[HN Gopher] Emergency SOS via satellite
___________________________________________________________________
Emergency SOS via satellite
Author : tosh
Score : 449 points
Date : 2022-11-15 13:06 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.apple.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.apple.com)
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| At first I thought that Apple might be using the Gallileo
| sattellites put up by EU, but it looks like they have their own
| thing going with Globalstar. This kind of makes sense, and near-
| earth satellites are easier to reach for a phone.
|
| https://www.esa.int/Applications/Navigation/Galileo_now_repl...
| [deleted]
| Kairinz wrote:
| Literally just got back from a road trip in southern Greece where
| I had reception almost half of the time spent driving. Didn't see
| a single car for over 2 hours of driving. Car had a clutch issue,
| but things worked out. Can actually see how this becomes useful.
| kornhole wrote:
| Perhaps the same places that rent out bear cans can offer rental
| Iphones for those of us who normally only carry anonymous phones
| with burner SIMs.
| sschueller wrote:
| I am utterly confused why any regular person needs this or is the
| infrastructure in the US and Canada so bad that your phone won't
| work in every day life?
|
| If you go hiking or heli-skiing you usually have alternative
| methods of contact which is part of your equipment such as an
| avalanche kit etc. Sure it might be nice to have this in your
| every day device but it's absolute unnecessary for anyone else.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| Here in Alaska, once you get outside the Anchorage bowl, you
| _might_ get reception in each small town or village, and maybe
| a km or two outside. That 's it.
|
| From your name I suspect you may be German (if you are Austrian
| or Swiss, the following still applies, only more so).
|
| Alaska alone is nearly 5 times the size of Germany, with less
| than 1% of the population.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| That moment when a European finally begins to understand just
| how big North America is. I'm surprised it still happens on HN,
| but it's so fundamental to many of the discussions here.
| There's always someone saying "why does America suck so much"
| while thinking themselves so smart, as if there aren't good
| engineers across the globe. There's usually a good reason
| things are the way they are, and it's not that you're the only
| smart person in the world.
| fassssst wrote:
| You don't need it until you do.
| tony_cannistra wrote:
| The United States and Canada are really, really big. There are
| big swaths of those countries ( _especially_ Canada) where
| people regularly live / drive / recreate, but are several
| hours driving away from cell phone service.
| mastax wrote:
| A lot of people go hiking and few of them buy sat phones or
| epirbs. It's nice to have. We're well past the point of
| diminishing returns for smartphone features, yes.
| [deleted]
| DMell wrote:
| I spend the majority of my time in the mountains here in Estes
| Park, Colorado where I carry the following in the winter - for
| both climbing and skiing:
|
| - Probe
|
| - Shovel
|
| - Beacon
|
| - InReach Mini
|
| I also work SAR and my partner has worked dispatch for the
| National Park Service here and it's not uncommon for someone to
| be trying to climb something akin to Longs Peak late fall in a
| tshirt and shorts - having absolutely no idea what they are
| doing but hiking it because they saw it on All Trails.
| Cass wrote:
| This isn't meant for heli-skiers who go out with a few thousand
| bucks of equipment. None of the average hikers I know own a
| satellite phone, plenty of them like to hike alone, and an hour
| of walking into the woods (hardly a strenuous hike) will
| frequently land you somewhere with patchy service (and this is
| in a country with perfectly well-functioning infrastructure,
| not the middle of the Rocky Mountains.)
|
| I'm sure this is going to lead to a few spectacular, high-
| profile rescues, but I'd bet the average use case is going to
| be "saved me three hours of crawling through the woods on a
| broken ankle to get back to the last place I had cell service."
| ghaff wrote:
| I live fifty miles west of a major Northeast city and cell
| phone is patchy at my house without WiFi assist. I'm sure
| there tons of spots within an hour drive of my house where I
| hike that have patchy cell service.
| [deleted]
| sevenf0ur wrote:
| The range of a cell tower is like 5 miles. That's how far you
| need to go to lose service...
| vel0city wrote:
| Turn on and off individual providers on this map.
|
| https://fcc.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=...
|
| Then remember this map is being extremely generous at the
| fringes of the coverage areas. Some areas will make a huge
| difference which side of a hill you're on, but this coverage
| map will show it as covered.
| dagmx wrote:
| I go on tons of casual-mid level hikes near a major Canadian
| city. It's incredibly frequent to have areas with clear sky
| visibility and no cell service.
| mikestew wrote:
| I can only assume that you have never been to the western U. S.
| or anywhere at all in Canada much north of the 49th parallel.
| It can be quite barren, and even if one had a need to stick a
| cell tower in the North Cascades mountains, it won't cover
| everything. Hell, I go trail running on local mountains
| (Cougar/Squak/Tiger, for Seattle locals) that are within visual
| distance of a decent-sized city, and there are still spots
| where I don't get cell coverage (and all of those mountains
| have cell towers on top). Snap a bone or otherwise become
| immobile in the wrong spot, and you won't be calling anyone
| despite the fact that it's a ten minute drive to town. And
| those trails are _full_ of day hikers on the weekends, many of
| which I 'd guess aren't prepared to spend the night if they had
| to.
|
| _If you go hiking or heli-skiing..._
|
| I'd bet a paycheck that Apple's use cases did not include those
| that jump out of a helicopter to go skiing. Those folks, if
| they have any sense, have a dedicated device, as you state. I'm
| picturing this being for those like above, who just wanted a
| casual Saturday hike and something went wrong.
| DMell wrote:
| >Those folks, if they have any sense, have a dedicated
| device, as you state.
|
| You'd be shocked at the number of people who carry their
| beacon, probe, shovel, etc but not an InReach or Spot device.
| With that said, most groups have at least one and are playing
| the odds game that it won't be them that has an issue and
| can't access it.
| ghaff wrote:
| There's probably a difference between one-time purchases
| and committing to a subscription service (on a device that
| is also more expensive). If I did a _lot_ of remote solo
| hiking, I 'd probably feel I needed to spring for it, but I
| haven't as things stand.
| DMell wrote:
| >on a device that is also more expensive
|
| An InReach Mini costs roughly $300 while a Spot device
| costs less than $200. An iPhone 14 is $800.
| ghaff wrote:
| More expensive than the avalanche probe, shovel, and
| beacon. I was responding to the following:
|
| "You'd be shocked at the number of people who carry their
| beacon, probe, shovel, etc but not an InReach or Spot
| device."
| DMell wrote:
| You would still require a probe, shovel, and beacon. The
| difference comes down to whether you purchase an iPhone
| 14 or a device akin to Spot.
| ghaff wrote:
| For many, the answer will be that they're buying an
| iPhone in any case so why buy an additional several
| hundred dollar device.
| DMell wrote:
| Several hundred? It is less than $200 which is cheaper
| than upgrading to the iPhone 15k - that's all I'm saying.
