There were quite a few customers who were asking us if we could help them to bridge the gap. In many cases, the local authority and housing association couldn’t move to a digital alarm receiving centre (ARC) as they had a long-term contract with the provider, or they simply wanted to keep it.
Everon’s mission is to deliver innovative digital living solutions which support vulnerable individuals to live productive and independent lives. Their systems can be quickly configured to suit individual support requirements across multiple care settings including care homes, assisted living, or at home.
Their flagship offering is Lyra, an intelligent, cloud-based digital alarm handling platform that includes wireless telecare sensors and devices provided to individual users, and a central hub connecting to the ARC.
In the UK, the analogue public switched telephone network (PSTN) will be turned off at the end of 2025. In preparation, many of the grouped living and assisted living spaces that have been using analogue alarm systems up to now are looking to switch to a digital platform like Lyra.
Many of these potential customers are connected to alarm receiving centres that cannot yet receive digital alarms calls. Switching to a different alarm receiving centre would require budget and, in many cases, a formal tendering process. There may also be contractual obligations in place which would complicate matters, as Richard Hosier, Head of Product Development at Everon UK, explained.
This means that even if Local Authorities and Housing Associations switch to digital telecare devices in their grouped living locations, they cannot really take the step to providing an all-digital care service end to end.
We would usually connect to all control centres digitally with Lyra, but for any that are not in a position to take digital calls, we can now use the iotcomms.io solution to bridge that gap.
To solve the problem, there would need to be some way of connecting Lyra’s digital telecare solution deployed in grouped living spaces with the analogue alarm response systems used by the alarm receiving centres.
Everon searched for a solution and contacted iotcomms.io, a specialist supplier of real-time alarm, voice and video communications services. The iotcomms.io platform and the protocol conversion functionality included in Alarmbridge provided what Everon needed.
With this functionality Everon can send its digital-based alarm communication to the iotcomms.io platform which will receive it and send it as an analogue-based alarm communication to the ARC system.
This way the Everon/iotcomms.io solution enables digital grouped living systems to continue to use alarm receiving centres only capable of receiving analogue-based alarms. The combined Everon/iotcomms.io solution is also establishing a secure voice communication between the analogue-based ARC system and the grouped living location.
Alarmbridge was integrated with Lyra and first used in September 2022 and has since been rolled out to several Everon customers.
We provide life-saving equipment and I feel confident that their solution is safe, and we can feel comfortable using it. We have multiple sites already and have had no issues at all to date. It’s been a total success.
Everon can now also respond to tenders where there is a specific requirement to provide a bridge between the digital solutions being installed in care homes and assisted living locations, and analogue systems used by alarm receiving centres. The iotcomms.io platform also enables digital connectivity end-to-end.
This means local authorities and housing associations can go ahead and embrace new digital technologies. Furthermore, it eases the pressure on housing and local authorities to make the move to digital alarm receiving platforms ahead of the PSTN switch-off.
“Let’s say it’s a housing association with 50 locations which they want to upgrade to digital but can’t yet as they are in contract with an alarm receiving centre that can’t take digital alarms”, said Richard Hosier.
“It can now go ahead and upgrade those 50 locations without having to wait for the receiving centre software to be capable of handling digital-based communication. That means they can use their favoured ARC provider and keep their monthly and annual reporting consistent.”
What really makes the difference, said Richard Hosier, is it gives customers the ability to transition from analogue to digital. “We’re enabling care service providers to start upgrading to future-proof digital solutions and use them with analogue alarm receiving centres until the whole alarm communication process is digital from end to end.”
Richard Hosier has been really impressed with iotcomms.io, both in terms of their technical ability and understanding Everon’s needs.
Everon are the European market leader in digital grouped living solutions. They have been providing digital solutions since 2007 in Finland and Sweden and were introduced to the UK in 2019. Their systems can be quickly configured to suit individual support across multiple care settings including care homes, assisted living, or at home.
Their flagship offering is Lyra, an intelligent, cloud-based digital alarm handling platform that includes wireless telecare sensors and devices provided to individual users, and a central hub connecting to the ARC.
Alarms can be received and managed using the Lyra mobile app on any smartphone. Lyra can also be tailored to allow voice communications between the client and caregiver.
Modern CPaaS built cloud-native from ground up – we run the operations for you so you can focus on your customers’ experience.
Built for mission critical alarm, voice & video services – delivering superior reliability, security and availability.
Built with serverless functions in AWS for unlimited scale, reach and global deployment – extend to new markets quick and easy.