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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

#641

Post by stevenhubertron »

okmokmz wrote: post #638
LorenPechtel wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telling my wife I'm going up the South Loop will let her point S&R in the general area. Where on the 8 1/2 miles of trail (or a bit off it if I stopped to take a leak) am I? (However, that's probably better than what the watch could do as service along there varies from marginal to nonexistent.) On the other hand, I don't see that there is any appreciable fall risk from hiking. It's the scramblers that get hurt, not…

That's a fair point, assuming you have service it could make it easier to find your specific location in case something happens. However, I'd be much more likely to recommend a GPS beacon specifically designed for this purpose rather than an apple watch. My dad and I used to wear beacons while skiing in the outback in case of an avalanche

I'd also consider trail running. I sometimes run after work. I don't carry alot, and on the trails at sunset I hardly see anyone. I could see myself taking a tumble and needing help. I once encountered a wolf out there and sprinted like never before to get out of the area. I could have easily fell.

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

#642

Post by ineedasername »

macintux wrote: post #306
ineedasername wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it low ROI if it allows them to gain nearly all of that segment of the population's market share? But yes, they are very good at accessibility.

Fewer than 1% of the U.S. population reports a visual disability[1]. Even if Apple cornered that market, it’s not a very good ROI. [1] https://www.nfb.org/resources/blindness-statistics

I disagree: There's over 200 million adults & 96% cell phone usage, which would translate to about 2 million disabled at 1%. If they even get 1/10 of that, assuming a device cost average around $700, you're talking about $140,000,000 per upgrade cycle. That seems more than enough to build in decent accessibility. And they get about 44% market share, so that's actually about $660,000,000 per upgrade cycle, which, if measured in cash of $100, is literally tons of money in profit!

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

#643

Post by rconti »

eastendguy wrote: post #600
bonestamp2 wrote: post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tons of run of the mill accidents leave people unconscious... Indeed. My friend's grandma slipped while getting in the bathtub. They found her barely alive 3 days later when she missed her hair appointment and the stylist called her son. Previously, she was the life of the party and went to the gym almost every day. She didn't last a few days after that fall broke her hip. The outcome may have been different if she…

...the problem here seems more that nobody missed her for three days. So loneliness is the key issue here and an Apple watch will not fix that. That said, having an Apple watch is certainly much cooler than wearing those emergency call devices they currently sell for old people.

Dear god, man. The woman was "the life of the party" and went to the gym every day, and she DIED a few days after this fall. And your argument is the problem is that she was lonely and a consumer tech device won't fill the hole in her life?

This is the coldest of cold takes.

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

#644

Post by rconti »

blacksmith_tb wrote: post #599
coldtea wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - you are in a terrible accident - there is no one around you to call an ambulance - you can’t call an ambulance yourself, because you are knocked out or can’t move Increasingly large odds after a certain age, and not small if you do certain sports (e.g. trekking, climbing, etc) regardless of age. In fact, older people falling accidents is so common, a proverb in a European country says: "The elderly die either fro…

Likely your Apple Watch won't be able to call for help if you're injured trekking or climbing, unless there's a cell tower on the mountain. Having personally been run over cycling, multiple passersby called 911 for me immediately, and I was in a ambulance in less than 10min.

Thankfully, if you happen to have an Apple Watch, it doesn't prevent people from calling 911 to help you.

It's an addition safety factor.

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

#645

Post by inimino »

SomeOldThrow wrote: post #525
inimino wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is in a better position to know if such a feature doesn't work?

It’s not really related to determination of use value or other qualitative questions. If my blender, or even my blood pressure machines, gets recalled, the company doesn’t break into my house to cut the wires for my safety. How is this not a basic violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act? Edit: canada and cyprus only is why.

Right. But you own your blender. It's naïve to think you own your phone just because you carry it around.

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

#646

Post by rconti »

sh-run wrote: post #366
quietthrow wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are missing the point here completely and utterly. Compared to what the Apple Watch can do (as mention on the post and several comments) the garmin watch may be the real toy here.

