Monday, September 10, 2012

The Tiny Yellow Sticker That Detects Accidents and Alerts Your Emergency Contacts [Safety]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5941994/this-tiny-yellow-sticker-detects-an-accident-and-alerts-your-emergency-contacts

The Tiny Yellow Sticker That Detects Accidents and Alerts Your Emergency ContactsExpanding on its product line which makes it easy for someone to find your emergency contacts if you're injured, ICEdot (In Case of Emergency) is taking the idea one step further. Working with a company called SenseTech LLC, it's developing a tiny helmet sensor that knows when you've been in an accident, how severe it was, and automatically triggers your phone to call for help.

When it's available sometime next year with an estimated price tag of around $200, the advanced ICEdot monitor will attach to any bike helmet and use motion and impact sensors to intelligently determine if the wearer has been involved in an accident. Using the new Bluetooth low-energy profile it maintains a constant connection to a smartphone app so that when an accident occurs, it can automatically alert the rider's emergency contacts with the time and GPS coordinates of the incident.

And to avoid false positives, since there's always the chance a dropped helmet could be misconstrued as a nasty tumble, the app initiates an emergency countdown which can be manually aborted in the event nothing actually happened. If you ride in a big city where the 'mind your own business' mentality prevails, this could be the perfect accessory if no one comes to your rescue after a crash. [ICEdot via GearJunkie]