| In no world is the device more expensive than an iPhone.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| theGnuMe wrote:
| You'd be surprised. There are plenty of places where LTE isn't
| robust enough.
| tony_cannistra wrote:
| I'm glad to see that they at least talked to some IRL dispatchers
| for this press release, which hopefully suggests that they've
| been doing it all along.
|
| But really, I desperately hope that we can find a way to educate
| folks on the proper usage of technology like this (which, if you
| count things like the Garmin inReach and the Spot devices, has
| been available for a decade).
|
| They're undoubtedly life saving, but they also are taxing mostly
| volunteer-run search and rescue organizations with folks who
| really probably don't need help, they just needed to bring some
| water and a jacket. But they didn't , because they didn't know
| better, and now need someone to risk themselves on their behalf.
|
| It makes me nervous about the longevity of volunteer-run search
| and rescue organizations, frankly. It's unfortunate that these
| are the majority, at least in the rural parts of USA that draw
| lots of outdoor adventurers.
| 323 wrote:
| How is it different from regular 911/112 abuse?
| the_only_law wrote:
| 911 operators are not volunteers, at least not to my
| knowledge.
| criddell wrote:
| Maybe not, but the people they dispatch often are. My
| hometown fire department is entirely volunteers.
| mwint wrote:
| Isn't it going to make calls using this feature much easier, if
| there's a 10m-accuracy GPS pin around the subject?
| whartung wrote:
| Well that's the GPS point. Make this more casually available
| and folks are likely to more casually use it.
|
| The problem for the teams isn't necessarily finding the
| party, we've had these beacons for years. Rather they have to
| climb into the mountains in the first place to solve what
| could have, ostensibly, been readily prevented.
|
| Thus taxing a limited resource even further.
|
| What should temper that is now there perhaps may be signs
| posted telling folks about the service, and that help is
| available (or not) but it's likely going to be rather
| expensive if they have to come get you. It's never been
| suggested that while the S&R teams maybe volunteer, as I
| understand the rescued party incurs costs of the operation.
| ghaff wrote:
| You can be given a bill in some places under a limited set
| of circumstances but you mostly won't get charged as I
| understand it (at least until you get into the regular
| medical system per usual). I would assume if this started
| to become a real problem, you might see more charging--
| although I assume S&R teams wouldn't, for the most part,
| want people in trouble to hold off on calling for help
| because they might get a $10K bill.
| jrnichols wrote:
| It depends on who shows up. Not every call is going to
| get a full blown SAR response, and a lot of the country
| doesn't even have SAR teams anyway.
|
| You'll get the local 911 response units, and it might be
| a Sheriff's deputy, fire, or EMS.
|
| If you're in California you're also likely to get a
| rescue helicopter operated by CHP, and if they pluck you
| out of a ravine, the bill is $zero. Really, it's taxpayer
| funded. We operate with them quite often.
| tony_cannistra wrote:
| Actually, in many places in the United States, SAR calls
| don't cost you anything.
|
| Usually it's the ambulance / helicopter ride. But even
| then, there are helicopter operators (like the U.S.
| military, which responds to many SAR calls where I live)
| that don't charge.
| arrrg wrote:
| At least in Germany I know that the perspective on this
| is that you never want someone to even think about taking
| cost into consideration when they decide to make an
| emergency call.
| totalZero wrote:
| In the US there are people who drive to the emergency
| room and wait outside in the parking lot to see if they
| get better or if they really need to go inside. Some of
| those people have insurance but would pay a deductible.
|
| I don't have data to support this, but I guess that at
| least 40% of Americans would agree with the statement, "I
| take cost into consideration when I make a call to
| emergency services."
| tony_cannistra wrote:
| Certainly, yes. My anxiety around the broad adoption of
| features like this isn't really the individual calls, because
| they're likely to be fairly mundane / close to trail heads.
|
| Rather, my concern is with the volume. Lots of "I'm Cold,
| Please Help" calls could take resources away from rarer but
| far more resource-intensive "My leg is broken, and I"m 10
| miles out" calls.
| lxgr wrote:
| Isn't the same already true for trails that do have cell
| signal?
| petre wrote:
| The info could be used by volunteers such as NGOs with a
| 4x4 rescue team. I have a friend in such an org and they
| help a lot of naive people who get stuck in the mud/snow.
| He got into the NGO by getting stuck and being pulled out
| by another volunteer. I was with him and another guy when
| that occured. They should be able to help "I'm cold" and
| other less severe cases. They always cooperate with
| authorities (police, gendarmerie, fire dept) and the
| cooperation goes both ways. Also keep in mind that there's
| a very thin line between "I'm cold" and potentialy deadly
| hypothermia.
| mikehotel wrote:
| It will make each individual SAR easier, but if more people
| rely on this instead of proper planning for a trip, the
| overall increased burden on volunteer organizations will be
| unsustainable.
| [deleted]
| xwdv wrote:
| It's really not that big of a deal. You could just triage calls
| for help and put them in order of priority on who to help first
| based on how difficult it would be, severity of the situation,
| and probability of success. The lowest level requests like for
| some water or a jacket could routinely go unserved.
| closewith wrote:
| I'm a search and rescue medic and I volunteer (although not in
| the States), but would have the exact opposite outlook on this.
| Better comms may lead to more shouts but it will definitely
| lead to better outcomes for casualties.
|
| We always prefer calls to come in as early as possible, where
| maybe an issue can be resolved with advice or a daylight shout
| to an warm, ambulatory casualty in mild distress. That will
| always be preferable to a long search for a casualty in
| possibly deteriorating weather, losing light, without comms,
| with the prospect of a rescue turning into a recovery.
|
| Mobile phones may have greatly increased the number of SAR
| shouts worldwide, but also massively reduced shout lengths.
| Searching used to be the largest time sink in every shout,
| which is no longer the case.
|
| Every SAR team has frivolous calls, but that's part of the
| game.
| ghaff wrote:
| I've sort of come around on this after discussing with a
| number of search and rescue folks. I'm sure there's some
| number of "I'm cold and my jeans are soaked. Come get me."
| There's doubtless some of that but, as you say, that's
| counterbalanced by by people who have a legitimate issue who
| can make an emergency call before the problem is really
| serious.
|
| Part of me doesn't love that there's an increasing
| expectation that you're always able to be in contact. But, so
| it goes.
| [deleted]
| CarbonCycles wrote:
| I wonder how many ppl will now travel to more remote areas
| with a false sense of security (and being woefully under
| prepared) that you can "Just call" for help.
|
| As a paying customer with Garmin's inReach service, I'm
| acutely aware of how spotty and unreliable the service can be
| based on environment and current surroundings.
| zikduruqe wrote:
| The same amount that did when the cellphone was invented,
| when Selective Availability was turned off, when the safety
| match was invented, when the chronometer was invented....
