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Emergency SOS via satellite

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Re: Emergency SOS via satellite

#171

Post by dpkirchner »

swores wrote: post #146
jmbwell wrote: post #120

Set backcountry search and rescue aside for a second. Seems to me this is for ordinary people doing ordinary things outside cell range, and finding they need help. A family member has a heart attack. A collision with a moose. Who knows what. Less “should’ve brought water and a jacket” and more “we’ve been on route 9 for two hours, a moment ago everything was fine, now he’s not breathing, we have no bars, and we have…

> Besides, even if this feature only saves a single life, seems worth it to me. Not that I think it will only save a single life, but if that really were the full extent of its benefit that of course it wouldn't be worth it - think of the millions Apple have spent on R&D plus the (presumably tiny but it adds up when selling millions of devices) extra cost per device - there are many ways that money could have been sp…

This seems somewhat contrarian -- what changes can Apple make to their iPhones that could save millions of lives?

Re: Emergency SOS via satellite

#172

Post by adrianmonk »

BoardsOfCanada wrote: post #138
nickcw wrote: post #100

From the small print > The service will be included for free for two years starting at the time of activation of a new iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, iPhone 14 Pro, and iPhone 14 Pro Max. Which kind of implies it will be a pay for service after two years.

That could be some very bad PR in two years. Imagine "X got lost and died two days after his apple(tm) subscription expired".

They could just let you use it and charge you a one-time fee.

And don't require the payment to go through before unlocking the feature, obviously. There will be some people who you can never collect payment from, but not that many.

Re: Emergency SOS via satellite

#173

Post by president »

BoardsOfCanada wrote: post #138
nickcw wrote: post #100

From the small print > The service will be included for free for two years starting at the time of activation of a new iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, iPhone 14 Pro, and iPhone 14 Pro Max. Which kind of implies it will be a pay for service after two years.

That could be some very bad PR in two years. Imagine "X got lost and died two days after his apple(tm) subscription expired".

This could be mitigated by not blocking access to the feature after the 2 years and charging for each use.

Re: Emergency SOS via satellite

#174

Post by kkielhofner »

vikR0001 wrote: post #92

How can a little iPhone possibly have enough power to transmit data all the distance to a satellite?

When you're going straight up you don't have to deal with obstructions and the curvature of the earth.

For OP if you want to see it in action there are plenty of YouTube videos[0] of amateur radio operators with an HT (walkie-talkie) contacting astronauts on the ISS - which is 254 miles up.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/3cZe-UASAHs

Re: Emergency SOS via satellite

#175

Post by petre »

tony_cannistra wrote: post #28
mwint wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t it going to make calls using this feature much easier, if there’s a 10m-accuracy GPS pin around the subject?

Certainly, yes. My anxiety around the broad adoption of features like this isn't really the individual calls, because they're likely to be fairly mundane / close to trail heads. Rather, my concern is with the volume. Lots of "I'm Cold, Please Help" calls could take resources away from rarer but far more resource-intensive "My leg is broken, and I"m 10 miles out" calls.

The info could be used by volunteers such as NGOs with a 4x4 rescue team. I have a friend in such an org and they help a lot of naïve people who get stuck in the mud/snow. He got into the NGO by getting stuck and being pulled out by another volunteer. I was with him and another guy when that occured. They should be able to help "I'm cold" and other less severe cases. They always cooperate with authorities (police, gendarmerie, fire dept) and the cooperation goes both ways. Also keep in mind that there's a very thin line between "I'm cold" and potentialy deadly hypothermia.

Re: Emergency SOS via satellite

#176

Post by rtkwe »

Scoundreller wrote: post #169
rtkwe wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPS has always been available to get location information even offline. What you usually don't get at the user end is a map of where you are because maps apps don't cache or download automatically. I've installed OSMAnd+ and downloaded a lot of maps to avoid that and I wish Google Maps or Apple Maps made it easier to download a large swath like you can with OSM. (you can even download POI to still be able to do some…

> I wish Google Maps or Apple Maps made it easier to download a large swath like you can with OSM. Google Maps on iOS let’s you choose squares on the planet and download offline maps. Open the app, click your initial at the top right and you’ll see Offline Maps in the drop-down. Driving directions only though. But you can search for POIs and it will navigate you there. Or you can look at the maps/streets. I use it re…

Yeah I've used that in the past on Android and it's been very sketchy. The app will seemingly let the map expire and if I don't remember to check every time I go up to the mountains where I need it I'll usually get stuck without a working up to date map. It also doesn't seem to hold that many POI locations so I'm stuck just navigating to the right town and hoping I get signal eventually to find the actual place I'm going. OSMAnd+ however just keeps the data even if it's older so I'll always have at least some street data.

Re: Emergency SOS via satellite

#177

Post by rapsey »

balozi wrote: post #164

Predictions of where this tech goes from here: shall the satellite SOS infrastructure be adapted into full-blown satellite-based wireless service for all mobile devices? I am thinking global 5G capabilities off satellites, untethered from domestic wireless network carriers. Sort of like how doctors got pager service in 1950 progressed into the smartphones we have today.

Eventually absolutely yes.

Re: Emergency SOS via satellite

#178

Post by rtkwe »

brookst wrote: post #136
rtkwe wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPS has always been available to get location information even offline. What you usually don't get at the user end is a map of where you are because maps apps don't cache or download automatically. I've installed OSMAnd+ and downloaded a lot of maps to avoid that and I wish Google Maps or Apple Maps made it easier to download a large swath like you can with OSM. (you can even download POI to still be able to do some…

I believe it is T-Mobile and Starlink, though very early stage (just a press release[0] about "a vision to give customers a crucial additional layer of connectivity" that "aims to work" with existing phones, far as I can tell). And yes, the Apple announcement is just the productization of a feature in the Qualcomm X65[1]. But I think this is a case where the technical implementation is the easiest part; I would be su…

I think it depends massively on how much it costs the company to provide. If it's just a chip and a bit more software I think companies will include it. It's not clear from the press reports if the money Apple spent on building up base stations for this are just for them or if the satellite providers could use them for other companies phones.

Re: Emergency SOS via satellite

#179

Post by totalZero »

arrrg wrote: post #86
tony_cannistra wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, in many places in the United States, SAR calls don't cost you anything. Usually it's the ambulance / helicopter ride. But even then, there are helicopter operators (like the U.S. military, which responds to many SAR calls where I live) that don't charge.

At least in Germany I know that the perspective on this is that you never want someone to even think about taking cost into consideration when they decide to make an emergency call.

In the US there are people who drive to the emergency room and wait outside in the parking lot to see if they get better or if they really need to go inside. Some of those people have insurance but would pay a deductible.

I don't have data to support this, but I guess that at least 40% of Americans would agree with the statement, "I take cost into consideration when I make a call to emergency services."

Re: Emergency SOS via satellite

#180

Post by cookingmyserver »

stagger87 wrote: post #153
user3939382 wrote: post #143

Wait, what? iPhones are sat phones?? It has the antenna for that?? Since when? The GPS is a passive receive. I skimmed the article and didn't see, how on Earth (lol) does this work? Sat antennas are huge. Maybe these search and rescue SOS beacons have their own signal?

You have to point the phone at the sky for long periods of time AND track the sat position in the sky while you do it. It's probably some long spread spectrum approach (lots of processing gain), as well as I'm sure a bunch of other cool tricks/techniques.

Does anyone know how they track the position of the communication satellites? I assume they use GPS for the users position, the gyro and accelerometer for device orientation, and then periodically load and update the LEO sat paths on the device when they are connected. Or is the antenna able to estimate LEO position via a signal the LEO sats sends out?
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