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Comment by pixl97 | Hacker News Reader

I remember the day my wife and I were driving on the interstate and I tossed her iphone in the center console of the car. Suddenly I get a text saying that she has been involved in an emergency and the authorities have been called. The phone starts dialing and I hit the end call button, unfortunately this is 911 ending the call doesn't do any good. We get a call back a moment later asking if we're ok. Then minutes later from all of our family contacts asking what happened.

I'm 99% sure she disabled that feature after that.

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How hard did you toss the phone exactly? :D

It should know better by seeing that the car is still traveling

You can fall in a vehicle that’s still travelling. It just has to be able to occupy the fall, so to speak

I don't think it's meant to call 911 whenever somebody trips, on a bus or otherwise. It's supposed to detect car crashes, not somebody stumbling on a bus.

The main reason I am getting my elderly mother one is for fall detection. It is not just meant for cad accidents.

The heuristics would need to be dramatically different for those use cases though

Maybe I was indoctrinated by early 90s TV ads, but don't you want that "I've fallen and I can't get up!" thing? Seems more reliable.

Sometimes people can't push a button to save themselves; and, a lot of elderly people, or even older-but-not-elderly people don't want to show themselves either to others or themselves that they need protection like this.

My mom had fall protection on her Apple Watch, for example, because she lived alone and was getting weaker.

It's unclear to me why the Apple Watch is better here. It needs to be charged daily, so people are certainly taking it off. Anything that you take off might not be on when you have an accident. Maybe I'm a weirdo, but if I'm sitting along in my house, I don't have my watch or phone on me. They are both useless to report that I've fallen and I can't get up.

Apple Watch is jewelry vs an obviously-ADA-focused device.

Some people have pride in their appearance and in their independence and don't want to think of themselves as needing such a device. It's not that the Apple Watch is better than the "I've fallen and I can't get up" device, it's that it's better than nothing, which is what they would have in the other case.

no monthly fee for the apple watch, it is also an apple watch, so it can find her phone for her as well and vibrate her wrist when she gets a call or text (she has poor hearing). It can also monitor her heart for issues. To be honest, I think these devices need to be subsidized for the elderly.

Those things have one pretty serious drawback: falls tend to happen while the person isn't wearing it. Of course, this might not be any different for smart watches and such.

Make one of those beepers waterproof and hang it off the bottom of their shower curtain.

What's the state of the art with "Hey Siri, I've fallen and I can't get up"? That sounds like something that, if coded, is always there for you if you need help. I suppose there could be some sort of gas release that renders you unable to speak, but on the other hand, that seems rare. If you fall down the stairs, that sounds like it would work, and you don't need to remember to wear anything.

Right but it can detect a fall followed by no motion at all (not the case in a moving car) followed by a warning alarm (Android supports this) and then call 999.

I've recommended NOT getting an Apple Watch/Phone for precisely this use-case.

If you don't have great manual dexterity, your fingers are wet/dirty/whatever, then using a touch-screen is terrible and frustrating.

Physical buttons, particularly ones that don't rely on manual dexterity, are a much better approach.

Yes, it can (potentially) detect falls, but if it doesn't, and you need to manually activate it then you could find yourself stuck.

Not sure I follow, you can manually call sos on the Apple Watch by holding down the side button (and keeping it held down). If it detects a fall and you don't respond within a set amount of time, it will call emergency services.

The automatic fall detect is the cherry on top, I don't think it gets any easier than pressing a (very light) button for not much time. And if your hands are fucked as well, you can tell Siri to call 911

If you can't speak, can't access the button, can't swipe, and it didn't detect the fall, then I don't think any piece of tech is going to help. You are fucked

> all of our family contacts

What, does it ping your contacts automatically?

I assume it's all the emergency contacts

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