| Kye wrote:
| I think it's similar to how injury stats are up in auto
| accidents. It looks bad if you misread the data, but it's
| wonderful with proper context that safety features, first
| response, and treatment are saving more lives. So many of
| those shouts are people who would have died in an earlier
| era.
| tony_cannistra wrote:
| That's a good perspective. Undoubtedly better communication
| saves time for everyone, and improves outcomes.
|
| I didn't really communicate this well, but my real fear is
| this: that folks who otherwise might not journey out into
| somewhat challenging situations because of their lack of
| confidence in their self-sufficiency might decide to do so
| because they can "call for help if they need it."
|
| SAR's around the US are experience this in very high volumes.
| x13 wrote:
| good points. a few things jumped out at me from
| https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/11/emergency-sos-via-sat...
|
| "A $450 million investment from Apple's Advanced Manufacturing
| Fund provides the critical infrastructure that supports
| Emergency SOS via satellite for iPhone 14 models."
|
| "Once received by a ground station, the message is routed to
| emergency services that can dispatch help, or a relay center
| with Apple-trained emergency specialists if local emergency
| services cannot receive text messages."
|
| "In 2021, Apple announced an acceleration in its US
| investments, with plans to make new contributions of more than
| $430 billion over a five-year period."
|
| Apple has probably given this some thought.
| jrnichols wrote:
| I'm a Paramedic in Northern California and am VERY happy about
| this feature. Even in some of our SF Bay Area counties, we have a
| lot of windy mountain roads with _no cell service_ at all. Our
| portable radios don 't even work up in the hills. To have an
| iPhone be able to send GPS location to the public safety access
| point is fabulous. Our dispatchers can at least drop a pin on a
| map and we can route to that location ourselves. This already
| happens in a lot of cases but the caller has cell service. We've
| been on multiple incidents up in the hills where people have
| reported that they had to drive several miles down the mountain
| before they were able to get any reception to make a 911 call.
|
| This will save us a lot of time, and it will save lives. This is
| a game changing feature.
| fragmede wrote:
| > Even in some of our SF Bay Area counties
|
| Even? no (and you'd probably know better than me) but as a
| fellow bay area person, there are tons and tons and tons of
| roads and places that aren't covered by cell service, just go
| into the mountains a little bit. and then you also have to ask
| which cell carrier everybody has. there's a real digital divide
| once you get out of the city and the towns that surround it
| jrnichols wrote:
| right, that's pretty much what I said. We have A LOT of space
| that has no cell reception at all.
|
| We don't have to ask about which carrier, though. That
| information will come through automatically along with the
| subscriber's information. Even a cell phone with no active
| plan can still dial 911, regardless of carrier or model.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > and then you also have to ask which cell carrier everybody
| has
|
| Not for emergency services you don't.
| fragmede wrote:
| Ah you're right. I was still thinking back in the GSM vs
| CDMA days where AT&T phones physically couldn't talk to
| Verizon towers (and vice versa) so 911 couldn't work
| either.
| davidw wrote:
| It's been a while since there's been a phone feature that I've
| really wanted. I spend a lot of time mountain biking outside of
| cell range and this would be a nice feature to have. Hope it
| makes its way to Android soon.
| madrox wrote:
| These are the features that, in my opinion, should drive the next
| generation of innovation. We don't need VR or blockchain as much
| as we need to go the last mile on the promise to connect everyone
| _everywhere_ to give them the services they need to raise quality
| of life.
| monkeydust wrote:
| Have to agree. As a hardened Android user it is this type of
| feature that would make me consider an iPhone
| fortuna86 wrote:
| Great technology. Roll it out to more phones than just your
| latest model.
| fckgw wrote:
| How? Push out an OTA update that installs an entirely new
| cellular modem with satellite communication frequencies?
| fortuna86 wrote:
| Most smartphones have GPS built in, are you telling me it was
| impossible to utilize existing hardware for this feature? Or
| was it a deliberate decision.
|
| Ok, perhaps not phone calls or text. What about a beacon
| feature?
| dagmx wrote:
| How? I don't think you quite understand how this works or
| GPS for that matter.
|
| GPS is unidirectional. Your phone isn't communicating back
| to the satellite.
| error503 wrote:
| GPS is receive only, the phone doesn't talk to the
| satellites, which just broadcast their signal to everyone.
| There is certainly a new radio (& ancillary equipment &
| antenna) in the latest model to support this feature.
| xchip wrote:
| What sort of link does the phone use? 5G?
| heynowheynow wrote:
| The category is NTN: Non-Terrestrial Networks.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| yeah band 53 via the Qualcomm X65 modem
|
| you can pretty much tell what an iphone will be able to do
| based on what qualcomm is currently able to do
| mcculley wrote:
| Do you happen to know when Apple will be able to put a modem
| into a MacBook Pro?
| nickcw wrote:
| > LTE Band 53 is a part of the TDD (Time Division Duplex) LTE
| spectrum that requires only a single frequency band for both
| the uplink and downlink. LTE Band 53 has a frequency range
| from 2483.5 - 2495 MHz with a bandwidth of 11.5 MHz.
|
| From: https://www.everythingrf.com/tech-resources/lte-
| bands/lte-ba...
|
| Quite impressive they can receive that on the satellite with
| 1W (guess) of power and a not very directional antenna in the
| iPhone.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| In the earlier videos on it they showed that the phone has
| to be pointed a certain way (which makes sense given the
| power constraints), but you are guided through the process.
|
| https://www.apple.com/newsroom/images/product/iphone/standa
| r... - Shows the screen you'd see.
| totalZero wrote:
| > you can pretty much tell what an iphone will be able to do
| based on what qualcomm is currently able to do
|
| Strictly speaking, if that were the case then the iPhone 13
| would have been able to do it. [0]
|
| The technology (Band 53/n53) and the timeline (end of 2022)
| are mentioned in the Sep 2022 SEC filing of the agreement
| between Globalsat and Apple. [1]
|
| [0] https://www.semianalysis.com/p/no-the-iphone-13-does-not-
| hav...
|
| [1] https://investors.globalstar.com/node/14431/html
| keepquestioning wrote:
| So Back to qualcomm aye? The ghost that can never be killed.
| xchip wrote:
| you guys are awesome
| dboreham wrote:
| According to this it's some kind of CDMA:
| https://www.globalstar.com/en-us/about/our-technology
| binarymax wrote:
| It's not clear whether this is for US/Canada customers, or if it
| only works in the vicinity of the US and Canada.
|
| If I'm a US customer but am stranded in the middle of Africa,
| will this work?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > Emergency SOS via satellite is available in the US and Canada
| starting today, November 15, and will come to France, Germany,
| Ireland, and the UK in December.
|
| I take this to mean the service itself only works within the
| stated countries. I wonder if it would work in overseas US
| territories like Samoa.
