ATU806 – Kaes with Cole McGowan and Patrick Davidson

Hi, this is Cole McGowan, and I’m the CXO at Kaes.

Hey everybody, this is Patrick Davidson, and I am the chief elder officer, and this is your Assistive Technology Update.

Hello and welcome to Your Assistive Technology Update, a weekly dose of information that keeps you up to date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist individuals with disabilities and special needs. I’m your host, Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. Welcome to episode 806 of Assistive Technology Update. It is scheduled to be released on November 6th, 2026. On today’s show, we are super excited to welcome Patrick Davidson and Cole McGowan from CASE to the show. They are here to tell us about the Kaes Ergo and other accommodations they have to make our iPads and phones a little bit more accessible. Now let’s go ahead and get on with the interview. Patrick, Cole, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having us.

Yeah, guys, thanks so much for joining. Before we get into talking about CAES, and just for our listeners, that’s K-A-E-S, can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourselves?

Yeah, so this is Cole. I’ve spent most of my career building products. I actually started consulting at Accenture, then made the jump into entrepreneurship, raising capital along the way, about $10 million, helping bring about 20 products to market, built a portfolio of over a hundred patents, and got into thousands of retail stores across the country. But the most important thing I’ve learned in that none of that matters without good people, the right co-founders, the right employees, the right partners, people who care, people who challenge you, people who stay in it when things get hard. At this point in my career, that’s really what it’s all about for me is building meaningful things with good people and solving real problems, creating something we’re proud to put into the world. And that’s why Kaes feels different for me. It brings really everything together that I’ve learned about product and business and people around a simple belief, which is technology should adapt to people, not the other way around.

And I’m Patrick Davidson, and I came to this world a little different route, a 30-year Silicon Valley executive, and I loved the pace and innovation that takes place in the valley. But five years ago, I actually had a tragic accident. I was caught in between a mama bear and a cub on a backcountry trip and forced to jump off of a 40-foot cliff. That left me a paraplegic. Fortunately, I survived. The doctors and the ambulance drivers, everybody thought I was not going to survive, but it put me into a whole new world that at 52 years old that I had never experienced as a paraplegic and really helped me understand a lot of the things that we as able-bodied people take for granted in the world that become significant challenges when we have any type of compromise in our capabilities. And that was really the intersection where Cole and I met and formed Kaes.

Nice. Well, Patrick, I mean, I hate that that had to happen, but I’m glad you and Cole were able to meet to be able to put together what you’re working on. So let’s talk about the Kaes Ergo. I guess just start us off with what is it?

Yeah, the Ergo is an ergonomic assistive solution for iPads currently. Essentially, it’s the most versatile case on the market. It’s options. I’m really still discovering the endless possibilities of this product myself, being the co-creator of it, but really it’s for ease of holding, ease of stand capabilities, hanging. So that’s when we say hold it, hang it, stand it. It makes it much easier to hold, to hang, to stand. And it’s also, of course, protective of the device.

And the way that Kaes really came about is that Cole’s father had arthritis.

Yeah, he has severe psoriatic arthritis, which attacks his hands especially. And so that was really the start, the seed that sprouted the entire concept for the company. It was very difficult for him to hold a device for any extended period of time. So after multiple iterations of course of prototypes and so forth, he described the final product of Ergo as it floating in your hands. It really reduces that grip tension to the point where it feels weightless.

And so when Cole and I met, I had recently become injured and had gone back to my job at Oracle trying to live my life as I had before. And so we met, and I started looking at some of the products. Ergo is just one of the products of Kaes, by the way. We have three different things that we are bringing to market, one being Ergo, which is for an iPad case. We also have a phone case paired with a product called the Perch, and we’ll talk a little bit more about what those do, but as Cole originated these products out of his dad’s need for a better way to hold his device, I saw a lot of solutions for the people in the new community that I had joined. So spinal cord, obviously spinal cord injury was becoming very familiar to me along with a lot of the challenges, whether they’re a quadriplegic with varied use of their hands and arm capability or a paraplegic; we all, we’re in wheelchairs.

And one of the most challenging things in this transition was how to use the most pervasive piece of technology I think that everyone has today, which is their phone. We all are reliant on these small, digital, amazing devices for connection to the world and communication and the ability to gather information. I mean, we’ve all become addicted to our phones, as we know, but in a wheelchair, something that a lot of people don’t realize is that there is no good way to manage your device. So what generally happens is people put it on their lap and they’re constantly dropping their phones. And as we know, these things are like thousand-dollar pieces of glass. They don’t sustain a lot of drops well, even with a good case on them. And it had become such a problem that my mother actually was constantly on me to hang a bag off the side of my wheelchair so that I could put my phone in it and stop dropping it all the time.

