The Apple Watch Can Become Your Personal Digital Pool Attendant, Alert Swimmers Who Are In Potential Danger, According To New Patent

Various Apple Watch models not only ship with health-centric features that have informed wearers to seek medical attention, but they also come with emergency additions such as Crash Detection if your car has been in a terrible accident. It is impressive how much Apple can cram into its smartwatch, and it intends to add more. This time, according to a patent filing, the company is targeting swimmers and how the Apple Watch can become their personal digital pool assistant, informing them, or those around them, of any imminent dangers.

An Apple Watch can prevent a swimmer from drowning, based on sensor data

As reported by PatentlyApple, the average person can hold their breath for about 30 seconds, while a trained individual can take that duration up to 2 minutes. However, if anyone is submerged between 4-6 minutes in water, it can result in irreparable bodily damage and, in some cases, drowning. Based on sensor data, future Apple Watch models could prevent these incidents and determine if a swimmer is drowning. Assuming the wearer exhibits irregular behavior while underwater, the wearable could send an alert message to one or more devices.

This new Apple Watch could trigger the alarm while being deployed in every type of freshwater pool, including public and private swimming pools and also natural freshwater pools. According to FIG. 1 below, an example shows that user #100 is swimming while wearing a smartwatch on their wrist. Various metrics of the swimmer could be identified by the Apple Watch, and when the device detects irregular behavior between stroke patterns or if the swimmer is in distress as shown in FIG. 2, a wireless transceiver embedded in the smartwatch could broadcast a radio frequency (RF) message.

This message would then be sent to nearby devices #102 in the pool or on the pool deck, such as smartphones, tablet computers, smartwatches, laptop computers, or a monitoring and control station. The owners of these nearby devices labeled #102 could view a message on their displays through an audible alert or haptic feedback, allowing them to attract the attention of others and assist the swimmer facing any trouble.

Apple notes in its patent background that annually, more than 3,500 people in the United States meet their demise from drowning, and it is the fifth-most common cause of accidental death in the region. With these new Apple Watch models, the technology giant could address a gaping problem, but a patent filing does not necessarily guarantee that such a product will materialize, so that is something to keep in mind. However, the fact that several lives can be saved through this feature’s introduction gives us high hopes that Apple will somehow bring it to a future smartwatch.

News Source: USPTO