| bmicraft wrote:
| I'm guessing the only thing limiting it is integration with
| existing services
| lxgr wrote:
| Integrating with local SAR services is one issue, but
| Globalstar's coverage is another (contrary to its name,
| it's not actually global, since it requires satellites to
| have both mobile devices and at least one earth station in
| view at all times).
| kube-system wrote:
| And regulatory approval for transmitting on those
| frequencies in that specific locale.
| kotaKat wrote:
| Works in the specific countries. If you have an iPhone 14 from
| another country that isn't supported, it'll work in that
| country.
|
| If you have an African iPhone 14 and are stranded in the middle
| of the US, it should work.
| homero wrote:
| What network are they using exactly
| totalZero wrote:
| I'm pretty sure it's Globalstar.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/technology/apple-picks-globalstar-sa...
| vikR0001 wrote:
| How can a little iPhone possibly have enough power to transmit
| data all the distance to a satellite?
| syncsynchalt wrote:
| Not much different than my spot tracker... which transmits my
| position to satellites every 10 minutes for 2-3 days with 4xAAA
| batteries.
| kkielhofner wrote:
| When you're going straight up you don't have to deal with
| obstructions and the curvature of the earth.
|
| For OP if you want to see it in action there are plenty of
| YouTube videos[0] of amateur radio operators with an HT
| (walkie-talkie) contacting astronauts on the ISS - which is 254
| miles up.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/shorts/3cZe-UASAHs
| kawfey wrote:
| iPhone satellite SOS communicates to a constellation of 24
| GlobalStar Gen 2 Low Earth Orbit satellites, orbiting somewhere
| between 800 and 1000mi[0]. This is the same satellite system
| that SPOT messengers talk to (which are also tiny devices)[1].
|
| The user points the phone at the satellite (in reality, the UI
| tells the user where to put the phone in relation to it's
| measured antenna pattern to maximize the gain towards the
| nearest satellite), while the satellite has a huge, very very
| high gain antenna array to pick up the signal and pass it back
| down to a ground station. iPhones can output up to 2 watts of
| RF power, which is enough for a tiny <HELP! Here's my LAT/LON &
| status> message. It's using 5G NR band 53 [2][3]
|
| I'm sure someone out there has already run a linkbudget and
| posted it to their blog, but I haven't found it yet.
|
| [0] https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/globalstar-2.htm
|
| [1] https://www.findmespot.com/en-us/products-services/spot-
| gen4
|
| [2] https://gearjunkie.com/news/apple-iphone-satellite-
| messaging...
|
| [3] https://itecspec.com/band/nr-band-n53/
| zikduruqe wrote:
| Space isn't that far away. It's only 60 miles.
|
| I've communicated via LEO satellites using only 1 watt of power
| from an handheld radio.
| Temporary_31337 wrote:
| 1 whole watt is a lot by modern, digital standards, but
| satellite does not have a directional antenna with gain to
| receive your signal. It looks like Garmin InReach transmits
| at 1.6Watts. I wonder what the radio is inside the new
| iPhones.
| Hippocrates wrote:
| Apple is building up a nice portfolio of life-saving features.
| Currently we have fall detection, a-fib detection, crash
| detection, satellite communication. These are all solid value-
| adds and differentiators from the competition. I'm not sure if
| they amount to a strong selling point for _everyone_ yet, but I'm
| sure that's where Apple is headed.
|
| I am extremely bullish on Apple's ability to measure health
| signals in the next 5-10 years, that when fed to AI, will be able
| to detect health issues long in advance. This may take more
| sensors, more research, more AI development, but we're definitely
| headed there. At some point iPhone and Apple Watch will probably
| be marketed as the devices you need if you don't wish to die
| early.
| tyingq wrote:
| >At some point iPhone and Apple Watch will probably be marketed
| as the devices you need if you don't wish to die early.
|
| Or you'll have to turn over your data to get the reasonable
| health insurance rates and not fall in the risky rate bucket.
| yurishimo wrote:
| God forbid the US become a civilized nation and offer a real
| competitive national healthcare options. I live in one of the
| more expensive European nations when it comes to healthcare.
| EUR100~/mo with a EUR400~ deductible per year. Worst case
| scenario, I spend EUR1600/yr on healthcare.
| googlryas wrote:
| How much do you pay when you factor in the taxes you also
| pay into the system?
|
| If one gym had a yearly fee of $40 and then cost $1 every
| time you went, and another gym had a $8 yearly fee and cost
| $15 everytime you went, it wouldn't make sense to compare
| them merely on the per-visit costs.
|
| Just to short circuit, I'm not trying to defend the
| American healthcare system. American healthcare is horrible
| on average compared to the average of other rich nations.
|
| Also, a final note, but even if you have cheap out of
| pocket expenses, you aren't getting good value for your
| money if you don't visit a doctor for almost a decade.
| (Yes, I did e-stalk you for 60s to try to see what country
| to figure out average tax burden for healthvare, and ran
| across that fact on your intermittent fasting post)
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| In Canada my income tax rate is about on par with what I
| would pay in the states. If I lived in California my
| taxes would be higher.
|
| Our sales taxes are a little higher than a lot of the
| states, though.
|
| I'll take that over the amount of money and time the US
| healthcare system siphoned off of me when I was healthy.
| paranoidrobot wrote:
| In general, the US pays more, and has less effective
| healthcare than countries with universal/single-payer
| systems[1][2][3].
|
| There's plenty of reasons for that.
|
| [1] https://grattan.edu.au/news/more-expensive-but-less-
| effectiv...
|
| [2] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/universal-
| health-...
|
| [3] https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-
| briefs/2...
| googlryas wrote:
| I agree, but that doesn't mean OPs overall burden is
| capped at 1600 eur/year
| paranoidrobot wrote:
| These studies are using total spend - inclusive of
| taxation and direct payments.
| tyingq wrote:
| Yep. If your employer isn't subsidizing it for you,
| EUR1600/month (not a year) for a good employee+family plan
| would be a bargain in the US. And the deductible would
| still be thousands, not hundreds.
| GaryNumanVevo wrote:
| The Apple watch has literally saved 3 of my older relative's
| lives already. It's amazing technology!
| blablabla123 wrote:
| Yeah I was planning to buy no more Apple products but they do
| something really right with the Watch and the iPhone. If you've
| ever been in a situation where you need help it turns out it's
| on the practical side not so easy
| MBCook wrote:
| TBF Google had crash detection first, by a few years.
|
| But I agree. If they can add a cheap part (better
| accelerometer) or re-use an existing one (pulse detection for
| a-fib) and provide really great possible benefits for some
| people? Sounds great.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > a-fib detection
|
| As a paramedic, not a physician, atrial fibrillation is not a
| life threatening event. Many people happily live with it for
| decades, unmedicated. It is more problematic if you are
| diabetic or hypertensive, but still not an acute medical event.
