Fones, Computers and Other Technical Junk

[qbawl]

I'm a huge fans of Apple watches.

I had lunch this past week with a dear friend from high school. His wife mostly relies on a wheelchair and fears being home alone in case she falls. My friend has two daughters in the Cities (a doctor and a teacher) who can be with their mother if my friend will be away from home for more than a couple of hours. Anyway, my friend sound excited about the Apple watch when I told him how it can detect falls and automatically call for help, and how a person can make a call from the watch if they're not near a phone. That would greatly relieve his wife's anxieties. I highly recommend Apple watches to older folks and to those with physical disabilities. They can save your life.

It's how I found out I have Afib.

Called emergency services for me last month when VT (ventricular tachycardia) caused me to pass out on my exercise walk.

[MN-Skeptic]

My 58-year old sister-in-law's Apple watch detected troubling heart and oxygen issues. She went to Mayo Clinic where they did tests and diagnosed her with diastolic heart failure. It's less common than ventricular heart failure so there are fewer treatments available. She's doing everything she can now to live a healthy life, though. She's going to become a first-time grandmother in April to twins and it'd be great if she could be here for all her future grandchilden!

[Shizzle Popped]

Reading this thread has got me thinking. I have an Apple watch that I almost never wear because watches, rings and such make me a little nuts.. Maybe I should though.

[Kriselda Gray]

My Galaxy watch doesnt have the fall alert, which is a shame, but it's got most of the other detectors and I imagine by the time I'm ready to replace this one, it'll have fall and I know they're working on an integrated thermometer, too. I used to hate wearing watches, but this one I wear 24-7 and really hardly notice it. I got a stretchy band for it that is amazingly comfortable, even on my thick arms. And, of course, since I'm tied into the Samsung eco-system, I can place and answer calls from it rather than having to find and get my phone when I get a call. I LOVE that feature! I think the Apple Watches still are a bit better than these, but if you're on Android, the Galaxy Watch is quite nice

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

Hubby wears TWO, count 'em, 2, watches. One is for a two year research program with All of Us which has Hubby filling out forms, sending health records, and his first born child. It is a FitBit which All of Us provided as long as Hubby wears it for two years.

The second watch is a generic watch which he thought would track his blood sugar cuz he lost the charging cord for the original watch he bought to track blood sugar (those cords are no longer produced). It doesn't track blood sugar but otherwise it tracks everything but his girlfriends. (He sez you have to specifically opt out for that.). He prefers it to the FitBit.

He chose not to set his watches for health notifications.

[Frater I*I]

Got my Galaxy Fold 5 today, so far it's bad ass

[bill_g]

I first started wearing a Fitbit years because I had to. We changed healthcare providers again at work. Usual reasons: increased costs, higher deductibles, etc, etc. One individual cost reduction incentive offered by United Healthcare was wearing a Fitbit and loading their Motion app on your phone. That gave them a glimpse of your health and habits up to date and to the minute. That invasion of privacy really torqued the screws of some of our employees. I was not entirely keen on the idea myself, but gave it a try.

It had activity goals, and if you met those goals, you could earn up to $3 a day paid into your HSA quarterly. Our company increased the incentive with a 50% matching fund meaning you could add $4.50 a day to your HSA if you just moved on a regular basis. While the incentives were necessary for office jockeys who spent their days indoors, for people like myself, moving around wasn't an issue. I got my 10,000 steps a day in no problem. They also wanted six hours with at least 500 steps, and one period with 3000 steps in a half hour. I could achieve the 500 steps in an hour six times a day easily, but getting the 3000 steps in a half hour took practice. It could tell by the gait. It wouldn't accept jogging or bicycling. You had to walk 100 steps a minute to reach the goal.

