According to a new patent filing, Apple could soon implement a drowning detection feature in the next iteration of the Apple Watch. The system, dubbed a digital pool assistant, detects irregular limb movements and heart rate and blood oxygen readings to determine if the user is in distress, and sends a signal to nearby devices to alert the others of an emergency.
Now, a new patent application reveals the company’s next step in this direction: a “digital pool assistant” that can detect if a swimmer is drowning or in distress, and send a short-range SOS signal to alert of the emergency to nearby devices.
The system described in the patent first uses data from the accelerometer and gyroscope to check whether the user’s movements indicate drowning or any form of distress. Next, look for sharply elevated heart rate and/or low blood oxygen readings to further confirm if there is an emergency.
The filing states that these “swimming metrics and other information [biométrica] are fed into a machine learning model trained to classify a swimmer as exhibiting regular or irregular behavior in the water.” If a pattern indicative of drowning is detected, a radio signal will be broadcast to nearby devices, which in turn They will display pop-up alerts and emit audible alarms.
The patent application also addresses a major challenge: radio signals are greatly attenuated underwater due to the conductivity of water, which limits the transmission range. However, using lower frequencies and narrower bands in freshwater (which is less conductive than seawater) can somewhat compensate for this problem. Apple clarifies that the system is intended to be used in shallow fresh water, such as pools, ponds and lakes.
The document points out the need for such a system – 3,500 people drown each year in the United States – while highlighting the limitations of existing camera-based solutions to this problem, which are expensive, require complicated setup and maintenance. and frequently experience false positives and failed detections.
While a patent filing isn’t usually a definitive indication of an upcoming product or feature, in this case the technology described seems fairly easy to implement with existing hardware, and aligns perfectly with the Apple Watch’s positioning as a potential lifesaver in a wide range of circumstances. It is also a strong argument to get more children to wear the Apple Watch, since they are statistically more susceptible to drowning accidents.
Translator: Ninh Ngoc Duy – Editorial Assistant – 386552 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2008
