My Dad has dementia, and my Mum is his full-time carer. She lives it every day. The rest of us live further away, and for a long time that meant worrying from a distance, waiting for the next phone call, never quite knowing how things were.
Once dementia comes into your family, you start to see it everywhere: friends' parents, neighbours, people in the queue at the shop. It's far more common than any of us realise until it touches us.
I've spent my working life in IT, and the main thing it taught me is that the information is usually already there. Small, everyday signals, like a door opening, a quiet morning, or a night that's different from the usual, can show that something has changed long before it turns into a crisis. You just need to notice them, gently and in the right way.
So I built a system at home, for my own family. A few small sensors learn the normal rhythm of my parents' day. There are no cameras and no microphones, nothing that listens or looks. Each morning we see plainly how the night went, and it speaks up when something is outside the usual. From miles away, we can keep an eye on things and take on some of the watching, so it doesn't all rest on one person's shoulders.
It helped us so much that I created Central Core to share the idea with other families.
Every person is different, and so is every home. Central Core is built so that each family sets its own rules: what matters to you, and when you'd like to know. You can tell it about the person you care for, such as their habits, their routines and the things that are normal for them. And it learns their particular ways on its own, from their home, over time.
That's what I want for every family living with dementia: to be able to help, even from afar. The reassurance of knowing, without intruding, and a way to share the watching with the person who's there every day.
What we believe
Dementia care should be care. These come before any feature, design or price.
- Care first. Every feature has to help a family look after someone better. If it only helps us, it doesn't ship.
- Dignity. No cameras, no microphones, nothing that watches. Sensors notice the rhythm of the day, not the person.
- The family stays in control. You choose who sees what, how alerts work and when to stop. Your data is yours.
- Plain and honest. We say what the sensors showed, never more. No medical claims, no scare tactics.
- Affordable. The monthly fee stays low, and you pay only for extras you use.
- Open. We are making the code public, so anyone can check it, run it or improve it.