By Tom Waring
Times Staff Writer
A few years ago, Joseph Petrella tried to help an elderly family friend who developed Lou Gehrig’s disease and lost the strength to use a conventional telephone.
Petrella wanted to find an inexpensive, easy-to-use voice-activated telephone.
“I couldn’t find anything,” he said.
So, Petrella and college friends Thomas Krol and Michael Steeil did the next best thing. They invented a voice-activated telephone designed to be inexpensive and easy to use.
Using preprogrammed voice command words detected by a microphone, an elderly or disabled individual can pick up a telephone, dial, redial or activate call-waiting.
Unlike other devices on the market, the system does not require whistling, puffing, blowing or adaptive switches to operate.
“It’s one-hundred-percent hands-free,” Krol said.
How does it work?
The user will say a word such as “phone,” activating a beep and a blinking light. Next, the user will say the name of the person he or she is calling, and the programmed number will be dialed. To end a conversation, the caller can say a word such as “goodbye” or “later.”
The telephone impressed the folks at the Collegiate Inventors Competition, which selected Petrella, Krol and Steeil to compete in last month’s National Inventors Hall of Fame-sponsored event in New York.
The trio represented the College of New Jersey in the 15-team competition. It was an honor to make it that far, since there were 155 entries.
Though the men did not win the $50,000 grand prize or a lesser cash award, they did enjoy seeing the other inventions and were able to make contacts in the business world.
Now that the competition is over, the threesome is working to bring the telephone to the marketplace and concentrating on growing their business.
Petrella and Krol formed the IMET (Innovative Mechanical and Electrical Technology) Corp. in 1999, while they were students at the College of New Jersey, located in Ewing. They met in, of all things, an English class.
Petrella, 22, is president of the company, which started in the basement of his home in the Flemington, N.J., area. He graduated in 2002 with a degree in mechanical engineering.
Krol, a 28-year-old Cardinal Dougherty High School graduate who lives in Torresdale, serves as chief technical officer. A one-time guitarist in the heavy metal band Empty Stares, he graduated summa cum laude last year with a degree in electrical engineering.
Steeil, a Teaneck, N.J., native now living in Mayfair, began as an intern at IMET in the summer of 2002. The 22-year-old earned a degree in electrical engineering in May. Today, he’s the new product development manager.
IMET has grown out of Petrella’s basement and into an office complex in Newtown, Bucks County.
The company invents products and helps other inventors and small- and medium-size businesses develop products. In addition, the IMET owners recently purchased Design Notes, an online electronics equipment company.
“We try to be a one-stop shop here,” Krol said.
Petrella, Krol and Steeil are putting in long hours.
“The hammocks come out of the ceiling,” Petrella joked.
At present, the voice-activated telephone remains in the testing phase. Next year, IMET hopes to produce at least 50 of the systems for sale to the public. Depending on the response, the phone could be mass-marketed.
The testing is being done by disabled people. Initial feedback indicates that the device is working well.
“Sometimes, it’s heartbreaking reading the e-mails or talking to them on the phone,” Petrella said.
At the same time, the IMET officials are overjoyed that they will soon be providing help to elderly and disabled people who have trouble using conventional phones.
“It’s exciting when things work for the first time,” Steeil said.
Besides perfecting the voice-activated phone, IMET is working on a number of projects.
For instance, the company is trying to extend the battery life of a combination pen/computer mouse for Numonics, a Montgomeryville-based business.
The device is used in combination with the Interactive Presentation Manager, a large white board used to give presentations to groups of people.
When IMET took the job, the battery life was a mere 11 hours.
“I’ve got it going a hundred twenty-plus,” Krol said.
In addition, IMET has worked with an 85-year-old man named Joseph O’Dwyer to produce the Apnea Detection Device, designed to prevent Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. The device straps on a child, and an alarm sounds in the parents’ room if the child stops breathing
The men liked working to improve O’Dwyer’s product, which was already patented.
“It’s always fun to work with people who are enthusiastic about an idea,” Petrella said.
Petrella has a patent of his own with the Personal Firearm Interlock. The so-called “smart-gun technology” permits only selected individuals to fire a specific firearm. One use of the device is to prevent a police officer from being shot by a suspect with his or her own gun.
IMET is also working with the band Sinch to develop the Viditar, a console version of the band’s ocular noise machine, a guitar-like instrument that creates cinematic images to accompany the music.
There are plenty of other ideas the company is working on, but they are covered by client confidentiality pacts.
Petrella, Krol and Steeil all grew up enjoying taking things apart and putting them back together.
Now, the men are getting the chance to do that on a much larger scale.
“It’s rewarding to think through the process, have something sitting in front of you and have it working the way you envisioned it,” Petrella said. ••
For more information on the company’s voice-activated telephone or other work, e-mail imet@imetcorporation.com or call 215-860-6081. For general information, visit www.imetcorporation.com
Reporter Tom Waring can be reached at 215-354-3034 or twaring@phillynews.com