Hackster Restraint to Reinvention Spotlight: Emergency Alert

Morena is the name of a town and a district to the north of the state of Madhya Pradesh, India. It is near the Chambal River and is known for historic landmarks such as the Chambal ravines and the Chausath Yogini temple.

Hackster member Shlok Gupta is a native of Morena, and he recalls the first time he witnessed the stark contrast between city and village infrastructure. During a visit to his hometown five years ago, he saw a pregnant woman close to labor being carried to an out-of-town hospital in a vegetable cart. Gupta says he was unable to help at that moment, but it planted the seed for an idea that would manifest years later.

In Morena, routine emergencies can quickly become life-threatening due to the remoteness from qualified response personnel. The nationwide emergency hotline, 112, is functional and reliable in urban areas, but in rural communities like Morena, poor cellular network infrastructure makes emergency reporting very difficult and even impossible, in some cases.

Gupta aims to make essential services more accessible to Morena and other rural communities by leveraging his engineering background and Hackster.io’s support.

He developed nRFHub, a LoRa-based emergency response system with his friend Vishal Soni. nRFHub is the team’s submission entry to Hackster’s Restraint to Reinvention challenge, an appropriate technology contest proudly sponsored by Nordic Semiconductor.

nRFHub uses LoRa wireless communication to connect villagers directly with nearby hospitals, fire services, and police stations, without Wi-Fi or cellular data. It is built on the nRF54L15 development board and embeds an Ra-02 LoRa SX1278 module for wireless data transmission and reception.

The device is described as easy-to-use and has four buttons for triggering a distinct emergency message: medical, fire, police, or general. A corresponding receiver at the central base station receives triggered alerts and forwards them via landline or Internet to the nearest emergency response service.

A cluster of four to six villages over an 8km range will be linked to one hub to save installation and maintenance costs. At the receiving end, an indicator will be connected to the base station to locate the origin of the distress signal for forwarding to emergency services.

The nRFHub emergency system is designed for energy efficiency, utilizing low-power components like the nRF54L15 development board and the SX1278 LoRa module. It can be powered by a 12V solar panel or a 3.7V LiPo battery. LoRa connectivity makes it well-suited for rural areas like Morena, where cellular network infrastructure is limited and underdeveloped.

The emergency system will be installed in homes, schools, hospitals, and other key locations. Using it is as simple as pressing a button. It can be used by all residents, regardless of technical knowledge.

Every appropriate technology needs to achieve “critical mass” to become self-sustaining and ultimately succeed. Gupta foresees technology literacy, cost of hardware, and initial resistance to innovation as likely obstacles to adoption.

He says the traditional village councils (panchayat) will play a key role in helping the community members understand the importance of the emergency alert system. With his team, he plans to conduct awareness campaigns and demonstrations to teach the villagers what the device does and how it works. He mentions “additional partnerships and funding sources” to make the system more affordable for the residents of the Morena district and beyond.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that more than half of the deaths in low and middle-income countries are from preventable complications exacerbated by poor or delayed pre-hospital emergency response. The first few minutes of an emergency are the most important, and rural areas generally experience longer response times than urban areas. In some areas, emergency response time can exceed 15 minutes or more.

Gupta's innovation will enable quicker response times and improve access to critical services in rural areas. The project is still in the development phase, and progress has stalled a bit due to Gupta's personal engagements. He intends to incorporate two-way communication and broadcasting — two-way communication will allow responders to acknowledge alerts and share estimated response times, while broadcasting will be used to notify other community members in the hub about the emergency.

Gupta says his ultimate goal is to “provide the basic emergency services to the common man.” After widespread adoption in Morena, he wants to take nRFHub to other remote areas across India and even the world.

You can learn more about the nRFHub project on the project page.