Does anyone have any experience of an Apple Watch as a falls watch?.

[Ihad2Strokes]

Hi

I have found a brilliant watch by 'Your Stride' which if I had found them in January (when I had my Stroke) I would have bought one immediately. It is basically a plain watch that step counts but it's main function is to be a falls alarm, a real human speaks to you if it senses you have had a fall and will contact your designated person or emergency services for you and will chat to you (I think until Help arrives, but I'm not sure). It's £59.99 to buy and £20 per month for the monitoring, which seems completely reasonable to me.

However, it doesn't do a lot of the things an Apple Watch would do and the Apple Watch is smaller and less utilitarian. (obviously more expensive but since the Stroke using my phone for the time and various other things is more difficult than it was before, so I was looking at getting some kind of watch anyway)

The information about the Apple Watch says it does sense falls and if you don't press the button within a given time it will contact the emergency services.

I was just wondering if anyone had any actual experience of this working?

I'd rather put the money towards an Apple Watch that I actually want, then a very utilitarian falls watch, but only if it's going to do this one thing I absolutely need which is contact the emergency services should I have a fall.

One other consideration is that the Your Stride watch is not waterproof and I would need to remove it to have a shower whereas the Apple Watch is waterproof. I am most surprised that Your Stride watch isn't waterproof, but it isn't, so there you go.

Any experience of the apple watch working effectively as a falls watch or other comments, much appreciated.

Thank you!! That's good to know.

Before I had the stroke, I had been looking at watches mainly as step counters when my old one died, I had been thinking about just replacing it with another GP step counter watch, but look a bit at fitbits & Apple watches as my phone is Apple and my iPad, love both of them!! I just wasn't sure if I need it or could justify an Apple Watch when a cheap step counter to watch would do.

I wasn't even aware the Apple Watch had a falls alarm as it wasn't something I had ever given a second thought

Then I had the stroke and my life has been turned upside down & I feel a lot more vulnerable walking off the beaten track & even some days around the house 🙄🙄

All of the feedback is very good xx

I've got a model 10 but previously had an SE from about 5 years ago, the fall alert has worked on both when doing things less strenuous than falling for example once mine activated because I was trying to push my arm through an inside out sleeve and it got stuck but then became free and my arm shot through it. But bear in mind that if you did fall on your phone and break it you might not be able to make the emergency call without it as the watch is not connected to the phone network itself (unless you fork out extra for the one that can be used separately and it's own phone contract). But one of the benefits is that you can keep your phone safe in a bag or similar and less likely to drop it. And if you are at home then it just needs to be within bluetooth range.

Another thing I like is that you can dictate text messages onto it as well as making voice calls if you had fallen and were not within reach of your phone at home. It has so many other uses too, I use the timer all the time, use it to ping my phone when I can't remember where I left it, apple pay to save getting my phone out of my bag etc.

I fall a lot and have my Apple Watch set up to call a relative if I fall. Whether it makes the call depends on the angle of the fall and if I lose consciousness etc.
I bought mine as I fall a lot and we realised its usefulness after a relative fell and their watch automatically called the police and ambulance and the police then called another relative. The faller ended up in ICU so apple literally saved their life even though we had not realised the phone even did this if you fell.
I thought an Apple Watch was a cheaper option than a fall watch or pendant and subscription.
When I was choosing a phone I found all the apple ones had call alerts so think it is a matter of personal preference as to the model but one thing you do need is to pay about £7 per month so you can use the watch as a phone without your phone being in the vicinity so you can call someone without having your phone with you - very useful if you have not fallen but just need help and don't have your phone with you.
I found O2 the best option as they offered interest free and sim only deals - not sure if they are still on offer.
Battery life is very good unless you use the torch facility. That is very useful at night to prevent falls!

My elderly Mother has a Your Stride watch/alarm. It isn’t very bulky and looks like a normal watch. It is very sensitive though and if she makes a dramatic arm movement she often gets a voice asking her if she’s alright!
I agree with you that it is a bit daft she has to take it off in the shower as that’s obviously a very vulnerable time. It also has to be taken off to be charged, Mum was doing this at night which wasn’t very sensible as nighttime loo trips are a potential fall risk so she does charge it during the day now.
I’m not sure of the range it has if she’s out in the garden but she also has a pendant alarm which works via satellite (I think) so she would be able to get help if she had a fall while out and about on her mobility scooter.
She struggles with her mobile phone so I won’t be suggesting she swops to an Apple Watch!

