Steady

An always-on Parkinson's symptom monitor on a Vexo Open wristband that talks to you, and calls for help when you can't.

Steady screens the wrist every 2 seconds for tremor and falls. When it finds something, it checks in by voice through your headphones. If a fall gets no answer, it phones your caregiver. It tracks and reports symptoms; it never diagnoses or advises on medication.

What it does

1. Screens all day. The band streams motion at 208 Hz. Every 2 s Steady computes features, decides what the arm is doing (rest, active, walking, not worn), and runs detectors for rest tremor, action tremor and falls. Every assessment is logged to a local SQLite database.
2. Checks in by voice. A moderate tremor lasting 60 s, or any possible fall, opens a spoken conversation: the band's microphone goes to Deepgram, an Ollama model with tools answers, and Deepgram's voice speaks in the headphones. You can interrupt it, and a tap on the band means "yes, I'm OK".
3. Holds back when it should. Cooldowns, at most 3 check-ins an hour, quiet hours at night, nothing while the band is off the wrist. A fall interrupts any other conversation.
4. Calls the caregiver. If a fall gets no answer, or you say you need help, Steady phones your caregiver (then a backup) using Pipecat + Twilio + Deepgram. They press 1 or say yes to confirm they're on their way.
5. Sends messages for you. Say "text Priya I'm running late" and OpenClaw writes it; Steady sends it by iMessage or email after your yes. A daily brief goes to your caregiver at 20:00.

Built with

How it fits together

flowchart LR
  B[Vexo band<br/>motion 208 Hz, taps, mic] --> S[Screening<br/>every 2 s]
  S --> DB[(SQLite)]
  S --> E[Episodes<br/>tremor, fall]
  E --> P[Policy<br/>severity, cooldowns,<br/>quiet hours]
  P --> V[Voice check-in<br/>Deepgram STT + Ollama + Deepgram TTS]
  V -- fall, no answer --> C[Caregiver call<br/>Pipecat + Twilio + Deepgram]
  V -- "text Priya..." --> O[OpenClaw<br/>writes the message]
  O --> M[iMessage / email<br/>allowlist only]

Detection

• Rest tremor: a 3.5 to 7.5 Hz rhythm in the gyroscope while the arm is at rest, strong enough and concentrated in one peak. An episode starts after 3 of 5 positive windows (about 10 s).
• Action tremor: a faster 7.5 to 12 Hz postural rhythm, or a 4 to 12 Hz rhythm that dominates a movement.
• Fall: free-fall, a hard impact, then stillness for 10 s.

Validated by playing 19 labelled wrist conditions into the pretend band through the full pipeline:

Known limits: a tremor while walking is missed, and a gentle voluntary 5 Hz rhythm can be flagged.

Run it

Needs Python 3.11+, macOS, the band, and headphones.

git clone https://github.com/akshaylakkur/vexo && cd vexo
git clone https://github.com/VexoAI-Org/vexo-open-kit.git
python3 -m venv .venv && .venv/bin/pip install -r requirements.txt
brew install cloudflared                                   # caregiver calls
cp config/contacts.example.yaml config/contacts.yaml       # who may be contacted

.env (never committed): DEEPGRAM_API_KEY, OLLAMA_API_KEY, TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID, TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN, TWILIO_FROM_NUMBER, plus OPENCLAW_HOOK_TOKEN and STEADY_API_TOKEN for OpenClaw (see openclaw/README.md).

export PYTHONPATH=src
python -m steady doctor                      # checks keys, models, band, Twilio, tunnel, contacts
python -m steady run                         # the always-on service on band 03
python -m steady run --sim                   # same, on a pretend band
python -m steady talk --episode rest_tremor  # one check-in conversation now
python -m steady call --to caregiver         # a test call to the caregiver
python -m steady validate                    # the labelled detector validation

Safety and privacy

• Not a diagnosis. Steady tracks and reports; it never says what a symptom means or suggests changing medication.
• Local first. All sensor data stays in SQLite on the Mac. Only speech goes to Deepgram, and the wearer is told so in the first conversation of the day.
• Allowlist. Only numbers and addresses in config/contacts.yaml can be contacted; models only see names.
• Narrow exposure. Only the call server is public, through the tunnel, with a one-time token per call. The pretend band never phones anyone.

Project layout

src/steady/
  band/        connection, reconnects, ring buffer
  screening/   features, context, detectors, episodes, rollups
  policy/      when a finding becomes a check-in
  voice/       Deepgram STT and TTS, the conversation state machine
  agent/       the Ollama voice agent and its tools
  call/        the caregiver phone call (Pipecat + Twilio)
  actions/     OpenClaw tasks, iMessage and email delivery, daily brief
  validate/    the labelled validation protocol
tests/         87 tests (no network needed)
SPEC.md        the full design

Built With

• deepgram
• ollama
• openclaw
• vexo