| robbiep wrote:
| As a doctor, the proliferation of apple (and other) watch
| ECGs has done nothing positive but lead to a massive
| proliferation of severe health anxiety. Go take a look at
| /r/askdocs for anyone curious - dozens of apple and Samsung
| ECG questions, people sure they're about to die. They have
| nothing.
|
| I remain entirely unconvinced that putting 'more' health
| information at increased temporal frequency to consumers
| leads to any health benefit, and instead causes significant
| health anxiety and drain on health resources with false and
| misleading presentations for bad signals.
| dagmx wrote:
| How do you reconcile your views on "nothing positive" when
| there are multiple reported accounts of it leading to early
| diagnosis events for serious issues?
| tsimionescu wrote:
| It can be easily reconciled if there are far more
| instances of false positives than true positives.
|
| Remember that a 99% accuracy for a condition that 0.1% of
| the population has still means 10 false positives for
| each 1 early diagnosis.
|
| I don't what the numbers are for the conditions that the
| Apple Watch can detect, just discussing the general
| principle. Whether it's more useful or more harmful
| depends crucially on the real numbers.
| jadams5 wrote:
| As a counterpoint, my cardiologist suggested I get an Apple
| watch so I could keep a better eye on things and send him
| any questionable ECGs. At least some doctors seem to think
| there are positives.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| The very important point is that you probably have a
| known heart condition, if your doctor recommended this.
| The problem with many of these devices is false
| positives.
| teeray wrote:
| If you're looking for emergency comms where cell service is
| unavailable, you can do really well with a 2m/70cm Baofeng UV-5R.
| It'll run you like $60 between the technician's license (easy to
| get) and the radio, no subscription. From mountains (no service),
| I've gotten into repeaters 60 miles away. Knowing the community
| on those frequencies, they'll treat your emergency with the same
| respect and decorum as those submitted through the SOS feature
| (many even train for it through organizations like ARES).
|
| I certainly don't mean to poo-poo this announcement in HN
| commenter fashion---I think it's actually really great to have.
| Just wanted to highlight an alternative to shelling out $1k+ for
| a capable phone if you don't have one.
| swader999 wrote:
| That's quite an undertaking to get up to speed on using and
| programming one of those.
| barbazoo wrote:
| That's what I thought too. Definitely a capable radio but
| quite a learning curve.
| davidwihl wrote:
| Getting that sort of range is not common. Most of it is line of
| sight. Sat comms work far at sea where VHF is useless. With
| ARES, you are relying on an inconsistent volunteer network with
| spotty results by location and time.
|
| I'm a licensed ham and have worked emergency events. I would
| not rely upon this if my life depended on it.
| ingalls wrote:
| I'm also a HAM and work Search and Rescue, I would also never
| use this as my primary emergency device unless I had someone
| I knew actively monitoring the frequency. Buy something like
| a Garmin InReach Mini (~$15 a month subscription free) or a
| PLB (no monthly cost)
| jmbwell wrote:
| Set backcountry search and rescue aside for a second.
|
| Seems to me this is for ordinary people doing ordinary things
| outside cell range, and finding they need help. A family member
| has a heart attack. A collision with a moose. Who knows what.
|
| Less "should've brought water and a jacket" and more "we've been
| on route 9 for two hours, a moment ago everything was fine, now
| he's not breathing, we have no bars, and we have no idea where
| the nearest hospital is."
|
| Besides, even if this feature only saves a single life, seems
| worth it to me.
| prescriptivist wrote:
| Yeah. I mean there are large swaths of New England where there
| isn't any cell service at all, let alone multi-carrier
| coverage. And these aren't just logging roads or whatever, they
| are paved roads that people commute and travel on every day.
| This is an unalloyed good for anyone anywhere in areas like
| this.
| ghaff wrote:
| On the rare times when I take the commuter rail into Boston
| from the west, there's one section around Concord and Lincoln
| (expensive suburbs--wouldn't shock me if locals opposed
| additional cell phone towers) where my connection always
| drops.
| manacit wrote:
| This is definitely not an extremely serious backcountry device,
| but for someone (like me) that is a casual hiker and skier, it
| was the primary reason I bought an iPhone 14 Pro.
|
| It's very easy in the US West to get out of cell service very
| quickly - at that point, even just throwing an ankle or
| tripping can put you at the mercy of your hiking companion or
| random strangers on the trail. If you're going somewhere less
| traveled, this is just a nice thing to have in your pocket.
|
| This feature isn't going to save you after you've been buried
| in an avalanche, but it's going to get search and rescue to
| carry you out when you're 10 miles from the parking lot. Worth
| the cost.
| SomeCallMeTim wrote:
| Yeah, this is the first Apple feature announcement for a long
| time that I'm actually impressed by.
|
| Not the biggest Apple fan, but I have to let them have this
| one. If I weren't so invested in the not-Apple ecosystem, I'd
| consider switching.
| MarkMarine wrote:
| I own a PLB, and I don't bring it on every hike with the dog
| or walk in the woods. I will always have my iPhone though, I
| think this feature is amazing for the broad coverage and you
| have it on your iPhone 14 (and later) by default, attempt to
| call 911 and if you don't have service it's going to walk you
| through it. I've loaned my PLB to family members, and there
| was a lengthy instruction period about how to use it. This
| comes with none of that baggage, it's easy to use and you
| already have it in your pocket.
| bredren wrote:
| This reminds me of the unfortunate death of CNET reporter,
| James Kim in 2006.
|
| Kim and his family were stranded on a rural route traveling
| from Portland to San Francisco. He went out in search of help
| and succumbed to hypothermia.
|
| It was unusual, however there are "backcountry" incidents that
| don't necessarily involve intentionally setting out into remote
| areas.
|
| I suspect, being a tech reporter, Kim would have had a
| satellite SOS enabled smartphone if it had been on the market.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Kim#Snowbound
| swores wrote:
| > _Besides, even if this feature only saves a single life,
| seems worth it to me._
|
| Not that I think it will only save a single life, but if that
| really were the full extent of its benefit that of course it
| wouldn't be worth it - think of the millions Apple have spent
| on R&D plus the (presumably tiny but it adds up when selling
| millions of devices) extra cost per device - there are many
| ways that money could have been spent as a PR move by Apple to
| save thousands if not millions of lives.
| dpkirchner wrote:
| This seems somewhat contrarian -- what changes can Apple make
| to their iPhones that could save millions of lives?
| Mistletoe wrote:
| I wonder how much waste and greenhouse gases are caused by
| people constantly upgrading their phones. And the most
| important thing- money.
|
| Apple has 200B in cash and investments in the bank and the
| 2024 National Cancer Institute's budget is 10 billion.
| swores wrote:
| That doesn't seem relevant to the question of whether it's
| worth spending a huge amount of money on saving a single
| life?
|
| When I talked about spending money as a PR move I meant
| non-product related, the way companies donate to charities,
| or do charitable research, or hell they could've even
| invested in for-profit health startups that would have a
| higher expectation than saving a single life.
