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

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

#121
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am having a hell of a time trying to parse that sentence. Can you rephrase?

they're trying to ask if there's a chance for false alarm (i think)

The first watchOS version that had this monitoring built-in seemed to be prone to false positives. However, the watch first asks you if you are ok and if you do not acknowledge so in a few seconds, then it dials out.

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

#123

Why does everyone who praises Apple on HN qualify it with the fact that they don’t like Apple for other reasons? Also, Apple is probably the best corporate citizen of any company its relative size in history.

I wondered the same: is it embarrassing here to think Apple does various things well?

Apple has a long history of very enthusiastic fans that can at times crossover into being obnoxious. Apple is hardly unique in that but it does seem to be somewhat more prevalent for them. Some commenters likely don't want to be quickly dismissed as fawning fans lacking perspective of Apple's place in the world.

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

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$10/month if you factor in the need for a cellular plan for the watch? $15/month for a fall detection device vs $399 + $10/month buys a lot of months. Yes, I know the Apple Watch does more, but I wasn't the one who tried to make the comparison. Does the Apple Watch stay on the phone with you until EMS arrives? Is it capable of giving medical information to dispatch? Another "Apple was the first to do this!"... "No it…

So long as the non-cellular version of the watch has an active bluetooth link with your phone, it will make the same callout.

What if you own the cellular version but didn't pay for a plan? Many phones will still allow 911 calls even without as paid plan.

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

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case, it's better to have a false positive diagnosis than a false negative.

Why is that? IANAPhysician, but this seems like a fairly rare malady in this age group. Do we really want all of these people rushing to the hospital? If no one trusts the Apple Watch's diagnosis, how useful could it be?

I think the rate is low enough that most people are not getting multiple spurious notifications to rush to the hospital, so trust is probably not the issue. The only problem I see is hospitals being overwhelmed, but again, I'm not sure if we're really overloading them.

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

#126
post #101

I agree the Apple Watch is really useful this way. But can't an "independent" device do this? It does not need to be tied to a phone or an app ecosystem (android or iOS) to work. It does need a cellular connection, and some logic on the device, but that's about it. This device would be cheaper and affordable to a larger set of people than spending upwards of $500(estimated) on an apple watch.

One could also carry around a calculator that's cheaper than their cellphone.

Not many folks under 60 walk around wearing heart monitors, fall detectors, and other health monitors. This is about those things becoming commonplace for everyone.

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

#127
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The specs for the watch specifically rule out heart attack detection, by the way. > Apple Watch cannot detect heart attacks. If you ever experience chest pain, pressure, tightness, or what you think is a heart attack, call emergency services immediately.

"What we list for legal purposes" and "what the device actually does" might not be the same thing. I imagine saying "my device detects heart attacks" gets the FDA involved and makes everything ten times more expensive...

Well the watch isn't measuring troponin levels so it's hard to imagine how useful it could ever be at MI detection, especially given the limitations of a poor contact single lead ECG.

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

#129
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Digging is a very strenuous activity as well as shoveling. Anytime there's a major snow storm, enough people die from shoveling. So it probably detected that she was very stressed.

So it watches your bloodpressure or something? I figured it was the jerking-around. Maybe it looked to the watch like she had fallen down.

It watches the heartbeat, probably arrhythmias specifically. You can't monitor blood pressure with just a watch. You need a blood pressure cuff for that.

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

#130
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm referring to this sentence, which has nothing to do with cellular capability:

> Like the latest Apple Watch, which has a built-in fall detection system, the new Garmin watch also has a safety monitoring feature, which the company calls incident detection.

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