That's hardly true, the two devices have very different purposes. I couldn't run an ultramarathon (or even a shorter trail race) in an apple watch. That's before we even start talking about features. The battery would die long before I finish. The FR945 that was released this year has far more features than the apple watch (including the emergency features). Even comparing the Apple Watch 4 to my FR935 (released in 2…

I am wearing a Garmin FR945 right now; in fact, I sold my Apple Watch 4 a month back, after it sat on my nightstand for months following my purchase of the 945. I previously had an Apple Watch 2.

The AW might be a huge step down for your purposes, but I was fine recording 5+ hour bike rides and my 4+ hour (yeah, yeah) first marathon. I really disliked using a touch screen on the AW for recording runs, particularly intervals. I love the feature set of the 945 and haven't looked back.

THAT SAID, I would trust the Apple Watch over the Garmin any day of the week for 'lifesaving' type tech. Garmin's software is spotty, to say the least. First off, I can trigger the Garmin crash detection at will by jolting to a sudden stop on my bike and hopping off. Not all that aggressively -- it happens in my normal dismount process with some regularity. I have to tell it to cancel the emergency call.

Right now it's setup to text my wife. Looking at the config, it says "Select up to 3 people to be notified via text message and email if an incident occurs or assistance is needed". I don't know how I could set it up to call 911 if I wanted to.

And that would all assume it even works. Multiple times a week, my watch says it doesn't have connection with my iPhone X, and I have to reboot the watch for it to find my phone again. My wife's FR235+iPhone 7 setup seems more reliable, but at least once a month for the past 3-4 years, it's decided to stop syncing and we need to reboot the watch again.

IME, the Apple Watch iPhone BT connection just works. All the time.

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

#647

Post by Rapzid »

gzer0 wrote: post #393
Rapzid wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's 2019, not 1980.

Evidence is simply being brought forth to showcase that before Apple became as large as they did, they still cared about accessiblity, irregardless of their "company size" as you stated.

I don't see how that's relevant at all in 2019. People WERE giving Apple mad props for their thoughtfulness back in the day. Now, they have revenue over a third that of Saudi Arabia's GDP. I was responding the OPs point. That's evidence for an argument nobody made.

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

#648

Post by [deleted] »

kyralis wrote: post #371
dwighttk wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully it is better at detecting hard falls than my series2 was at detecting the beginning of a swimming workout... I'd be driving down the road at 30 mph brushing my hair and my apple watch would ask me if I was starting a swimming workout. And I had to turn the knob to unlock to tell it no because it automatically locks you down when a swimming workout starts.

Honest question: Why are you driving down the road at 30mph brushing your hair?

[deleted]

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

#649

Post by frabbit »

1e-9 wrote: post #627
WA wrote: post #485

I bet this is a great feature (and I do have an Apple Watch), but can we please hold for a sec here? This piece reads like an Ad. Furthermore, many comments here are about "I want to see my kids grow up". Now please, calculate the odds of: - you are in a terrible accident - there is no one around you to call an ambulance - you can’t call an ambulance yourself, because you are knocked out or can’t move I think the odd…

The odds become uncomfortably high for the elderly. In the U.S., falls are the leading cause of both injuries (at 7 million/yr) and death from injuries (at 27 thousand/yr) for the elderly[1]. It is a significant risk even if you aren't older. Worldwide, falls are the leading cause of accidental or unintentional injury deaths overall[2]. Given the incidence rate, I would say the odds of a serious fall injury while alo…

The odds become uncomfortably high for the elderly. In the U.S., falls are the leading cause of both injuries (at 7 million/yr) and death from injuries (at 27 thousand/yr) for the elderly[1]

There should be a law forcing them to wear bicycle helmets for their own good.

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

#650

Post by frabbit »

v77 wrote: post #597
WA wrote: post #485

I bet this is a great feature (and I do have an Apple Watch), but can we please hold for a sec here? This piece reads like an Ad. Furthermore, many comments here are about "I want to see my kids grow up". Now please, calculate the odds of: - you are in a terrible accident - there is no one around you to call an ambulance - you can’t call an ambulance yourself, because you are knocked out or can’t move I think the odd…

This is a very common problem for elderly people and many products exist to fill the gap already.

Helmets.
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