And that was the intersection in meeting Cole because the devices, both the Ergo and the Perch and phone case combination, solved a real problem, which is it allowed me a way to carry the phone attached to the front of my wheelchair cushion. We all have a little strap on the front of our wheelchair cushion, and the Perch is a magnetic device that I can just hang off of that strap. So now my phone is literally between my legs hanging on the front of my wheelchair, accessible at any time. And because we use the strongest magnets in the industry, it never falls off of its mount on the front of my wheelchair. And so my phone is always accessible, and I never drop it anymore, and it solves a real problem that I think the rest of the world doesn’t really even acknowledge that it exists.

Guys, talking about the Ergo and the Perch, how have both of those changed from your initial thoughts or initial ideas to where they are today?

Yeah, I mean, it’s really just constant improvement in the listening to the users who are actually relying on these devices. And so I think the core concept at its origination was very sound, very innovative; really, quite a few retailers called it the most innovative product in its category ever. But since then, it’s really just a constant improvement of the subtleties of the product based on the hardest use cases out there.

So just layering onto that, the problem we are trying to solve is taking these critical devices for our engagement in the world today, being the phone and the iPad, and making them easier to use for, frankly, everyone. But we are starting with what Cole described well as the hardest use cases, which is really anybody that has some form of compromise to what the regular world calls able-bodied. So whether you have a limitation physically of pain or a prosthetic or missing digits or limited mobility or you have arthritis or carpal tunnel or tendonitis or anything that, as we know, the more we use these devices, frankly, even able-bodied people start to develop different conditions because the people that design the phones certainly were not optimizing for either ergonomics and certainly not for someone that has some type of compromised use case.

And that is the core problem we are solving with Perch and Ergo, as well as with our power devices, is give great utility in the ways that the device can be what Cole referred to as hang it, hold it, or stand it. And Cole can talk a little bit about the unique wing device that we have that enables all of these things, which is a little bit hard, we’ll admit, to articulate with words. It’s a much more powerful visual, but let Cole take a stab at it and then people can see the actual device and use cases on the website.

Yeah, so we employ a friction hinge. It’s precision manufacturing. It’s very similar to your laptop screen that folds and can stop at any angle, but this is a micro hinge. It’s precision manufacturing at its best. So the strength of the holding power of the hinges, whether it’s in your hands or the stand, and supporting the weight of the devices is pretty incredible.

And what the wing is, I think, to describe it for the audience, there are a lot of solutions out there, maybe that pop from the back of the phone case or something that try to make it easier to stand and hold. I think we’ve all seen a lot of variety of those in device stores. What’s unique about ours is if you can envision an hourglass shape that is like a stand that folds flush to the phone, but then you can extend it to allow the device to stand in a portrait or landscape mode at any angle, like Cole said. But the unique thing about our device is that once the wing extends so that it’s parallel with the phone, if it extends past the perimeter of the phone, that’s our patent. Anything that extends past the perimeter of the device is what Cole referred to earlier in all the patents he secured.

And that enables some very unique use cases if you have some form of limitation in how to hold this device. Because as you extend it out past the perimeter to where it goes all the way flush, so it’s basically just extending straight out from the perimeter of the phones, it enables people to A: hold onto that wing if they have some form of limited digit capability or pain in their hand and they can’t wrap their hand around the phone. It also enables you to take that wing and insert it in between the digits that you may have if you have limited digits. Or the other day I was in Walmart, and I met a gentleman who was very short in stature, and his digits were also very short. And so I asked him, “How do you hold your phone?” And he said, “Oh, I drop it constantly. I’m always replacing the glass because my hands can’t wrap around the device.”

And that’s a use case that we had never even thought about, but I pulled out a Perch out of my pocket, and I put it on the back of the MagSafe on the back of his phone case, and I said, “Okay, now use this.” And he’s like, “Oh my gosh, I’ve never seen anything like this. Now I can actually hold the phone comfortably and securely where I’ve never been able to do that before.” And so these wings, because there’s a wing that extends past each perimeter, so the top, the bottom, and each side, it allows people to really configure the device so that they can hold it securely, whether they’re doing a long FaceTime call more comfortably or they’re searching the web or they’re looking at social media. They can also stand it in any angle, depending on if they’re watching a YouTube video and they want to watch something in a landscape as opposed to a portrait.

