Eight years ago, an idea born from compassion began transforming how people stay safe at work. When Australian entrepreneur Trav Heaven launched Duress, his mission was simple but urgent: to give domestic violence survivors a fast, discreet way to get help. What started as a small innovation has since grown into a global safety technology platform used by Coles, Myer, David Jones, Tesco, and a range of government and community organisations across Australia, the UK, and the US.
Innovation Rooted in Real Need
Duress’ first breakthrough came in partnership with Victoria Police: the Halo ring, a small wearable panic button linked directly to emergency monitoring. Initially designed for domestic violence survivors, it quickly caught the attention of unexpected users, property managers, retail staff, and field workers seeking a discreet layer of protection.
The Halo’s success showed that the need for personal safety extended far beyond its original audience. As requests grew from businesses and government agencies, Duress evolved into a fully fledged enterprise safety platform, building secure dashboards, live monitoring, and reporting tools for large teams.
The Pursuit of Speed and Discretion
Real-world emergencies revealed a critical flaw: accessing an app during a crisis took too long. In response, Duress designed Phoenix, a credit-card-sized safety device that allowed users to instantly trigger an alert, share their location, or request assistance with a single press.
Packed with smart features, a display screen, NFC access, fall detection, and a two-year battery life, Phoenix became a game-changer for frontline teams in sectors like aged care, community services, and government.
Wearables That Change Behaviour
When retailers adopted the technology, another insight emerged: visibility matters. Staff who wore Duress’ Falcon wearable, a compact 4G-enabled safety device, saw fewer aggressive incidents when it was clipped openly to their clothing. The mere sight of the device was enough to deter threats.
This discovery led to the Eagle body-worn camera, which combines live streaming, fall detection, two-way communication, and incident alerting. Beyond capturing evidence, the presence of the camera itself transformed interactions. Organisations like Myer, David Jones, and UK retailers Tesco and Morrisons have reported drops in both aggression and theft since introducing the technology.
Independent analytics from the Workplace Health & Safety Show found that safety wearables and body cameras have helped reduce aggressive incidents by over 50% and theft by more than 40% across major Australian retailers.
Listening Leads to Innovation
Heaven credits the company’s momentum to one guiding principle: listen first, build second. “Customers understand their pain points better than anyone. Our job is to listen deeply then surprise them with how quickly we can solve it,” he says.
That customer-driven approach has also fuelled Duress’ social impact work, providing Halo rings free of charge to those experiencing domestic violence and offering Eagle body cameras (with free monitoring) to retailers facing rising crime.
Smarter Safety Through AI
In 2025, Duress is introducing Live Reporting, an intelligent system that captures audio, video, and location during an incident, allowing workers to dictate a full report by voice, no paperwork required.
Another new frontier is SafeSense, an AI-powered system trained to recognise aggressive tone, threatening phrases, and even weapon gestures with an accuracy rate Duress reports at 94%. It’s designed to give organisations a chance to intervene before violence escalates.
The Mission Continues
From a single idea to a global movement, Duress has shown how empathy and innovation can merge to create safer workplaces everywhere. The company’s latest expansion into the United States and the United Kingdom marks just another chapter in its pursuit to keep people connected, confident, and protected wherever they are.
This article was inspired by and references content originally published by Yajush Gupta on Dynamic Business.
