Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bike crash left Spokane man unconscious, so his Apple Watch called 911

seattletimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 686 posts

Re: Bike crash left Spokane man unconscious, so his Apple Watch called 911

#51

Post by gesman »

blang wrote: post #48
gesman wrote: post #38

Can Apple watch be programmed to call relative in case of hard fall / unresponsiveness like this? I have elderly father in Eastern Europe and he would really benefit from this.

It looks like it also sent a text to his son.

Also does Apple Watch require ownership of iPhone?

Re: Bike crash left Spokane man unconscious, so his Apple Watch called 911

#52

Post by elif »

mikestew wrote: post #2

Alternate headline: “Potentially Life-saving Tech Works as Advertised”. I know, I know, it’s a human interest story and the regular folks might not know this. But my first thought reading the headline was, “it better call, or I’m going to be puzzling how to get a refund in the afterlife.”

The feature has to be turned on and configured. The cycling group I am in has had dozens of people realize they were accidentally forgoing this feature while wearing the watch, so the impact of this article is potentially huge.

Re: Bike crash left Spokane man unconscious, so his Apple Watch called 911

#53

Post by FireBeyond »

derefr wrote: post #31
FireBeyond wrote: post #25

Life Alert, horrendous as their ads may be, would probably be surprised to hear that it's only now that you're finding a "device which can contact emergency services in the event of an accident" so life changing. As might OnStar, etc.

As well as what the sibling commentors have pointed out, Life Alert also never bothered to partner with a company that would put their system into a piece of consumer-electronics that the average healthy (maybe even young ) adult would buy for themselves. Nobody wants to wear a LifeAlert bracelet and a watch/fitness-tracker; they want their watch/fitness-tracker to just have that functionality . And so they make a ch…

This aspect, I absolutely agree with - the differing markets for devices. I hope I would not need to buy such a device for 20 or 30 more years. But I do own a Fitbit. And may own an Apple Watch. Very different sets, with differing benefits.

Re: Bike crash left Spokane man unconscious, so his Apple Watch called 911

#54

Post by elif »

amiantos wrote: post #16
bt848 wrote: post #14

Apple marketing machine in action: get local press to write up as a novelty feature that main competitor has had for ages.

Please name this competitor that had fall detection ('for ages') that automatically messages emergency services for you?

My garmin watch has it, ~3 yr old tech

Re: Bike crash left Spokane man unconscious, so his Apple Watch called 911

#55

Post by [deleted] »

FireBeyond wrote: post #36
Izkata wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. All those other services require the person to hit a button to trigger it, which they can't do while unconscious. The Apple watch called automatically on its own.

No. All those services absolutely offer Automatic Fall Detection: https://www.theseniorlist.com/medical-alert-systems/best/fal... And OnStar has it easier, with existing collision detection.

[deleted]

Re: Bike crash left Spokane man unconscious, so his Apple Watch called 911

#56

Post by mstade »

I just got my series 5 Apple Watch a couple of days ago, and the ECG functionality is a big part of why. There's history of heart disease in my family, and I've been to the doctor a few times with symptoms but of course when I get there they find nothing wrong. Maybe I'm a hypochondriac, who knows. Anyway, last time I went my doctor asked if I could share data from my watch, so figure I'd upgrade so I can get an actual ECG – what a time to (hopefully) be alive!

Re: Bike crash left Spokane man unconscious, so his Apple Watch called 911

#57

Post by crushingcrash »

eatbitseveryday wrote: post #33
Topgamer7 wrote: post #6

> His watch messaged emergency medical services at 12:02 p.m., and an ambulance was there within a minute. Talk about response time, wow!

Please do not use code blocks for quotes, it creates long side-scrolling windows.

Can someone fix this? WHERE'S DANG, he's sniffing around all the time. It has to be one line of CSS.

Re: Bike crash left Spokane man unconscious, so his Apple Watch called 911

#58

Post by gsich »

eatbitseveryday wrote: post #33
Topgamer7 wrote: post #6

> His watch messaged emergency medical services at 12:02 p.m., and an ambulance was there within a minute. Talk about response time, wow!

Please do not use code blocks for quotes, it creates long side-scrolling windows.

Not on a desktop browser.

Re: Bike crash left Spokane man unconscious, so his Apple Watch called 911

#59

Post by elif »

Izkata wrote: post #45
bt848 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Garmin. You know, the brand that is 100x more popular among bicyclists.

This reads as though Apple did it first: https://fortune.com/2019/01/07/garmin-vivoactive-cellular-sm...

Poor wording I suppose. My garmin is prior to that one, and has fall detection by using my phone via Bluetooth. Not sure who had it first, but definitely before that 2019 Verizon model.

Re: Bike crash left Spokane man unconscious, so his Apple Watch called 911

#60

Post by FireBeyond »

Izkata wrote: post #45
bt848 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Garmin. You know, the brand that is 100x more popular among bicyclists.

This reads as though Apple did it first: https://fortune.com/2019/01/07/garmin-vivoactive-cellular-sm...

Kinda. The part that they're referring to is it being Garmin's first device with cellular capability. But it's definitely vague around fall monitoring too.
Post reply on HN