| bombcar wrote:
| I daresay having them turn themselves off when the GPS
| detects they're moving at "driving speeds" would save some
| lives.
|
| Sure it has "driving mode" but you can still override it.
| Matt3o12_ wrote:
| So when I ride the bus or train, I'm allowed to use my
| phone? What about when I use an uber (or lift or any of
| the many many other local alternatives)?
|
| Not everyone that moves at driving speeds is driving,
| especially in places outside of America.
| bombcar wrote:
| Oh, sure, there's tons of annoying cases, and it'll
| probably never be done, but it's certainly a _feature
| that would save lives_.
| Retric wrote:
| It would also cost lives. In a serious emergency you can
| start driving someone to the hospital and call 911. In
| rural areas when ambulances can take 45+ minutes being
| unable to call and drive can be a big issue.
|
| That's just one of many edge cases where disabling
| cellphone service for moving callers is downright
| dangerous.
| bombcar wrote:
| Oh sure - there's tons of reasons it hasn't been done.
| But it would be an option - even if you could only dial
| 911 whilst moving or something.
|
| Maybe make it an insurance lock feature!
| makeitdouble wrote:
| > even if this feature only saves a single life, seems worth it
| to me.
|
| Would the corollary of this be "if a feature causes a single
| death it's not worth it" ?
|
| That would be an interesting angle to look at when Apple
| revamps its lock screen, changes privacy policy settings on GPS
| tracking etc.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| My wife and I frequently drive through Michigan's upper
| peninsula. Weather can be extremely rough in the winter time
| with many spots of poor/no service.
|
| While we hope to never use it, we think this feature is a game
| changer for rural travel.
| dang wrote:
| Ongoing related thread:
|
| _Apple's satellite emergency SOS feature: A review and deep-dive
| explainer_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33611586 - Nov
| 2022 (14 comments)
| user3939382 wrote:
| Wait, what? iPhones are sat phones?? It has the antenna for
| that?? Since when? The GPS is a passive receive. I skimmed the
| article and didn't see, how on Earth (lol) does this work? Sat
| antennas are huge. Maybe these search and rescue SOS beacons have
| their own signal?
| MarkMarine wrote:
| They got around the antenna issue by using a really poor
| antenna that requires the user to aim the phone at a passing
| satellite, plus a pretty cool UI to help you do that.
| MBCook wrote:
| New this year. The phone basically guides you to point it at
| the satellite (and turn as necessary), which is why it doesn't
| need a big antenna.
|
| It's not as good as a Garmin or some such, but you have it with
| you.
| stagger87 wrote:
| You have to point the phone at the sky for long periods of time
| AND track the sat position in the sky while you do it. It's
| probably some long spread spectrum approach (lots of processing
| gain), as well as I'm sure a bunch of other cool
| tricks/techniques.
| user3939382 wrote:
| There are obviously people out there that are deep experts on
| radio, signals, propagation, antennas, etc. That's not me,
| but I know enough about it to appreciate that this is
| completely amazing.
| cookingmyserver wrote:
| Does anyone know how they track the position of the
| communication satellites? I assume they use GPS for the users
| position, the gyro and accelerometer for device orientation,
| and then periodically load and update the LEO sat paths on
| the device when they are connected. Or is the antenna able to
| estimate LEO position via a signal the LEO sats sends out?
| CarbonCycles wrote:
| The positions of the satellites are well known and
| documented. Fun fact..on the Garmin fenix watches, it is
| recommended that you synch your watch with your Garmin
| Connect app every few days (week) so that you download the
| latest satellites position file, which significantly
| improves the GPS lock time with the satellites before you
| begin an activity.
|
| As others have stated, I don't think Apple's product will
| really erode Garmin's market share for several years. The
| lack of detailed topo maps and applications will severely
| hamper them.
|
| With Apple latest shift, I see their ecosystem as a very
| strong contender for business travel (international news
| reporter?) that requires strong security (lockdown mode),
| ability to communicate in many form factors through adverse
| conditions (voice, data and now satellite), and has a slew
| of safety features (crash detection).
|
| Garmin has decades of experience regarding outdoor travel
| and safety that Apple would always be playing
| catchup...IMO.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Yeah, no different than a stargazing app where you point
| your phone and it labels the stars that show up in the
| view.
|
| Just need the x,y,z, compass and gps coordinates.
| alach11 wrote:
| This must have been such an exciting feature to develop. It's
| great to be able to work on something very likely to save lives
| in the near future. And clearly a lot of love was put into the UX
| of the product.
| kawfey wrote:
| As a ham radio evangelist, I'm slightly sad that our radio
| service has become a bit more irrelevant as a backcountry backup
| or emergency comms solution, thanks to this, the SPOT/inreach
| messager, and general LEO satellite broadband internet access,
| but more happy that it's here, since these systems are FAR more
| accessible, reliable, and easy to use for SOS or way-off-grid
| general communications.
|
| Ham radio still has it's place for first-response communications
| relief and health & welfare checks, and search-and-rescue
| (generally where other radio or internet systems are offline,
| aren't installed, or aren't reliable) as well as just being a fun
| hobby.
| kube-system wrote:
| Ham's greatest advantage is also its greatest weakness: being
| strictly non-commercial.
| gz5 wrote:
| >Satellites move rapidly, have low bandwidth, and are located
| thousands of miles away from Earth, so it can take a few minutes
| for even short messages to get through.
|
| Low orbit satellites can be about 500 kilometers / 300 miles so
| would be the logical next step?
| samcat116 wrote:
| Yes which is why you're seeing LEO constelations now. But most
| previous ones were in GEO which is much farther away.
| COGlory wrote:
| I was just on the ground coordinating with 4 friends that got
| buried in 5+ foot of unexpected snow in the mountains (forecast
| said 1"-2" when they went up) for the rifle opener in Montana. I
| wound up getting sick so I stayed home (hilariously I was the
| only one who got an elk) but I sent them up with my InReach.
|
| All I can say is THANK GOD that I did, because it turned into
| over a week long effort to get them out. Two decided to walk out
| and were able to text me a nav point that I was able to meet them
| at (took all day to get there because of the snow and mud, but I
| made it and was able to pick them up). The other two stayed up
| there, and we sent probably 100 texts back and forth coordinating
| what turned into like 3 solid days of fighting to get up there
| with snowcats and get them back down. Multiple situational
| changes that we would have been hosed without.
|
| In the end, I spent like $80 on texts, but it was money well
| spent. I think it's great for people to have SOS built into their
| iPhone, but there needs to be a "use it now, pay later" or no one
| is going to activate it and actually have it available when they
| need it. The other half of the equation is that you really need
| to be able to send texts. The SOS button is very expensive.
| Extremely expensive. That will keep a lot of people from using
| it. (Yes insurance exists, but hardly anyone has it). Being able
| to text your friends for help is substantially more useful. Being
| stuck on a backroad with no service, 5, 10, 20 miles from where
| anyone can be expected to drive by is a far more common scenario
| than breaking your leg at the top of a mountain and needing to be
| evacuated.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| Does InReach require a monthly cost?
