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LifeAlert type app?

temna

temna

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 5, 2008
715
410
I wonder if there will be an app to warn people if something happens to a watch wearer, say the heart beat goes above or below a certain threshold it texts or emails an emergency contact. I think this might be an interesting idea for an app for a device with heartbeat monitor and attached to a phone.
 
could you imagine all the false alarms? Sorry not a heart attack just having sex. lol
 
Use of the heart rate monitor consumes battery life even faster than using the Watch as a phone. Thus, it is not feasible for the Apple Watch to regularly check your pulse, much less do so continuously.
 
KenAFSPC said:
Use of the heart rate monitor consumes battery life even faster than using the Watch as a phone. Thus, it is not feasible for the Apple Watch to regularly check your pulse, much less do so continuously.
Click to expand...

I don't see why it couldn't check the pulse of the wearer every 5 minutes or something like that to save battery life.
 
temna said:
I wonder if there will be an app to warn people if something happens to a watch wearer, say the heart beat goes above or below a certain threshold it texts or emails an emergency contact. I think this might be an interesting idea for an app for a device with heartbeat monitor and attached to a phone.
Click to expand...

No, there won't be any such app:
- Apple is not going to make such app
- 3rd party developers don't have access to the heart rate monitor (will at some point in the future though)
- 3rd party developers can't have an app running as a background process (and that won't change any time soon for sure...)
 
The app technically could run on the iPhone, using health kit.
 
temna said:
I wonder if there will be an app to warn people if something happens to a watch wearer, say the heart beat goes above or below a certain threshold it texts or emails an emergency contact. I think this might be an interesting idea for an app for a device with heartbeat monitor and attached to a phone.
Click to expand...



This is an outstanding idea, forget sending to a company, your right just a simple text to a loved one.

Grandma falls, watch knows this due to velocity location to floor, and duration, then it simply sends me a text saying check on grandma, I call to see what's up, no answer and I'm on my way to make sure all is ok.

This is just a great idea, I use to look over a friend of the family that was in her 90's at the time, she fell down the stairs and out of total grace of God we we found her 12 hours later at the bottom of the stairs, she was barely conscious and she ended up being OK, the next day she may have not made it.

Now I know this watch could detect a fall like that and just a simple text to me would have been great, I don't mind a few false alarms plus the watch knows when it's off the wrist.

And yeah life alert is fine and dandy but not for everyone plus this watch does so much more.
 
richwoodrocket said:
Thats the opposite of saving battery life... Youre suggesting to save battery life that the watch execute another process? hmmm...
Click to expand...

The discussion was to have the heart rate monitor run constantly and notify emergency help if the BPM goes above or below a certain amount. The problem is running the heart rate sensor constantly will drain the battery in 7 hours. So I was just suggesting only run it for a few seconds every 5 minutes to allow this to work all day. :)
 
betabeta said:
This is an outstanding idea, forget sending to a company, your right just a simple text to a loved one.

Grandma falls, watch knows this due to velocity location to floor, and duration, then it simply sends me a text saying check on grandma, I call to see what's up, no answer and I'm on my way to make sure all is ok.

This is just a great idea, I use to look over a friend of the family that was in her 90's at the time, she fell down the stairs and out of total grace of God we we found her 12 hours later at the bottom of the stairs, she was barely conscious and she ended up being OK, the next day she may have not made it.

Now I know this watch could detect a fall like that and just a simple text to me would have been great, I don't mind a few false alarms plus the watch knows when it's off the wrist.

And yeah life alert is fine and dandy but not for everyone plus this watch does so much more.
Click to expand...

IFTTT

If heart stops, email will to attorney
If heart stops, text wife to-do list.

Kidding, but, could be done.

This is a great idea, and not for gen 1, but you know this is coming down the pike when battery life can handle the heart rate running all the time.
 
temna said:
I wonder if there will be an app to warn people if something happens to a watch wearer, say the heart beat goes above or below a certain threshold it texts or emails an emergency contact.
Click to expand...
To warn you if your BPM goes above 120 and you turn green and Hulk out...? ;)
 
T-Will said:
The discussion was to have the heart rate monitor run constantly and notify emergency help if the BPM goes above or below a certain amount. The problem is running the heart rate sensor constantly will drain the battery in 7 hours. So I was just suggesting only run it for a few seconds every 5 minutes to allow this to work all day. :)
Click to expand...
Running the heart sensor (which emits light more or less like a flashlight pointed toward your wrist) constantly would probably drain the battery in 2 hours or less. You might get 7 hours life if the sensor is run once every five minutes.
 
KenAFSPC said:
Running the heart sensor (which emits light more or less like a flashlight pointed toward your wrist) constantly would probably drain the battery in 2 hours or less. You might get 7 hours life if the sensor is run once every five minutes.
Click to expand...

According to this page, you get 6.5 hours in "workout mode" with the heart rate sensor on. They don't specify how often the heart rate is checked in this mode though, so you could be right. https://www.apple.com/watch/battery.html
 
T-Will said:
According to this page, you get 6.5 hours in "workout mode" with the heart rate sensor on. They don't specify how often the heart rate is checked in this mode though, so you could be right. https://www.apple.com/watch/battery.html
Click to expand...


so any ideas how this would work if I'm out on a 10 mile run?

At the moment I use ismoothrun, pebble watch and Wahoo HR Monitor. I'm not uber fit so 10 miles takes me 2 hours or so

I've love to replace the HR strap with the apple watch, but not if it means that it only tracks my HR for 1 hour, then dies....or only tracks it once every 10 mins.

Assuming of course that there is an app I can use like ismoothrun to give me the info I want anyway
 
I don't think Apple has ever specified how often it checks heart rate while in workout mode, so it would just be a guess at this point. I would assume it checks it more often than every 10 mins though.
 
T-Will said:
I don't think Apple has ever specified how often it checks heart rate while in workout mode, so it would just be a guess at this point. I would assume it checks it more often than every 10 mins though.
Click to expand...

I would hope every 5 min, but the real key is not how often, but WHEN. So it's important to get readings at certain points of a workout, maybe during the peak, during the cool down its more often.

So maybe it's every 10 min, your heart rate hits 125+ and it starts checking every 3 minutes, something like that, but no need to be so often during the entire workout.

I always check pulse after a run, and during this cool down phase I check it often to see how fast it goes back down.

Shouldn't take much battery, as I'm sure there is some Apple secret sauce, like light intensity dependent on finding blood vessels and it only needs a quick check and multiply to figure it out.
 
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