Our History
Where it started
HalleyAssist was founded by André Ferretto, whose mother lived with Alzheimer's. Caring for her showed him first-hand how much effort and stress falls on families trying to keep an ageing parent safe at home — and how little technology existed to help. He wanted her to be able to age with dignity, in the family home, for as long as possible. When he couldn't find a solution that worked, he built one.
That personal starting point shaped everything that followed. André set out to design technology that was genuinely usable by people regardless of cognitive ability — not just capable seniors, but people living with dementia and Alzheimer's disease, for whom most "smart home" and wearable-based solutions simply don't work. He built a team of software engineers and partnered with university research groups, clinicians, and aged care experts to get there.
What the company built
The result was HalleyAssist® — an AI-powered remote monitoring platform for the home. A small hub, paired with a discreet array of sensors placed around a house or residence, learned a resident's normal patterns of movement, sleep, and presence, and used that baseline to detect the things that mattered: a fall, an unusually long period without movement, a break in routine that might signal an emerging health issue. No cameras. No wearables. Nothing for the user to remember to charge, wear, or press.
Family members and professional carers received that information in real time through an app or a shared dashboard, with urgent issues pushed immediately as alerts. The company's stated aim throughout was to let vulnerable people — the elderly, people with disabilities, people living with health risks — stay independent and live in their own homes for longer, while giving their families genuine peace of mind rather than constant anxiety.
In 2022, the company extended the platform with HalleyAssist HealthWatch™, adding Remote Patient Monitoring: connecting approved medical devices (blood pressure, glucose, weight, pulse oximetry, activity tracking) so that clinically-relevant health data could flow to family and clinicians, supporting a "Hospital in the Home" model of care.
What the company was proud of
Across its trials, HalleyAssist reported 100% usability and acceptance among participants and their families — including participants living with dementia — and pointed to independent economic analysis showing measurable improvements in health outcomes and care efficiency. The company was, by its own account, proudest of two things: the falls-detection performance of the system in the field, and the fact that people with a wide range of cognitive ability could use it without friction, or in most cases, without even being conscious it was there.
Where things stand now
HalleyAssist has stepped back from developing the home-monitoring hub platform described above, and the company is not currently pursuing that product. This page — and the rest of this history section — exists to keep a public record of that work: the technology, the trials, the research, and the recognition it earned.
The company's focus has since shifted toward a new direction, still in the same territory of supporting older people and the families who care about them, but built around a different idea. Details on that are on the homepage — this section is about where the company came from.
See also: Timeline · The Technology · Awards & Recognition