|
| Alternatively, you can spend about $200 one time on a personal
| locator beacon that requires no ongoing costs. It can't do two-
| way communication but activating it sends out a specific
| frequency picked up by satellites and is the equivalent of
| calling 911. Rescuers will come to help you.
|
| All serious hikers and outdoor adventurers should carry a
| personal locator beacon.
| s0rce wrote:
| So far 100% of my inreach use is texting family, I bought it
| for emergencies but so far (luckily) haven't needed it for
| that. I'm confident that it will work well enough in that
| situation that I don't need a PLB.
| dont__panic wrote:
| Any personal locator beacon recommendations? It's one of
| those items that I could very much use during bike touring,
| hiking, and bikepacking... but I've never bought one because
| it seems like a very large cost for something I won't even
| _test_ until it is a matter of life and death.
|
| Out of curiosity... is there any way to alert your local
| emergency department in advance of testing a beacon, so you
| can verify that it works?
| lxgr wrote:
| "Live testing" is discouraged:
| https://www.sarsat.noaa.gov/emergency_beacon-testing/
| pajko wrote:
| This is a quite good writeup with some recommendations:
| https://www.greenbelly.co/pages/best-personal-locator-
| beacon...
|
| And answers your question: "Each device has a test mode
| that will communicate with the SARSAT satellite network
| without sending an alert."
| lxgr wrote:
| > Each device has a test mode that will communicate with
| the SARSAT satellite network without sending an alert.
|
| That explanation is factually incorrect, then. There
| currently is no "test" flag, nor is there the required
| infrastructure to check if your test alert went through:
|
| https://www.sarsat.noaa.gov/emergency_beacon-testing/
|
| So this "self-test" feature can't be communicating with
| actual satellites. No idea what it actually does, but
| it's definitely not an end-to-end test.
| jzwinck wrote:
| I dont own this but it is pretty much the standard:
| https://www.acrartex.com/products/resqlink-400/
|
| These devices require a new battery every few years and
| that service includes a test done by the manufacturer.
| There is also a self test button on the device which does
| not send a message to the satellites.
|
| If you really feel the need to send test messages into
| space, they do support that but then you need a
| subscription (https://www.acrartex.com/406link/). At that
| point you may as well buy a different device which has 2
| way messaging included in the subscription. PLB users
| generally do trust that their devices work the first time
| they're used for real, and this trust is backed up by a lot
| of real world use.
| ghaff wrote:
| >PLB users generally do trust that their devices work the
| first time they're used for real, and this trust is
| backed up by a lot of real world use.
|
| Although they are not foolproof. See for example the
| story of Kate Matrosova. [1] Basically, mountain shadows
| made the location readings erratic which, in combination
| with extremely bad weather, meant rescuers couldn't find
| her.
|
| [1] https://www3.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/02/21/the-
| young-woma...
| jzwinck wrote:
| I only meant that the devices, if properly maintained,
| can be trusted to do their job as best they can and not
| say "PC LOAD LETTER" and expect you to troubleshoot it. A
| successful rescue is never guaranteed.
|
| Those of us who are programmers usually default to "If
| it's not tested end to end, it won't work," and that is
| the sentiment I was responding to.
| tialaramex wrote:
| Note that http://www.catskillmountaineer.com/reviews-
| winterhikingKM.ht... for example says Kate did _not_ have
| a PLB, but only a SPOT (one of the many commercial
| products in this space)
|
| PLBs are tested down to -40deg so it might have stayed
| working for longer as the weather got worse. It is of
| course impossible to say if Kate might have survived
| under other circumstances except that (not very
| interestingly) if she's decided the weather was too awful
| and aborted she'd almost certainly live.
| ghaff wrote:
| It's been a while since I read the book on this. I'm not
| sure if it got into the exact equipment or not. Certainly
| if SAR had an accurate fix from the beginning there would
| have been at least some hope for a rescue.
|
| The book was interesting mostly for all the SAR detail.
| The accident, sadly, was mostly in the category of--
| however fit and well-equipped you are--don't try to beat
| a very bad incoming storm on an exposed ridge line in the
| middle of winter. If she had turned around at Madison Hut
| or wherever she'd have been fine.
| tjohns wrote:
| The person in that article was using SPOT, not a PLB.
|
| Actual PLBs ( _not_ SPOT) have a backup strategy in the
| event the GPS signal is obscured by mountains.
|
| If the device can't get a reliable GPS fix, the
| satellites will resort to measuring doppler shift as they
| pass overhead to locate the transmitter. It's slower
| (takes several passes of the satellite, so we're talking
| hours) and less accurate, but it will get rescuers to the
| general direction.
|
| From there, PLB devices also transmit a low-power homing
| signal on 121.5 MHz (the aviation distress frequency)
| that SAR teams can locate using radio direction-finding
| equipment.
| ghaff wrote:
| Thanks for the info. Although, in general, I assume a
| device that allows you to have two-way communications
| with SAR is preferable even if a PLB might have been
| better in this ultimately fatal situation.
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| For PLB I am pretty sure it's universal. For messengers
| (like the inreach), find out what people in your geo use
| between iridium or SPOT because satellite coverage can
| vary. For example, I have heard that in alaska SPOT's only
| geostationary sat is really low on the southern horizon and
| anything that breaks LOS will interfere with the device.
|
| For PLB specifically you cannot test them. Once you
| activate them, they continually broadcast and cannot be
| canceled except by destroying the device. For messengers,
| they hook up to a web service and you can send messages to
| personal email or SMS via the sat network as your test.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| > I have heard that in alaska SPOT's only geostationary
| sat is really low on the southern horizon and anything
| that breaks LOS will interfere with the device.
|
| Any geostationary sat would be low on the southern
| horizon in Alaska. That's just how geostationary orbits
| work, they are over the equator. Though pretty high above
| (35.000km/22.000mi). So it's still visible there but yeah
| you need a clear view of the southern horizon.
|
| But Globalstar which runs the service for SPOT only has
| low earth orbit sats which are definitely not
| geostationary. They're only at a few hundred kilometers.
|
| However it could very well be that their orbits are
| aligned so that they are always pretty low to the south
| from Alaska, yes.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| _Does InReach require a monthly cost?_
|
| Yeah, the cheapest plan is $14.95/mo ($11.95/mo if you pay
| for 12 months) and includes 10 "free" text's, $0.50/text
| after that.
|
| I wish they had a non-cost plan (or maybe $10/year) plus
| $5/text or something like that for use in an emergency. I
| have an InReach, but haven't used it for an emergency (yet),
| I've sent a few texts to friends/family while outside of
| cellular coverage since they are "free", but would rather
| save money and only pay if I need to use it in an emergency
| situation.
