What would passive monitoring for older adults look like if nobody had to wear a device or remember it was there?
In this episode of Designing for Dignity, host Erin Young talks with Frank McDermott, founder and CEO of DAR.WIN, about passive monitoring for aging in place and what he learned building it.
DAR.WIN put sensing inside ordinary smart plugs, reading the Wi-Fi signal to notice movement from room to room with no wearable and no camera. Frank came to the problem after his father had a heart attack in rural upstate New York and took almost two hours to reach a hospital. We recorded this conversation before DAR.WIN closed in August 2026, when its core hardware provider moved into the same market as a direct competitor.
What you'll learn
Why medical alert pendants, cameras, and installed sensors keep stalling on stigma, setup, cost, and privacy
How Wi-Fi sensing in a kit of four smart plugs tracked movement between rooms without anything to wear
What a morning wake-up email gave adult children living hours away
How a customer request for larger text became a font size toggle that shipped in seven minutes
The readiness bar Frank set for caregiver attribution: 99% confidence, across thousands of tests, that someone was in the room
Why Frank visits one of 600 senior care communities near his home every week with coffee and donuts
Key ideas from the conversation
What is passive monitoring for older adults?
Passive monitoring tracks daily activity at home without asking the person being monitored to wear, press, charge, or check anything. In DAR.WIN's version, four smart plugs went in the bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and living room, and setup through a phone app took about 15 minutes. A family member or neighbor got an email each morning when the person woke up, and a text after about four hours without daytime movement. Over weeks, it showed 7-day and 30-day trends, like nighttime bathroom trips. A change there could mean extra water before bed, a urinary tract infection (UTI), or something more serious, and Frank's point is that the person doesn't have to sort out which. As he puts it, "I don't need to diagnose myself." The trend tells them it's time to mention it to someone who can.
Why do older adults stop using medical alert devices and home sensors?
Most home safety technology asks the older adult to do something, and that's where it fails. A pendant only helps if someone wears it, presses it, and accepts the stigma. Frank's 97-year-old uncle-in-law received a free one when he moved into independent living, and it's still in the box. Home automation, in Frank's words, "requires a PhD in computer science to figure it all out." Installed sensors have to be mounted in exact spots and need regular battery changes, and a camera in the bathroom is a privacy line almost no one will cross.
How should founders decide whether an AgeTech idea is a real business?
Talk to enough customers to know the problem is shared and that someone will pay to solve it. Frank frames it as a question: am I an inventor or an entrepreneur? "The difference between the two is how many customers you talk to," he says. His weekly visits to senior care communities taught him things like residents not wanting someone in the house every three months to change batteries. As AI makes software faster and cheaper to build, Frank argues the real gatekeeper of success is the discipline not to act until the evidence is in.
About Frank McDermott
Frank McDermott has built software for more than 25 years. He's CEO and co-founder of Caravan Interactive, which he started in 2010 as one of New York's first iPhone app companies and which now builds AI products and systems for organizations. Earlier in his career, he brought an energy drink to market at 26 and sold 100,000 cases in 18 months. He founded DAR.WIN after his father's heart attack in rural upstate New York and spent four years developing it before closing the company in 2026. He's based in Atlanta.
Frank McDermott on LinkedIn · Visit Caravan Interactive · Read Frank's post on closing DAR.WIN
Episode details
Guest: Frank McDermott, founder and CEO, DAR.WIN
Host: Erin Young, founder of Slide UX
Runtime: 62 minutes
Topics: passive monitoring, aging in place, privacy at home, long-distance care, hardware go-to-market, customer discovery
Watch: Watch the episode on YouTube
About the Designing for Dignity podcast
Designing for Dignity is a podcast from Slide UX, hosted by Erin Young, about how design shapes autonomy, connection, and quality of life for people navigating aging, brain change, and care. Each episode features innovators, care partners, researchers, and people with lived experience working where technology meets real life.
Watch every episode of Designing for Dignity or subscribe to Slide UX on YouTube.