Eventually we turned it into a competition with another cash incentive. We enabled the group feature that posted the top 100 steppers company wide. The top ten got an additional dollar for every day they were top ten. That's when the cheating scandal started. And rather than embarrass those that cheated, we turned the group feature back off. (sigh)

Once I retired, I went to Kaiser for Medicare, and they don't have a Motion program of any kind. I kept wearing the Fitbit and using the app to monitor my daily activity. Last May I bought new one (Charge 5) that shows a lot more stuff including my heart rhythm and oxygen saturation. I've managed to keep my steps average above 10,000 a day despite my reduced activity. Some of the other goals are no longer applicable. I won't be in the Olympics any time soon.

[AndyinPA]

That's interesting, but also a little scary. I can see the upside, but it comes with a lot of privacy loss. Obviously, you understood this. I don't think anyone can access my Apple data from my UPMC* Health Plan without my express permission, but it still makes me a little nervous. However, as I said, it's got its upside. I was able to take an EKG and send it to my doctor, and I also could send the data that was telling me when I was in Afib. Both my PCP and the cardiologist considered it to be good information. They passed on my wearing a heart monitor. Now, my watch monitors me for the Afib. Every Monday morning, I get a report. So far, it always says less than 2 percent of the time, and I think it's actually been nothing at all since I'm now on a medication.

I shouldn't say that UPMC can't access my info without my permission as a known fact because I think they might be able to access it in an emergency.

All of Us has been bugging me to join, as did UPMC, but I have decided not to do either of those.




*University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

[poplove]

Does anyone have any experience or recommendations for a GPS tracker for an elderly person?

My 78 y/o husband has stage 3 dementia and can find his way around close to home, but he got lost Friday night for several hours. He wouldn't answer his phone (said he didn't hear it the 20 times I called) so I made a missing person report and a nice police officer came and took down all the details. When she called his cell phone he answered. She asked him where he was (5 miles away) and told him to stay put until we got there. So I got a ride in a police car and drove him home at 11:30pm. He's usually in bed reading by 9:30pm. I don't want to take away his keys just yet but I want to be able to track him down if necessary and without police intervention. On Star isn't an option as it won't work in his 2005 truck. He has a basic 4G flip phone but he doesn't remember how to dial out on it and it won't download any apps. Upgrading to a smart phone would only confuse him more. My phone is a Galaxy S22+ Android system and the apple air tags aren't compatible. AARP and a place for mom have some recommendations but I wanted to check with the Fog Geeks first.

ETA: He probably won't wear a tracker watch because he loves his Rolex so much he sleeps with it on.

[MN-Skeptic]

Does anyone have any experience or recommendations for a GPS tracker for an elderly person?

My 78 y/o husband has stage 3 dementia and can find his way around close to home, but he got lost Friday night for several hours. He wouldn't answer his phone (said he didn't hear it the 20 times I called) so I made a missing person report and a nice police officer came and took down all the details. When she called his cell phone he answered. She asked him where he was (5 miles away) and told him to stay put until we got there. So I got a ride in a police car and drove him home at 11:30pm. He's usually in bed reading by 9:30pm. I don't want to take away his keys just yet but I want to be able to track him down if necessary and without police intervention. On Star isn't an option as it won't work in his 2005 truck. He has a basic 4G flip phone but he doesn't remember how to dial out on it and it won't download any apps. Upgrading to a smart phone would only confuse him more. My phone is a Galaxy S22+ Android system and the apple air tags aren't compatible. AARP and a place for mom have some recommendations but I wanted to check with the Fog Geeks first.

ETA: He probably won't wear a tracker watch because he loves his Rolex so much he sleeps with it on.

I'm not an Android user, but check out Tiles. They're bluetooth trackers which will work with your Android phone, I believe. Attach the Tile to your sweetie's truck. At least you'll know where it is. That's a start.

Edited to add - https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/revi ... h-tracker/

[Volkonski]

Tile trackers work with Android phones.

https://www.tile.com/products/deals?utm ... tFEALw_wcB

[MN-Skeptic]

Could you physically attach a Tile to your sweetie’s non-smart phone?

[poplove]

Could you physically attach a Tile to your sweetie’s non-smart phone?

Possibly. I'm thinking of one in the truck and one on his keychain.