🤣 at it going off when you pushed through your sleeve too hard 🤣

I would probably spend the extra to get the GPS now (whereas I wouldn't have before) but yes, I had temporarily forgotten about the extra expense of the monthly phone contract for the watch.

There's just too much to think about🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️ but yes, it does have lots of other little uses.

I'm on Giffgaff with my phone . Not sure how much they would charge extra per month for an Apple watch.??

Thank you that's very helpful!!

I'm sorry to hear you fall a lot. I had one fall last year.. I have no idea what happened. I just sent it up on the floor. And luckily was near some furniture and was able to get myself up. I thought it was very weird at the time, but just put it down to one of things, (are used to ski and several times had done that complete whiteout fall over thing). But looking back.(hindsight is wonderful.) I had probably had one of my strokes that I didn't know anything about until I had the big one in January).

Do you fall very often and it doesn't set the alarm off?

that was all very fortunate for your relative, how lucky she had it!!

No, the Apple Watch is definitely not the cheaper option, the Your strike is only £59.99 to buy and then it's £20 per month for the monitoring. You can pay £3 per month once you decide you don't need the monitoring any more to maintain the SIM card. But once you stop paying that it just becomes a normal watch. And you can't. (at this stage anyway.) use it as a fool watch after that.

£7 per month to have the fall alarm or just be able to use it to make calls is very reasonable. I must check out what gift gaffe offers (if anything)

I can't see me using the torch on the watch at night, but I might exhaust that using it to read packets these days🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️

No, if you go to the loo in the night, that's definitely when it would be sensible to be wearing it. Fortunately, when my diabetes is in good control.(the vast majority of the time except maybe Christmas🫣) I don't need to get up in the night for the toilet,

it has its own GPS, so you can be hiking mountains, on holiday in Scotland, or on the seafront in Devon!!

Which is what I was looking for and would have bought in January when I hadthe Stroke if I had known about them, everywhere I enquired I could only find pendants and such for in the house and that wasn't (at the time) my biggest concern I had people coming to the house every day and the neighbour that was checking that she had seen me every day, but I don't now and I have also acquired an issue with my hip which scares me as I was in hospital with an elderly lady who had fallen walking across her living room because her hip gave away and she was there three days before her gardener spotted her through the French doors. I don't have French doors and I don't have a gardener😂 and I feel like I could be here for days on end before anybody would actually check on me!!

So one that works indoors and out on walks it's brilliant, I put in an order for the Your stride watch, but put it on hold when I discovered the Apple Watch has a fall alarm too ( & lots more colours to choose from and other useful bits and pieces as well as being able to use it as a phone to call anyone rather than just an emergency contact service)

I'm on giffgaff too and don't think they support the apple watch, it is only the main providers I think. I find the torch really handy if you are carrying things up the stairs after dark or whatever as your hands are free and you don't need to put on lights (my DD complains if I put the landing light on after she's gone to bed). Or even if you are just going out to the garage or similar after dark and don't want to hold a phone or torch.

I’ve fallen whilst trail running a few times and my Apple Watch has detected each fall. I’ve been fine and not needed emergency services. I think it is brilliant for that purpose though.
The battery life isn’t great but I now charge mine overnight on my bedside table. If you can do that where you can reach the watch from your bed you might find peace of mind.
Slightly different angle, I text an elderly relative every afternoon with two x’s. If no reply after two attempts I would phone them. If no reply I would phone for help local to them; their son.
I looked at the Your Stride watch for my relative but the monthly subscription put me off.
I bought mine from Very with a 20% discount for new customers and 9 months interest free credit I paid it off without incurring any interest charges.

