- 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 from falling or while shitting" -- the original is funnier than the translation, because the two causes rhyme).

The accident doesn't have to be terrible either. Tons of run of the mill accidents leave people unconscious...

But you don't read about such cases as such.

E.g. an elder person who fell either they eventually get up in time and call for help (so you don't read any story), or they don't, and the story is "person found dead in their apartment" etc, and might or might not mention the fall...

Is it as necessary as a spare tire in your car or a fire extinguisher in your home? No. But (since the device it does other stuff too) not bad to have regardless.

Note: For certain categories, this is so needed, that there are expensive special purpose devices that are popular for certain cases (e.g. elderly with dementia, parkison, bad backs, and so on), e.g.: https://www.medicalalertadvice.com/fall-detection/

But this is a multi-purpose device, and a cool one at that, plus it has a phone attached and can call the 911 itself, and gives this ability as just another feature to everyone!

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 got help right away and if nothing else, she wouldn't have suffered for a few days. She was in such good physical health that nobody expected something like this to happen.

That said, having an Apple watch is certainly much cooler than wearing those emergency call devices they currently sell for old people.

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.

This is the coldest of cold takes.

A person falls, and nobody misses her or looks after her for three days. How is this not a problem of our current society?

If I died today, the only place that could figure it in a day or so out would be my workplace. If I didn't work, then it could be a week before my parents or friends began to suspect something.

You're not wrong, but it's also not unusual. Most people I know do not talk to their mom more than once every 3 days.

Having personally been run over cycling, multiple passersby called 911 for me immediately, and I was in a ambulance in less than 10min.

Don't know about the US, but in several mountains I've been on around the world (not in developing countries though), signal was just fine. It might not work for Everest, or the remotest part of the Rockies, but most hikings/treks are not in such places...

It's an addition safety factor.

Yes! Falls by the elderly are a huge issue and there have been major product lines that focus on it. Many will probably remember the 80s/90s commercials about "I've fallen and I can't get up!"

If you're serious about hiking/climbing you should never be in a position where you would need an apple watch to save you. You should always let people know where you are going, what you are planning to do, and when you plan to be back or at least back in contact otherwise they should call a rescue team. If you're solo climbing and your apple watch is what you're relying on in case of emergency you probably have far bigger issues to worry about

That being said, it does seem like it could be useful for the elderly in some scenarios

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 those of us who stick to trails.

Anyway, you're thinking of an avalanche beacon. Those are to help others you are with find you quickly if you're buried in the snow, they have no GPS capability.

Edit just realized I know of several other instances where an Apple Watch would have saved someone or kept them for have a days torture with broken legs in their back yard while living alone. Surely this is morning common than you make out?

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2016/p0922-older-adult-fa... [2] https://www.who.int/en/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/falls

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

And I guess you are writing just to the young users. There are a lot of old people living alone (in the part of the world where such watches are affordable). Falling, even in their own house, then remaining immobile and unable to call for help is a common cause of huge problems (1) (2).

The specialized devices already exist too, but a lot of people don't carry them, until they already suffer such event and also have luck to survive. Such people (who would otherwise not survive) get potentially (if the system do engage and what follows can be influenced) a huge benefit in a watch that has such functionality.

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1) https://www.medicalalertadvice.com/fall-detection/ also:

"With the monthly costs nearly twice that of a traditional medical alert monitoring system, the cost alone may be the deciding factor. Is the extra costs worth it? Only you can make that decision. Keep in mind, these emergency alert systems cannot detect 100% of all falls."

2) Also see the exponential increase of chances to die with age:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gompertz%E2%80%93Makeham_law_o...

That's been a solved problem for years though. As your link points out, LifeAlert bracelets (and similar technologies) have had fall detection for quite some time now. The new thing that Apple (and Garmin) have brought to the table is pairing that will a cell radio.

Given the other benefits of a LifeAlert bracelet (or pendant), I'm not sure the Apple Watch is a major improvement (especially for someone with failing eyesight).

Loves the Apple Watch I bought him as a gift though.

And this is the best aspect of the systems that aren’t explicitly “for sick and old.”

We have recently a case of a coworker (middle-age man) falling in his house while wife and kids were away and stayed there for hours until somehow reached his phone with a broken back.

- smart watch correctly detects a crash

This doesn’t seem like a very difficult problem to solve for the vast majority of crashes.

At least around here cell reception != humans within earshot at all.

That said, this is a great feature for many people. I could see it being very beneficial to hunters, elderly people, and people who run in the woods.

Think of it in terms of a risk assessment[1]. If you are engaging in an activity, you should look at the probability of injury and then the consequences if that occurs.

For example, I'm going mountain biking by myself. The area I'm riding in has a loose surface, but no extreme hills or other features. So it's somewhat likely I'll fall, but the consequence of that won't be extreme. Conversely, I'm riding in a hilly area with a rough but grippy surface. Relatively, the probability of a fall may be lower, but the consequence could be much higher.

Using this type of not-exactly-quantitative reasoning, depending on what you are doing (and the consequences of something going wrong), it may be very reasonable to buy a smart watch or something similar just for this purpose.

