I never found much value in owning a smart watch. I think I'm going to reevaluate my belief.
Bike crash left Spokane man unconscious, so his Apple Watch called 911
601–610 of 686 posts
Re: Bike crash left Spokane man unconscious, so his Apple Watch called 911
#602I 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…
> - 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…
How about "slumping or dumping"?
Re: Bike crash left Spokane man unconscious, so his Apple Watch called 911
#603Earlier 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.
This is true. I am going trekking in a remote area and bought a Garmin InReach Mini. I know it pairs with my phone so it would be cool if there was some Apple Watch Siri shortcut that could make a satellite SOS message via the Garmin when a fall is detected.
Re: Bike crash left Spokane man unconscious, so his Apple Watch called 911
#604Tip: the fall detection feature seems to be turned off by default. I just turned mine on. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208944
Does anyone know if you need to get the watch with an active cellular plan to have the auto-911 feature? Or is it like how cell phones without a plan can still call 911?
Re: Bike crash left Spokane man unconscious, so his Apple Watch called 911
#605Watch how the sells of the smart watches will grow exponentially after this!
Re: Bike crash left Spokane man unconscious, so his Apple Watch called 911
#606Earlier quoted context omitted.
I ordered my grandmother a Series 5 for this feature alone, in fact it just arrived at my door today and she’s coming over later this week so I can get it setup and walk her through the basics. She has a hard time getting up from the floor if she kneels or sits down as is, one good fall from a cat tripping her or something is likely to be devastating.
Just curious did she already have an iPhone? I want to buy one for my mother but she doesn’t use iPhone. First I would have to buy her an iPhone.
The only iPhone I've owned is asecond hand iPhone 5C that I used for a few months. The watch is making me think my next phone will be an iPhone. Fortunately, I don't think there are any Android only apps that I depend on so the switch should be easy.
Re: Bike crash left Spokane man unconscious, so his Apple Watch called 911
#607Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also of note: Fall detection is exclusive to the series 4 or above, which seems questionable. (I would be very surprised if the series 3 and 4 have significantly different accelerometer hardware)
Consider that to detect falls reliably, you might need an accelerometer with a higher range than that was in the original watch.
Might also have needed a higher sample rate.
For battery life concerns, I can see them implementing some of the fall detection logic in hardware as well. For example, a high shock or shaking could trigger the fall-detection software to wake. Although, with the 60-second period, they probably wake the main processor often enough anyway that hardware detection might not save much power.
Re: Bike crash left Spokane man unconscious, so his Apple Watch called 911
#608Earlier quoted context omitted.
Think of the Apple Watch as something that you can use to reduce your phone usage. If you get the one with cellular and GPS, you can go walking/biking/outside and be reachable while at the same time not staring at your phone all the time. Even when you are at home the justification, for me at least, to keep the phone closer was because I might get a call or message I need to respond to. With the Watch, the phone goes…
So I kicked the Reddit habit. I pretty much only read HN, BBCNews, ft.com and ArsTechnica at this point. I have stopped looking at my iPad, iPhone, etc. when watching TV, sport or a movie. The need to always look was really unhealthy. I am much happier now. I have like 5 books on my iPad that I have never quite finished over the last 2 years when before all this easy tech I would have read them quite quickly. It real…
agreed. the responder there is such classic apple. You should get the watch because it counts as not looking at your phone?? Even though you are still looking at a screen. Kind of bizarre logic to me but to each their own bud.
Also good for you man, ditchin some of the distractions for focus. I think some people get weirded out by me when i watch sports because i'm basically 100% in the zone and yelling constantly. Trying to soak up every detail of every play. not casually browsing and watching 2 / 3 screens at once. I can go hours without my phone without really noticing much honestly.
Re: Bike crash left Spokane man unconscious, so his Apple Watch called 911
#609Earlier 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.
>..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's a problem, but I don't think that's the main takeaway from this story.
You could have a loving family and friends and still not be "missed for 3 days". 3 days are not big enough span of time for adults, in the grand scheme of things. E.g. if your wife is on vacation, or you/she work in another city, or have some deal going on, and you talk 1-2 times a week, it's easy for 2-3 days to slip by without anybody noticing you. Friends too might come by once a week or 1-2 times a month, and easily miss you for 3 days (that would already be more often than many people with close friends see them).
Heck, and even 1 day or even 2-3 hours would be enough for serious damage, if you weren't discovered after a fall/accident.
Re: Bike crash left Spokane man unconscious, so his Apple Watch called 911
#610Well, crap. I have been avoiding smart watches like the plague but this plus the ECG may put me over the edge. My family has a history of heart disease, I commute by bike every day, and I have a young child who I want to see grow up. One of my friends was recently killed in a motorcycle crash. A passerby found them in the morning in some bushes near the side of the road. We don't know what time the crash occurred, or…
Not riding a motorcycle would have a much larger effect on survival chances than wearing an Apple device.
I've been riding motorcycles on the street since 1986. For many parts of my life, a motorcycle was my only vehicle (including a couple of winters in Hamilton, ON).
During that time I never had any kind of crash or even a particularly close call. Two years ago I decided I didn't want to push my luck any further and sold my bike. Drivers are so distracted now that I feel my luck was going to run out soon.