My mum and MiL both have YourStride watches. The reason they can’t sell them as waterproof is the little holes of the ‘speaker’, the part that means you can talk through the watch to someone at YourStride if you fall. I think my mum keeps hers on in the shower and just wraps some cling film round her wrist. It hasn’t broken the watch yet!

We chose it because it works out of the house, versus others that you have to talk though the base unit. No good if you fall in the garden or on the street! And because it doesn’t have a phone contract so isn’t tied to any particular phone network. It works anywhere there’s signal.

Agree with other posters that it’s not particularly bulky.

If you also have an iPhone and you always have it with you, you don't need an extra cellular account for the Apple Watch (and you don't need the Watch with cellular at all) as it'll use the phone to do the dialling.

Mum's using a £180 Apple Watch 5 no-cellular (from ebay, MusicMagpie refurb I think it was) and it's called us twice for falls. She's cancelled a bunch - when she's digging in the garden that occasionally starts it on its "are you okay?" routine.

We did look at the YourStride recently but given the £20/month it didn't make economic sense. The 7+ day battery made us consider it but mum just charges the phone and watch overnight together.

@Ihad2Strokes I have always fallen since childhood but falling and breaking bones made me realise it was time to get an alert but funnily I have not broken anything since getting the watch.

It has not called my emergency contact if I have fallen slowly onto grass - not an issue as I was fine and could crawl so it knows I am moving and can sort myself out. However sudden lurching type falls gets it hyper active and in call mode .

I called Apple helpline before I bought mine as I was not sure if a basic model would do what I wanted - they were really helpful and no sales pressure.

Yes, maybe I'll find it useful for something, but no one here to object to internal lights & where I live is lit up like a bloody operating theatre at night. You'd think the council would have better things to spend their money on than so many street lights! Potholes would be a good start, mind you now that I can't drive it is one less thing to get annoyed by. You have to look for the silver lining....

I'm sorry, you've fallen while trail running, but I guess it's fairly common (I wouldn't know as I ran like a penguin when I could run, so avoided trail running & now I'm struggling to run the bath!!🙇🏻‍♀️

excellent to know the watch has worked each time though!!

yeah, I'm not too worried about charging it because I generally don't get up in the night & if I wanted to, could easily charge it on my bedside table. Or have plenty of opportunity in the day at the moment.

Interesting that you bought yours from very. Costco and other places always seem to offer deals on older models (well older than the model the Apple are currently selling) but I've always been a bit wary of buying Apple from non-Apple stores, but maybe a bit overcautious.

If I can't get a contract through Giffgaff to add to my phone, do you know if there's anything stopping me from getting the watch only contract from one of the other providers??

Your relative is lucky to have someone so reliable. I have a friend who is on @Ihad2Strokes watch, she's very good if I'm about to do something specific (like if I'm feeling super unsteady but I'm going to have a shower. I can message her and ask her to make sure she hears from me afterwards if not to call my neighbour who has a key and will pop in, my neighbour isn't very reliable to ask her to do the same thing as she's much more likely to forget I ever went in the shower, but she would happily pop into me if my friend rang her) same with a couple of other friends ( it's difficult when all your friends are starting to have memory problems whether it's age or menopause!!). Mind you., having said that, none of the younger ones are that reliable either. Your relative is very lucky to have you and for you to be so reliable.

Thank you for your post x

Re waterproof, I wonder why they can't use whatever technology it is that Apple and others use??
Maybe they can't afford to yet??

it's good your mum has found a workaround & it's good it hasn't affected the watch yet. I did think about just leaving it on and seeing how it copes, with them not being too expensive to replace if they do die, but if I can get something waterproof...

If I had seen the Your Stride in January when I had the stroke I would have bought it straight away, but the pendants and things people were suggesting we're just not that much used to me when my main need was out of the house, not in it.

If I had realised in January that Apple watches had the fall alarm, I would have bought one then definitely.

It's good to know they're not as bulky as they look on their website. On their website, they really do look most un appealing, though I did order one (which is now on hold) because had it been my only option I would've worn it anyway. But now with the temptation of an Apple Watch, that's not just plain black & has so many other uses, I think I'm leaning that way.