And they can also take that wing, and they can hang it over the top of a cabinet or the top of a chair or anything else that they can just take it because it folds back; they can just hang it over things. They can also, because it has a little hole in it, they can hang it from, let’s say, a hook. Or the other day I was out with a friend, and we wanted to take a selfie, and there was nowhere to put the phone, but there was a tree there, and there’s a little nub from a branch sticking off. And so we took it, and we just hung the Perch off of that, and we were able to take a selfie. So like I said, it’s a little bit hard to describe, but the utility that it allows for the use of the device is unmatched.

There’s nothing else like it in the market, and it’s particularly useful for anyone. Even I was listening to the descriptive podcast about the describers that you mentioned for visually impaired people. And even for someone that’s visually impaired, although it wouldn’t seem intuitively helpful for them, the phone is also a hard thing just to manage. It’s a small device. It’s easily dropped. If somebody that’s visually impaired drops their phone, it’s hard to find. And as your guest mentioned on that episode, their phone device is the thing that they’re most comfortable with because they have all kinds of settings and things already pre-programmed on the device. And so if someone drops it or breaks it or is unable to hold it comfortably, again, it has significant impact with their engagement in the world, and that is what we’re trying to solve. This will be the best device in the market even for able-bodied and fully functional people, but we are starting with this community because it is the most obvious need that has not been solved by any of the phone or device companies at this point.

And having come out of Silicon Valley, and Apple actually was a longtime client of mine, and they’ve designed amazing devices, but the comfort and multifunction ability to hold these things is really, that’s not their business. Their business is to make sexy devices that have the most functionality. But then the translation of making that accessible to the populations that often get overlooked by the general design people that make these things becomes really important. And I think to this point, although we’re on, I guess coming up on the 18th generation of the phone, no one has ever tackled this problem. And as a new member of this community, it was shocking to me. And so that’s why Cole and I happen to live in the same town, and we use the word “serendipity” a lot because it just seems that as we’ve really focused in on serving these communities that I think need much more attention, it’s amazing all the things that have fallen into place for us. And we really feel like this is what we were meant to be doing, and this device really solves a critical problem.

Nice. Can you tell us a story of someone’s experience or feedback that you went through in this process that maybe changed the design or was something that maybe even you all didn’t consider going in?

Yeah, I got together with a friend of mine about three months ago, and it’s someone who got injured about the same time I did, so about five years ago. He was riding his mountain bike, and he went over the handlebars. I believe he was 56 years old when it happened, and landed headfirst and broke his neck. So he was originally paralyzed from his shoulders down. And over time, what happens with some quadriplegics is they regain some function, but it’s always unpredictable in terms of what function comes back. So he’s able to walk, which is amazing, but his left arm, he doesn’t have control to move his digits, and he can just move his left arm through space, but not a lot of control. So for him, trying to hold his phone or an iPad really is a challenge. He generally just puts it on his lap and tries to just peck at it with one hand, which we all know the challenges of that.

So I gave him an Ergo, first of all, with the iPad, and I said, “Do you use an iPad?” He goes, “Well, I do, but I can just stand at places, and then I have to stay stationary to use it.” So we deployed one of the wings on each side of, if you imagine the iPad in a landscape mode and a wing coming out from each side. And now with his left arm, which has very limited function other than just moving through space, he was able to prop one of the wings on his finger and one of the wings on his forearm near his elbow. And now he became able to hold the iPad and use it like an able-bodied person where he has never been able to do that before because the iPad is too heavy and too awkward for him to hold. But these wings allow him to hold it very securely so he can literally move his arm around and not drop it, yet be able to hold it right in front of him and use it.

And then I handed him a phone case. And again, our phone case is unique because it has the strongest magnet in the industry, and paired with the Perch, which also has a very strong magnet, it makes the connection very secure. So I handed him a Perch, and because his fingers just stay straight, his phone was always slipping off. He deployed the Perch again past the perimeter of the case, and he inserted that wing in between his thumb and his first finger, his index finger, where he can’t pinch it because of function, but just the friction of the device now allowed him to hold the phone securely in one hand that he couldn’t hold it before and now use the phone like the rest of us. And so it’s a very simple concept, but it’s something that just has not ever been addressed in the market. And for him as a quadriplegic, it changed the paradigm of how he’s able to use these devices every day.

