THE LITTLE BLUE BOX THAT’S SAVING HOMES AND SAVING LIVES.

Smart homes are safe homes and a safe home brings peace of mind. But peace of mind is something that people living in informal settlements are rarely afforded due to the constant threat of fire. Lumkani is a unique device that is trying to change that.

Lumkani is not just a blue box; it is a heat detector like no other. Meaning “watch out” in Xhosa, Lumkani alerts communities when they are in danger of fire.

Developed in 2014 by UCT student Francois Petousis and his supervisor Samuel Ginsberg, Lumkani measures the rate of increase of heat in homes and sets off an alarm if that rate is rising too fast.

The idea for Lumkani came to Petousis and his colleague Paul Mesarcik in 2014 when a fire ravaged Khayelitsha on New Year’s Day. “(Formal) residential houses have fire detectors and every measure possible to avoid fire damage, so why shouldn’t informal homes?” asks Mesarcik.

Assisted by the Community Organisation Resource Centre (CORC), the Lumkani team partnered and engaged with the community of UT gardens in Khayelitsha to create a human-centred design for their heat detector. They found that people living in informal settlements know how to put out and prevent fires, but simply need a warning.

Mesarcik explains how Lumkani works. “Instead of just measuring the heat of a particular home, Lumkani measures the rate at which heat increases. Once the rate of rising heat reaches a certain threshold that is considered dangerous, the device

According to Statistics SA, 13,6 per cent of South Africans live in informal settlements. Fire Protection Association of South Africa figures for 2014 reveal that there were 5 191 fires in informal settlements, resulting in total damage costing R103 999 546.

Fighting fires communicates this to neighbouring devices in an approximately 40-metre radius.”

Lumkani’s alarm not only alerts householders to take the necessary precautions, but if a fire is confirmed, emergency services are alerted to the danger so they too can act quickly. The developers have rolled out smart centralised devices that connect every heat detector in a community. This central device constantly checks the system’s health and, in the event of fire, stores GPS co-ordinates and simultaneously sends text-message warnings to members of the affected community and to Lumkani headquarters in Cape Town.

Lumkani has distributed heat detectors to more than 5 000 households in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban and is looking to expand across the country, into the rest of Africa and into Bangladesh. It’s currently trialling new models of the original detector and thinking of ways to increase accessibility and inclusivity. Cost is, of course, a sensitive issue both in the marketplace and in an organisation that has been largely been funded by money made from entering and winning social entrepreneurship competitions. The device costs R130 and is usually bought by NGOS or community leaders. “We have tried to keep the price as low as possible,” Mesarcik says. “It uses a AA battery that lasts for a year, so it is sustainable for the people who we are trying to assist.”