There’s a new potentially life-saving device in the works that could change how people protect their homes, and it was all created by a Sarasota teenager.
Pine View High School senior Henry Zhou has always had an appreciation for his local Sarasota County Fire Department.
“Residential fires still harm hundreds of thousands of people each year and cause billions of dollars in property damage, so I was thinking, how do I help solve this issue,” said Zhou.
“Of course, we are always going to be encouraging of any safety advancements within the fire service, whether it’s directly impacting us as firefighters or directly impacting the individuals that we serve,” said Ian Emmons with the Sarasota County Fire Department.
So Zhou, with a little help from the Pine View entrepreneurial club, came up with the idea for an automatic fire extinguisher that he calls the Smartvolly.
“And it connects to cellular devices so you can monitor temperature levels and sensor values for the device, and it automatically extinguishes a fire once a certain temperature is met,” said Zhou.