directly calls 911. Most of our competitors route users through a call center, which can be useful for some applications. However, most people prefer to speak directly to 911 in an emergency rather than through an intermediary. Additionally, our device offers two-way communication.

You can speak directly into it without waiting for 911 to receive a signal. It also alerts multiple entities and individuals simultaneously. For example, in a workplace environment, it could notify other people in the building, such as managers, owners, or even remote workers. It casts a wide net, alerting various stakeholders—other employees, 911, or security teams. This is a significant improvement over systems that send a single direct signal to a call center.

Moreover, we hold a patent for our beacon-to-beacon alert feature. This allows one Beacon to activate other beacons within the same emergency group. If someone in your group is in trouble, their Beacon triggers alerts on others. This enables you to access a phone or computer to identify who is in trouble and understand the situation’s specifics.

This information could influence your actions, such as deciding not to go to a specific office or location based on the alert. This level of connectivity and situational awareness sets us apart.

Jacobsen: What industries or demographics have found Silent Beacon most useful?

Kelley: Currently, 81% of our business is in healthcare. This is largely because nearly half of home healthcare nurses have been assaulted in the past two years, which is shocking, right? A recent poll showed that five or six out of ten nurses expressed no longer wanting to be in this profession due to the risks they face. Going into communities or interacting with people experiencing life-altering situations can be incredibly challenging.

For instance, there was a nurse who was tragically killed in Connecticut while visiting someone’s home. Because of incidents like this, many companies in Connecticut use our product. Many companies must send workers into environments where they may not feel safe. Still, by law, they must, as everyone in the United States has the right to healthcare.

Living situations may not be ideal in these cases, and navigating them can be difficult. Having a product like ours helps address these challenges. Social services is another significant area for us because those workers often deal with individuals who may have mental health issues.

Whole cities also use our product to ensure that their workers remain safe, frequently out in the community rather than in buildings. Education is another major vertical for us. So, healthcare, social services, municipal workers, and education are the four main sectors that benefit from our product.

Jacobsen: What types of attacks are these healthcare workers facing in their homes? What is the range of severity? What is the threshold? How common are murders?

Kelley: I cannot say how common murders are specifically in this context. However, I do know that in the United States, a murder occurs roughly every 32 minutes according to FBI.gov.. Nurses face danger every day, and the numbers are alarming: 81.6% of nurses report workplace violence annually, according to National Nurses United. This landscape is changing drastically due to COVID.

COVID has increased the need for healthcare workers to go into communities. At the same time, hospitals and rehab centers are focused on getting patients discharged and home. The overwhelming number of patients means there are not enough nurses or employees to manage the demand within hospitals.

As a result, home healthcare has become a critical area, and unfortunately, its associated risks are increasing. While this number grows, studies typically take two years to produce comprehensive results. Since COVID was only a few years ago, the latest post-COVID statistics may not be available.

Jacobsen: With the growing legislation around workplace safety, how does Silent Beacon cater to panic button mandates? We touched on this a little earlier.

Kelley: One of the great things about Silent Beacon is that it directly calls emergency services, whereas other systems often rely on intermediaries. It’s also a mobile solution. It piggybacks off your smartphone, connecting via Wi-Fi or cellular service. This makes it effective in mobile situations where legislation requires the device to be carried on your person.

Many older panic button systems are fixed, such as placed under a desk or at specific locations within a building. This solution allows for complete flexibility and mobility, which aligns with legislative requirements.

Jacobsen: What features can users expect from Silent Beacon for improved personal and workplace safety? Looking to the future, what can people anticipate?

Kelley: We aim to continue innovating by incorporating a mesh network within buildings and structures, expanding the distance users can be from Wi-Fi or cellular-connected devices. Innovation is key to our growth.

Since we piggyback off Android and iPhone, which collectively spend $60 billion annually on R&D, it would not make sense for us to create a standalone cellular device. It would quickly become outdated, and we could not keep up with their advancements.

Therefore, staying compatible with iPhone and Android is critical to our future success.

Jacobsen: What were some of the bigger challenges in developing the product?

Kelley:

Our 1.0 version was focused entirely on consumers. I was inspired to create it after experiencing a bad motorcycle accident. I thought, “I have all this technology in my pocket, but I cannot do anything with it.”

I was stuck on the side of the road with damaged gloves and could not access my phone. I wished for something to notify people, “Here is where I am—send help.” That was the initial idea.

However, the feedback for version 1.0 highlighted several issues. Complaints like “this doesn’t work” or “the battery doesn’t last long enough” helped shape 2.0. The most critical customer feedback guided our improvements.

For instance, people were dissatisfied with the seven-day battery life, so we increased it to 42 days. They found the speaker volume too low, so we enhanced the shell enclosure to amplify the sound. Concerns about range and other limitations were also addressed.

We also wanted to provide flexibility. For example, the device now fits a universal wristband, accommodating any 18mm pin. Customers can buy bands from Amazon or use ones they already own, giving them freedom instead of forcing them to purchase accessories exclusively from us.

These improvements were all driven by feedback, ensuring that 2.0 addressed the most common frustrations with our original product.

Jacobsen: What has been irrelevant feedback? Everyone always references five-star, three-star, and one-star reviews. Sometimes, five-star reviews are irrelevant, with comments like “good,” and one-star reviews can occasionally turn into long-winded rants where it’s clear the reviewer has not even used the product.

Kelley: Yes, that’s a great question. The FTC recently introduced new guidelines addressing fake reviews and testimonials. Companies can no longer buy social media influence or solicit reviews without the reviewer having genuinely used the product. Reviewers cannot be given anything as a reward for their review. Our lawyers spent a week reviewing these new regulations.

So, how do we deal with irrelevant reviews? Unfortunately, you cannot remove them. Platforms like Apple, Android, and Amazon do not allow reviews to be deleted. For example, we often get comments like, “I ordered five for my business, and they didn’t work.” However, the business versions of our products must be purchased directly from us. Buying consumer versions from Amazon and expecting them to work with our business solution is a misunderstanding.

In those cases, we try to reach out and explain that it may have been a user error, but we apologize anyway. It’s especially difficult with consumers because they may not fully understand the product or the process. Businesses, on the other hand, tend to grasp the system better and provide constructive feedback.

With individual consumers, I call them the “onesie-twosies,” it’s harder to manage. I understand their frustration because I’ve been someone who cannot figure something out and writes a poor review out of frustration. However, it is challenging to address these issues.

While reviews can vary, we take all feedback seriously and use it to drive meaningful improvements.

Jacobsen: The product itself is straightforward. What’s the rarest or most unusual context in which someone has used it?

Kelly: Great question! One of the craziest situations involved a little girl in her treehouse. She repeatedly hit the panic button for an entire hour.

We saw a constant alert coming from one location and thought it might be a major incident. When we investigated, she said, “I’m in the treehouse. I’m in the treehouse. I’m in the treehouse.” She kept sending the same message repeatedly, about a hundred times.

Jacobsen: So, that was the craziest use case?

Kelly: Yes, definitely!

Jacobsen: That’s all the questions I have. Kenny, thank you for your time today and for creating this device. 

Kelly: Thank you! Have a great weekend.

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