Yeah. And sometimes it’s the most simple concepts that we all take for granted and end up making the biggest difference.

Yeah. And maybe Cole can give one more example of his dad, which is a completely different market.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, my dad’s psoriatic arthritis in his hands was so severe. Yeah, he wasn’t able to hold a tablet for more than a couple of minutes, and he really enjoyed reading and so forth. So this design, the versatility of it, allowed for him to use it for as long as he wanted, whether it was in his hands or arm, like Patrick just mentioned, or if it was out of his hands. And that’s where the power of the versatility of the product is really just endless. Like we say, hold it, hang it, stand it. It’s that versatility that allows you to adjust positions, and that’s really at the core of ergonomics is the adjustment and to be able to change from your hands to a pillow top, maybe, or if you’re on a couch or a desktop or even on uneven surfaces such as rock and bark and gravel, whatever it may be, a hood of a car or whatnot.

But it really was a game changer for my dad. I mean, it was definitely the solution that he was looking for that we thought was out there, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t even close. And so we developed that solution, being the Ergo, which led to the Perch, and then from there looked at the hardest use cases.

Nice.

We’re also looking at things even like power devices. So if you think about the blocks that we all use to charge our phones, because in these communities you want versatility and adaptability of the device, but you also want to limit the number of things that people need to carry with them in order to use these devices. Because in a wheelchair in particular, the more stuff I have to carry, the worse it is because I don’t have anywhere to carry things anymore. I can’t put it in my pockets. It’s hard for me to use backpacks. And so we’re trying to reduce the number of things people need to carry as well. So we make a power device as well that’s a very small block, but it’s very high power. And so you can literally charge three devices at once for a power block that’s the size of a silver dollar.

And so we’re trying to incorporate all of these different use cases to make technology user-friendly. And we use the term in our design engineering of adaptive design. And we follow universal design principles, which is it should really work well for everyone. But the reason we specifically say adaptive design is because our philosophy is these devices should be made to adapt to the human use cases. And traditionally, the humans have to adapt in order to use the technology. So we’re trying to flip it around and say, “We are the company that is making all of these things so that the technology, whether it’s an iPhone, a power block, an iPad case, or future products, they adapt to how humans, all humans, use the devices and make it easier to function through that.”

Nice. Guys, if our listeners want to find out more, it’s a good way for them to do that.

Yeah, they can go to getkaes.com. So it’s G-E-T-K-A-E-S.com to see all of the products that are being launched.

And one of the things that we’re starting in the website, because as we’ve talked about several times on here, sometimes it’s so versatile that I’ve been using the things for about a year now, and I’m constantly finding new ways. It really becomes addictive. So we are going to have a page on the website where we have what we call Use Cases, or Kaes Studies, K-A-E-S Studies, and we’re going to encourage users to send in all the different ways or a unique way that they’ve found to use the case that has been helpful for them. And so if they do that, they’ll be able to name that particular use case, and we will put that up on the website. And so then people can go through the website and see literally at some point will just be hundreds and hundreds of different ways that people are using these to make the use of technology easier.

And they will also be able to win a free Kaes product if they submit a unique use case. And it really becomes this just self-sustaining support community of people finding different ways that this makes their life easier. And then we’ll display that on the website so everybody can learn when they buy one of our products.

Awesome. We’ll put that down in the show notes so the folks can check it out and share their own use cases of Kaes. That’s going to be hard to say.

Exactly.

But excellent. We’ll put all that down there. Well, Cole, Patrick, thank you guys so much for coming on, for telling us about the story of Kaes, and just the great solutions that you all are making just to make our devices a little bit more accessible to everybody.

Yeah, Josh, appreciate you having us.

Thank you for everything you’ve done to bringing these things to life.

Do you have a question about assistive technology? Do you have a suggestion for someone we should interview on an Assistive Technology Update? If so, call our listener line at 317-721-7124. Send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org or shoot us a note on Twitter @INDATAProject. Our captions and transcripts for the show are sponsored by the Indiana Telephone Relay Access Corporation or InTRAC. You can find out more about InTRAC at relayindiana.com. A special thanks to Nicole Prieto for scheduling our amazing guests and making a mess of my schedule. Today’s show was produced, edited, hosted, and fraught over by yours truly. The opinions expressed by our guests are their own and may or may not reflect those of the INDATA Project, Easterseals Crossroads, our supporting partners, or this host. This was your Assistive Technology Update, and I’m Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. We look forward to seeing you next time. Bye-bye.