BusinessTN

Long the leader in telephony for the hearing impaired, Chattanooga-based Clarity is calling on a new market. While the lure of 78 million bespectacled baby boomers have inspired manufacturers like Samsung to create chunky adaptations of existing phones, Clarity has designed the first mobile expressly for older seniors, an underserved demographic that's also booming. Clarity plans to secure that niche by wrapping high technology in a low-tech package. Think "Can you hear me now?" meets "I've fallen, and I can't get up."

Carsten Trads knew the market potential of the over-65 set when he left the hearing aid industry in 2003 to head up Clarity, a division of California-based Plantronics. At his direction, Clarity co-commissioned an exhaustive survey of older people's lifestyles, needs and fears. The survey revealed that, unlike boomers, older seniors use cell phones sparingly, if at all, and they almost never textÑanathema to most mobile service providers. But with the older population expected to hit a billion worldwide by 2030, cell phones are fast becoming critical lifelines for those hoping to "age in place." (Most seniors fear nursing homes worse than death, according to the survey.)

"The number-one reason for seniors to get a cell phone is for security," Trads says.

The ClarityLife C900 is amplified, like all Clarity phones, and it is sold "unlocked"--usable with any mobile carrier--because older people dislike long-term contracts.

"I don't think they want to buy something that could last longer than they do," Trads explains.
The phone's other features support its use as the emergency tool seniors consider a mobile to be. Its illuminated face has only four buttons, including arrows to navigate 10 prioritized contacts. (Trads says his 83-year-old father, who's never used the C900's slider keypad, is a typical customer.)

There's no camera or Internet, but a red button on the back triggers repeating calls to five pre-programmed contacts until a human responds. Seniors in a test market especially liked the phone's built-in flashlight, Trads notes with a smile.

Indeed, Majd Alwan, director of the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Center for Aging Services Technologies, says the C900's simple user interface represents a "less is more" trend in cell phone technology that directly addresses the needs of seniors.

"Regular cell phones that are on the market are packed with features, more than 50% of which are not used regularly by the average user, let alone a senior user," he says. "That's where less becomes more."

That low-tech look won't go away with the next-generation C900, due out next year. But beneath the facade will be advanced customer service and sound-processing technology, christened "Clarity Logic," designed to further distance Clarity from its competition. The new cell phone will feature smart amplification found in high-end hearing aids, which eliminates background noise, suppresses feedback and acts as a volume "auto-pilot." Clarity launched its patented sound processing last year in a cordless phone, which drove the company's 7% growth.

Trads says Clarity's small engineering department spent two years integrating that sound-processing into a chip that also works as a cordless transmitterÑa technology that the world's largest phone company, British Telecom, tried, and failed, to develop. "There's some really high-tech stuff that nobody else can do going on behind these walls," he says of Clarity's modest Chattanooga headquarters.

More proof that sophistication can look deceptively simple.