Greg Pabst, diagnosed with epilepsy in 2006, had the idea that gave birth to this device in early 2015, shortly after the Apple Watch was released to the market. Greg, who had auras several times a week, always wanted a quick way to signal for help in case one of his auras progressed to a tonic-clonic (grand mal) seizure. Greg experienced some setbacks in treating his condition in late 2014, requiring new rounds of tests and evaluations. 

Greg and his neurologist were talking about existing services for people with epilepsy. When his neurologist mentioned that it was only a matter of time before someone created an Apple Watch app, he realized it should be him. Greg began researching existing services and quickly discovered that none had iPhone support at the time, as most were focused on Android devices and were very limited. Furthermore, most services required hardware, which was an extra cost. Because iPhones account for a vast proportion of smartphones worldwide, Greg was surprised to discover a void in this market. His goal was to create SeizAlarm as an app that did not require custom hardware so that users could use the service without incurring additional costs. 

The Apple Watch would provide users with quick access to the app’s help request features, but it was not required.

As a web and mobile application strategist and user experience expert, Greg possessed the necessary skill set to create the initial application design and immediately got to work on the app. He formed a development team with a friend and former colleague, Bryan Heitman, to create the app. SeizAlarm was born three months later and became the first seizure-related iPhone app with Apple Watch support.