I’ve become a big fan of wearables. At first, I had concerns over privacy. What if ‘Big Brother’ detected from the stats on my wearable that I was just too expensive to keep on the planet and sent the ‘zap’ to my Garmin that would just remove me (the liability) immediately from the spread sheets? The age of Sci-fi is here…
Well, due to an injury, I had to begin swimming on a daily basis. I find doing a mile or two of laps to be one of the most boring activities imaginable. So, to make lemonade out of lemons, I decided to challenge myself daily by purchasing a Garmin Venu (I really was interested in the 40K golf courses you can download on the watch & since I’m always riding my Harley solo to never-never land, I was thrilled about the S.O.S.feature) to track my distance and time during my daily swims. Wow! This made swimming fun! Two miles every morning became ‘how much time can I shave off per 1000 meters’? I really enjoyed that I could see my resting heart rate was back down to 48bpm and my respiration was down to 11 bpm. So far, so good (wait for it….I’m getting to the best part of the story). Everything was hunky-dory until I decided to track my vitals while sleeping. Geez, 9 breaths per minute in deep sleep and pulse of 41…stellar – except for the one evening I must have been leaning on the watch while asleep…
4am: my phone is buzzing and buzzing. I ignore it. Who the heck is calling me at 4am???
4:15am: there goes the phone. This went on and on until 7:30am when I finally awoke to the concierge buzzing me on the intercom…”Ma’am, the NYPD is here. Are you alright??? It seems your emergency contact in South Carolina got an S.O.S. from your watch and called 911 in NYC.” Geez, you just can’t make this stuff up. I told the concierge I was just fine while looking on my phone at my messages. Concierge: “Ma’am, they’re coming up to make certain you’re ok.” Oh boy…no makeup, bed head….what’s a girl to do? Meanwhile, I’m seeing all these messages on my phone:
– are you ok?
-are you alive?
-don’t worry! Hang in there! HELP IS ON THE WAY!
I phoned my friend to ask her what the hell was going on and she explained. As I looked at the watch, I saw video of myself in the screen. She said ‘Hey Kelley, they asked me if you’ve been depressed lately…I told them well, everyone has their moments of stress these days’. This translates to…if you say you’ve been down in the dumps (which I wasn’t), they’ll haul you off to either Bellevue or Randall’s Island for psychiatric evaluation for a week (happened to a friend of mine who joked with the police a few years back). So I quickly washed my face, brushed my teeth, combed my hair when the bell rang.
“NYPD Ma’am, please open the door”….I explained the situation and they laughed….one officer told me the same thing happened to him with his Apple watch and isn’t it nice my friend cares about me. Then they asked me if I had been depressed lately (aha! The trick question!). A solid ‘NO SIR!’
Well, it took a few weeks for my friend’s husband to speak with me as he was up at 4am worried, my friend laughed until it happened again a few weeks later. I got a real tongue—lashing.
Bottom Line? I really dig my wearable, but sleep is sleep and if someone did hold a mirror up to my nose at night, they’d know I really was alive. So now, I just keep it on the kitchen counter at night. Truly, instead of the wearables or patches, I’d be up for an implantable chip. A chip was fantastic every time my dog ran off; I’d receive a phone call that Sooki was at xxx address and enjoying the sausages that were just made for her. Wow, just think what an implanted chip could do for me??
Who has a good story regarding their wearables and what are your thoughts on wearables – a good thing or a bad thing?
Reference article on the popular wearable tech market.