I need to look into what contracts are available for the watch standalone or I suppose changing my contract from Giffgaff, but they more than do what I need for my phone and there's so much cheaper than anything else I found I don't really want to swap my phone over...

Thank you for your post too.

At the moment, yes, I do always have my phone on me, but that can be a right royal pain in the bum when I'm just popping to the loo or into the kitchen, et cetera and when I pop outside to the bins or whatever. Especially at the moment due to the lack of ability to carry anything in one hand anyway.🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️

Also, even though I do take it everywhere, if I was to have a fall say in the kitchen, I may not be able to get to it where I have fallen, and I'd rather have a watch than a bag. I keep permanently on me to keep the phone in.

Yes, and no GPS/cellular one would be fine if I want to continue taking my phone everywhere& would definitely be the cheapest option, it would just be nice not to have to take my phone when I'm just nipping out to the bins or around the block when I don't want to take a bag and don't have pockets.

But I need to weigh it all up.

It sounds like the Applewatch is the perfect solution for your mum & it's good to know that it works just fine on the earlier versions too, if I decide to look further a field for one

So thank you for your post x

Maybe your Apple Watch has a special surround mode that protects your bones🤣🤣.

The bloke I spoke to Apple the other day didn't really know anything about it and had to bring it up on his screen to read about it. He didn't fill me with confidence. But he was. (well sounded.) Young and definitely into the fancy sport things the other model that they are currently selling has. He wasn't trying to get me to buy that model, but he was extolling its virtues, but I'm not spending £800 plus on it!! Especially as I'd never use its amazing features, my scuba diving and water skiing days are well behind me sadly.

But from everything everyone has said on this thread it seems like on all of their watches SOS feature is just as good.

My friend's husband has one. He fell at work and no one was around. She had a message about it and it gave his exact location. He works in a big company and he was in the warehouse. Luckily he was able to get up but she was able to call his boss and report it.

Does anyone have experience of a Samsung watch being used for the same reason? I'd use one myself as I've a chronic illness which can cause my legs to lose power but also for my 81 year old dad who uses a Samsung phone and tablet, he wouldn't hear of switching to iPhone (I wouldn't want to either tbh).

Bloody hell, this is frustrating.

I had decided that I was going to get an Apple Watch,

However, as was mentioned earlier on in the thread, they are not supported by Giffgaff and are only supported by five networks.

I can't find a single watch only deal, they all appear to need your phone contract switched over to them, which is going to cost considerably more than I pay on giffgaff every month and that's without knowing how much the watch add-on is 🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️

Why is everything so complicated and never what I need?🥲

Mine is not cellular but can keep in touch with my phone wherever I am in the house and garden, I don't have to have the phone actually on me. Provided they are either within bluetooth range of each other or both on the same wifi network they work. In fact they just need to be on known wifi networks. So for example when I go to work my phone (and therefore my watch) link to the work guest wifi. If I leave my phone at home, on our wifi, when I get to work my watch connects to the guest wifi, which it knows is safe because it has previously been on it via my phone, and works. I can use it for pretty well everything including calls and texts even though my phone is 10 miles away. So provided you have wifi coverage of your entire house and garden or they are small enough for bluetooth range to work you may not need cellular.

That's very helpful to know!!

I just need to see what the coverage is like out to the bins and things like that. I'm not actually sure how to do that.🙇🏻‍♀️ because it just changes between Wi-Fi and phone contract allowance?!

if I was to buy the Your Stride, it would cost £20 a month for the connection and monitoring, so I suppose as long as changing my phone to another network and adding the watch doesn't cost much more than that it's not too bad.

There's too much to think about.

You can switch the mobile data off on your phone and just leave the wifi on and walk round with it to see how far it extends.

Not sure if this helps but my iPhone is a refurbished one from ID mobile and my phone contract is with them too. Long story short, I have no debt and when I wanted to upgrade my iPhone with Sky (my provider) I was denied as credit rating not good enough!
That’s why I bought my watch on credit from Very. £208

Okay, point out the bleeding obvious🤣🤣🤣

Still not functioning on all cylinders after the stroke and with the complete lack of sleep!!

Also getting stressed out about a few things isn't helping anything!

Thanks for reminding me🤗