Re:Price of a human life (Score 1)

Actually, I think you are mistaken about this technology not being practical for residential pools. If several million lower-end systems were built to be installed in residences, the cost per system would go way, way down. I can see implementing something like this for a backyard pool as little more than an underwater webcam hooked up to an embedded PC with a horn, for about a $5000 sale price (selling millions of them means a multi-billion dollar market). Assuming the system lasts for 10 years, we're talking about a tenth your estimated cost. Keep in mind that the system would not have to be anywhere near perfect to be useful. Sure, some kid could swim down to the bottom and stay there for a minute, and trigger the horn. But then there would be some parents who wouldn't be wringing their hands for the rest of their lives, saying, "We only turned our backs for ten minutes."