Richmond tech company Regulr is seeking a healthcare partner to get their new social distancing app out on the market.
When brick and mortar stores began closing their doors at the onset of Covid-19, the team at Regulr began altering their Bluetooth technology to serve a new purpose. The result was Distance, an app that notifies you through a vibration on your phone when you get within six feet of another person.
A 15-minute timer ensures that users are not constantly bombarded with alerts; rather, the alerts are there to offer a friendly reminder no more than once during a 15 minutes timeframe to encourage good social distancing behaviors, said Founder Stephen Dodge
"We're the only proximity tool that is out there," he added. "Contact tracing has become big but that data is very historical. We want to give people a realtime tool that helps incentivize and encourage good social distancing behaviors so hopefully, they act on it in real-time."
The app is live on the Andriod app stores, however Apple now requires all Covid-related apps to be posted by a healthcare organization, a government entity, a university or a nonprofit in the healthcare space. Because of this requirement, Dodge said the company needs a to give the app to who can be the force behind its widespread adoption.
"We are looking for a partner with whom we can really collaborate," he said. "They can take the app and publish it in the app store, and we can continue to collaborate with them as we increase the features we want to build out."
The team is currently in discussions with healthcare organizations and universities around the country about potential partnerships, although Dodge could not disclose the names of any contenders at this time. He hopes the team will secure a partnership that will allow the app to be published on the Apple store within the next couple of weeks.
Before Covid, Regulr had been creating a platform that offered personalized consumer experiences by using Bluetooth tech to remember customer preferences and recommend them to staff when the customer walked through the door.
The company had completed a six month pilot of the app at Richmond businesses like Quirk Hotel, River City Roll and Tang & Biscuit and had begun the process of building a V1 of the platform based on their findings. The platform featured things like contactless payment options and Point of Sale integrations that Dodge imagines can be useful in the future as they help businesses adapt to new practices in the age of Covid.
While Regulr is fully bootstrapped, Dodge said the team is hoping to secure some sponsorships in addition to a healthcare partner so Distance can have the widest impact possible.
"We are self-funded, but it will take quite a bit of money to support [the app] if it does scale in order to fund cloud costs, maintain the code and pay our team," Dodge said.
A conversation around such a piece of technology is not complete without addressing concerns associated with personal privacy. As contract tracing has become a widespread tool for containing the spread of the coronavirus, many have expressed issues with the idea of having their personal information and movements tracked.
Dodge said the app exists solely as a proximity sensor sending out real-time Bluetooth signals. People can use the app without ever signing in or making a profile, and no data is saved anywhere. This is the biggest difference between Distance and contact tracing, he said.
"We want the community to be confident and safe as they reopen," he said. "We really just want to get this out there so it will make the biggest impact it can. We see this as a really unique solution that no one else has really been doing."