[Shizzle Popped]

Our number one task while we were visiting my dad this trip was to resolve an issue with his phone. It turned out the speaker was blown. We only had a few days to replace the phone, get it setup and train my dad on using it. That meant we were limited to what the local Best Buy had in stock and also needed something with top notch call quality since my dad is very hard of hearing. The iPhones they had on hand were a grand or higher but they had a Galaxy S22 Ultra for a killer $550 deal. That happens to be the same phone my brother has, who was in from NYC for this trip. My dad doesn't know any of his passwords so we had to reset a good half dozen before we could finish setting up the phone but we finally got it done. It's a nice phone and if I was in the market for an Android I would jump on that deal.

My dad is one of the smartest people I know but is extremely technologically challenged and I've done 95% of his tech support for years. The phone is the absolute worst since I can't see it and it's almost impossible to talk him through things over the phone while he's using it. As we were buying the phone I looked at my brother and chuckled a bit. He just said, "Yeah, I know."

[John Thomas8]

Very cheap autonomous drone tech:

[Mrich]

A new iPhone feature "NameDrop" seems problematic to me:

https://www.wfsb.com/2023/11/26/police- ... st-update/

[Shizzle Popped]

A new iPhone feature "NameDrop" seems problematic to me:

https://www.wfsb.com/2023/11/26/police- ... st-update/

Thanks for the heads up. I'm having everyone check their phones.

[keith]

A new iPhone feature "NameDrop" seems problematic to me:

https://www.wfsb.com/2023/11/26/police- ... st-update/

Thanks for the heads up. I'm having everyone check their phones.

Don't fret about this too much.

Even though it may be enabled, you still have to go through several steps on both phones to effect transfer.

1) you have to put the phones close together - about 1 inch
2) both phones must be unlocked
3) both users must accept the transfer

In sum: it can't be done by just walking up to somebody and waving your phone at them.

[Foggy]

My new-ish Lenovo laptop keeps telling me to activate Windows. Rebooting usually helps, but I am annoy.

[qbawl]

A new iPhone feature "NameDrop" seems problematic to me:

https://www.wfsb.com/2023/11/26/police- ... st-update/

Thanks for the heads up. I'm having everyone check their phones.

Don't fret about this too much.

Even though it may be enabled, you still have to go through several steps on both phones to effect transfer.

1) you have to put the phones close together - about 1 inch
2) both phones must be unlocked
3) both users must accept the transfer

In sum: it can't be done by just walking up to somebody and waving your phone at them.

[Shizzle Popped]

A new iPhone feature "NameDrop" seems problematic to me:

https://www.wfsb.com/2023/11/26/police- ... st-update/

Thanks for the heads up. I'm having everyone check their phones.

Don't fret about this too much.

Even though it may be enabled, you still have to go through several steps on both phones to effect transfer.

1) you have to put the phones close together - about 1 inch
2) both phones must be unlocked
3) both users must accept the transfer

In sum: it can't be done by just walking up to somebody and waving your phone at them.

Yeah, I thought I remembered there being more to it than that when I first heard about it but it's still not something I want enabled by default.

[AndyinPA]

It was on the news at noon. I also read an article in WaPo saying it's overblown. I checked out my phone, and saw that it's enabled. I turned off cellular data, which means it should be really unlikely that anyone is going to access it. I don't think it's that easy, anyway. I checked my photos, and found our it still has Airdrop on it, so I'm not losing any sleep over this.

I agree that Apple shouldn't just make it the default, but I think it was under Tips.

[Mrich]

Since I posted the original warning above, I thought I should post a rebuttal:
https://www.thatsnonsense.com/does-ios- ... act-check/

[AndyinPA]

Thanks!

[poplove]

Could you physically attach a Tile to your sweetie’s non-smart phone?

I am now tracking my hubby's truck with a Land Air Sea tracker and it works very well. The plan I chose tracks every minute. It also keeps 30 days of history. Plus I purchased the Tile variety pack and put the flat one in his little leather card holder where he keeps his Medicare and military ID cards. He's misplaced that a time or two. And we each have a Tile with our keys.

My thanks to you and Volkonski for your suggestions.