[1]A not exactly good article on risk matrix use. Also search for "5x5 risk matrix" (NASA probably has a good reference). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_matrix

9to5Mac has links to various fall detection stories at the bottom of this post

https://9to5mac.com/2019/09/21/apple-watch-fall-detection-mo...

I’m still mad, 10 years later, about the fact that he has 2 amazing grandkids who won’t get to know him, or that I can’t ask him about the state of the world.

I don’t know if the Apple Watch would have helped him, but I do know that you haven’t done a full risk assessment. He wasn’t in an isolated area, he wasn’t inexperienced. Falls get scarier and scarier the older your loved ones get.

My mother's father, while still alive, rapidly deteriorated mentally and was in two accidents by himself in somewhat remote areas and also went to drive to the VA 15 minutes away and ended up several hours away lost and confused when state police came upon him.

My half-brother was driving a box truck for work when it went off road (ice) and into a very steep ditch, the truck was not visible from the road and was unconscious for some amount of time, fortunately this was still in flip phone days so his phone was in his pants pocket and within reach. Even on the phone with 911 he said he saw the emergency vehicles pass him (via their lights) while he was on the phone with 911.

2 or 3 years ago, the brother of the girl that was killed in the hit and run, hit a patch of ice on an on or off ramp and rolled his car multiple times down the hill with his pregnant girlfriend in the car, with the car landing on it's roof. Fortunately it happened during day and there were people there that witnessed it and while quite confused/disoriented they both remained conscious, had that happened at night such a device could have summoned help.

I'm one person and these are just the instances I know of where such a technology could have been useful.

A lot of people on HN live in big cities, ride bicycles or public transportation to work, are rarely if ever out of sight of multiple human beings. That's not always the case. Technology like this is great, and the more awareness it gets the more it will be adopted, the more it is adopted the more lives it can potentially save and the more data it can provide on how to refined.

What if someone is home alone and falls down the stairs? Has a heart attack? Is cleaning gutters and falls? My father's father was cleaning his windows, fell and hit his head on the driveway but his wife heard the ladder fall with him and was able to call 911, but what if that was a widower at 2pm on a weekday and he just had to lay there until someone happened to drive by, what if he was in the back yard and had a privacy fence?

The late Grant Thompson crashed his aircraft this summer (I believe they said died on impact) and was able to be located by comparable technology and by knowing where he'd be flying. Had he not died on impact, something like this could have saved his life or had he not told everyone where he was going and when he expected to return this could have given a location to go search (assuming he had signal) and led to a quick recovery of his body.

Edit: and actually, this may have saved my own life if I'd had the technology and it had triggered from a fall from bed. Some years ago I had a hypokalemic event where I was effectively paralyzed, with great effort I managed to get to the edge of the bed and proceeded to fall out of bed like a sack of bricks onto the floor, barely able to move my hands with minimal manual dexterity and poor coordination, fortunately my mother was already living with me due to her health but I still laid there on the floor, with only a bathroom between our rooms, yelling for help for probably 5 minutes. That was a pretty interesting experience, I've written about it here -> https://www.ryanmercer.com/ryansthoughts/2013/2/19/flashback...

Now I wonder if you can go "hey Google, call 911" to a Google home.

Unfortunately not. It would be a nice feature to have.

I used to have an Apple Watch, and now have a Garmin that has similar features. Nice to know they're there, but I wouldn't buy the device just for it.

That said, if I had been the son in the story, yeah, i probably would have run out and bought my own the very next day! The power of a personal connection to a story.

So yes, it happens.

In which case you will probably not have a cellphone connection anyway.

I have great cell coverage there.

So yes the chance of incident is low, but the cost of the incident is at a maximum (you can die).

Even if this situation coincidentally has happened recently, the subtle message is still here: "you can rely on Apple Watch and you should buy one - better safe than sorry"

1: https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2019/sep/24/apple-watch-al...

That hardly ever stopped news outlets from doing so. In fact, in some places everybody (every outlet) does it, even though it's against the law. Of course depends on the country and how exhaustive enforcement is (and if they can just get out of it with a slap on the wrist/small fine, in the eventually they're discovered).

That said, I don't think this is the case here. A device saving someone's life simply makes for a good story (technology, human interest, feel good result, and Apple to boot, clicks all the "people will be interested" boxes), and there are stories written for a lot less ("see this curious grumpy cat" or whatever passes for new). And such a story, if written, couldn't have but a positive spin (a person's life was saved after all).

From the moment the story actually happened, it was inevitable that outlets would report it, and with a positive message for said technology.

I don't understand the complaints about this being an ad at all. Okay, so maybe it's an ad. Is it conveying useful information? I didn't know Apple Watch's were capable of doing this. Ads are just another way of conveying information - often that information is useless. But in this case? No, it's not useless information. It's important and valuable to many people. The alternative is that there's no ads and nobody finds out about this feature, and they lose out on the opportunity to decide whether this feature (and others) warrant a purchase. It also sparks conversation about possible alternatives (and no, the devices for seniors aren't an alternative for many people), or where alternatives fall short.