Passive Monitoring for Aging in Place | Frank McDermott of DAR.WIN

What would passive monitoring for older adults look like if nobody had to wear a device or remember it was there? Frank McDermott's 98-year-old grandmother-in-law won't leave the Augusta, Georgia, home she's lived in for 50 years, and her laundry room is in the basement. Now a smart plug down there tells the family when she goes down the stairs and when she comes back up. She's forgotten it's there. The free alert pendant his 97-year-old uncle-in-law got in independent living is still in the box. In this episode of Designing for Dignity, host Erin Young talks with Frank McDermott, founder and CEO of DAR.WIN, which turned the Wi-Fi chips in ordinary smart plugs into passive monitoring with no wearables and no cameras. We recorded this before DAR.WIN closed in August, after its core hardware provider entered the market as a direct competitor. We're publishing it because Frank's lessons on building for older adults hold up, and he's candid about all of it. Frank explains why home safety tech kept stalling: pendants have to be worn and pressed, home automation takes "a PhD in computer science," installed sensors could cost $2,000 to $3,000 per residence, and nobody wants a camera in the bathroom. DAR.WIN's answer was four plugs, a 15-minute setup, a morning email when someone wakes up, and a text after four hours without movement. For founders, his sharpest lesson is a question: am I an inventor or an entrepreneur? The difference, he says, is how many customers you talk to. As software gets cheaper to build, he argues the real test is the discipline not to build. 💡 What you'll learn - Why pendants, cameras, and installed sensors stalled on stigma, setup, cost, and privacy - How Wi-Fi sensing in four smart plugs tracked movement between rooms without wearables - What a morning wake-up email did for adult children living hours away - How customer feedback became a font size toggle that shipped in seven minutes - The readiness bar for caregiver attribution: 99% confidence across thousands of tests - Why Frank visits one of 600 senior care communities near home every week with coffee and donuts 💪 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. 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: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frankmcdermott/ Caravan Interactive: https://crvn.net 🔗 Mentioned in this episode Frank's post on why DAR.WIN closed: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7484988602167296001/ The free 21-Day Email Course from Slide UX: https://slideux.com/agetech-ux-course ⏱️ Chapters 00:00 Introduction 00:27 Why DAR.WIN closed before this episode aired 05:46 Why pendants, cameras, and home sensors missed 10:24 How smart plugs became passive monitoring 15:56 A 98-year-old and her basement laundry room 30:54 Shipping a font size toggle in seven minutes 42:40 Coffee, donuts, and 600 senior care communities 52:28 Inventor or entrepreneur 56:50 The discipline not to build when software is cheap 1:02:34 Outro 🔔 Stay connected Join the Slide UX newsletter: https://slideux.com/newsletter Follow Slide UX on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/slide-ux/