|
| Maybe they'll have to get more flexible with their plans now
| that the iPhone has this feature, and T-Mobile is reportedly
| coming out with Satellite connectivity for phones.
| willcipriano wrote:
| You can turn it off in the off-season making the annual
| cost not quite monthly * 12
| Johnny555 wrote:
| My problem is I don't really have an off-season, nearly
| all year round I go on at least one hike a month that's
| outside of cell coverage (not too hard around here),
| which is why I got the InReach in the first place.
| lxgr wrote:
| > I wish they had a non-cost plan (or maybe $10/year) plus
| $5/text or something like that for use in an emergency.
|
| Given that the outdoor SAR use case is probably the largest
| reason for people to get one of these devices in the first
| place, I doubt that such a model would be economically
| sustainable (unless subsidized by government agencies or
| possibly insurances saving money due to spending less on
| large-scale search operations).
|
| Vendors could also bake a free SAR plan into the initial
| sales price, I suppose.
| chrisshroba wrote:
| Yeah, if we conservatively say 1% of InReach users will
| need to send an SOS message, then looking at the math:
|
| Today, 100 InReach subscribers nets Garmin around $144/yr
| * 100 people = $14,400
|
| If the InReach were free except for when activating the
| SOS, the SOS would have to cost $14,000 to make that same
| revenue from the same number of users. This would surely
| lead to more deaths due to folks waiting way longer to
| send an SOS.
|
| Numbers are estimates but the order of magnitude
| shouldn't be too far off.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| They're going to lose the people like me anyway when
| phones can send a SOS by satellite, so their revenue from
| me will either go to $0 and I'll sell my InReach on eBay,
| or they can get some small amount of revenue (enough to
| cover the administrative costs of registering the device)
| from me.
| lxgr wrote:
| Good point - now that the iPhone has satellite SOS, the
| market has changed, and the pure SOS use case has become
| a lot less compelling.
|
| Some users still prefer a standalone device, want P2P
| messaging functionality (until Apple adds that, too), or
| need coverage beyond Globalstar - I'd be curious to see
| how much of the market that is, in the end.
| noahjk wrote:
| I like the way Fi does it, where service can be paused for
| 90 days at a time. Just used it on vacation recently after
| having it paused for a couple years and it was seamless. I
| think I'll end up paying around $30 for the trip. It's a
| nice balance imo
| GoldenRacer wrote:
| The $15 a month for the Garmin in reach is a month to
| month plan. You can get it for a single trip then let it
| expire for years before getting another month for your
| next trip. If you buy a 1 year subscription it ends up
| going down to $12/month so if you're using it >=10 months
| a year, it's cheaper to commit to that but for most
| people, month to month where you can pause whenever you
| aren't using it is a good option.
| masom wrote:
| InReach, and any users (other brands offering competing two-
| way communicators) of the Iridium satellite network, have
| ongoing fees. They're rather small compared to someone dying
| in the wilderness.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| My point was that you can avoid dying in the wilderness
| with an even cheaper PLB.
| lxgr wrote:
| PLBs are great and definitely better than not carrying
| any emergency communications device at all, but they can
| ultimately only send out a binary signal: "I need help at
| location x/y".
|
| There's a lot of situations in which I'd appreciate being
| able to call help without possibly triggering an
| expensive helicopter SAR operation, when sending a park
| ranger would be more than sufficient (e.g. a sprained
| ankle a mile off the trailhead when solo hiking).
|
| Another advantage of two-way communicators is being able
| to get instructions from the SAR team: It can be vital to
| know whether you should e.g. go to higher ground (because
| your signal has not been received yet) or conversely seek
| shelter from the elements for a couple of hours. Newer
| PLBs partially solve that problem though, thanks to
| Galileo's "blue light" return channel.
| tony_cannistra wrote:
| Actually, I'm not sure this is good advice. Two-way
| commiunicators are _vastly_ preferred by Search and Rescue
| organizations.
|
| The reason for this is that they can learn about what they
| need to do and who they need to send to you, because they can
| ask you.
|
| If you have a broken leg, they'll send in 10 people to get
| you out. Dehydrated? Two responders and water.
|
| Calls that come in from "dumb" communicators like PLBs are
| more likely to get a 1-2 person "hasty" team assigned to them
| who can arrive quickly then call in more reinforcements if
| necessary. A SAR org. isn't going to put 10 volunteers on a
| PLB call that ends up being a rolled ankle, at least not
| immediately.
|
| This has the potential to greatly delay the time to care for
| you, especially for more severe emergencies.
| widforss wrote:
| I'm on a SAR team. We literally deployed 10 people on both
| PLB's and Inreaches last winter. SAR people are _cheap_
| tony_cannistra wrote:
| Totally.
|
| It sounds like your team has the advantage of having a
| large volunteer corpus. I wish they all did.
| biomcgary wrote:
| SAR people may largely be volunteers, but helicopters
| have fairly expensive operational costs. In time-
| sensitive situations, it is better to have two way
| communications (because it keeps SAR as inexpensive as
| possible). See my sister comment for my wife's
| experience.
| widforss wrote:
| Those two operations were made using snow mobiles, but
| yes, as soon as helicopters com into the picture, the
| costs skyrocket.
| biomcgary wrote:
| My wife has an InReach. While hiking in Colorado, she
| encountered a woman who started going into shock (for no
| obvious reason!). Because of the satellite-based texting,
| SAR determined that Medivac chopper was more appropriate
| than land based rescue. Doctors said that the woman had 1-2
| hours before death / permanent injury, so the most likely
| outcome of only having an emergency beacon would have been
| her death.
| subsubzero wrote:
| It does, I have the fancier inReach - the one that can make
| calls and texts without being tethered to an iphone. The
| service runs $15 a month for the basic service and scales up
| depending on how many texts a month you want to use. I
| wouldn't ditch it for an iphone 14 as it is way more rugged
| and in really cold climates(I live near the mountains) a
| iphone will rapidly discharge its battery and will be
| useless.
|
| I finally broke down and got my inreach as I was exploring a
| canyon way out in the desert and a rockslide almost took out
| my ankle. I told my Wife when I got back and she made me get
| one as I most likely would have been in serious trouble as
| cell signal was not working and nobody was in miles of me.
| carabiner wrote:
| Which Inreach model allows voice calls?
| jms703 wrote:
| None of the Inreach devices can make calls.
| subsubzero wrote:
| you are correct, inReach devices can text by
| themselves(with no cell signal) and can be paired with a
| cell phone to make calls(I have the 66i), but not make
| calls by themselves.
|
| https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/GUID-6E5DFD2E-EEE
| 4-4...
| c0nsumer wrote:
| Are you sure of that? I can find no info nor claims of
| inReach devices doing anything voice-wise, even when
| paired with a phone.
| DMell wrote:
| Yes there are monthly plans that have different features -
| such as number of texts, custom messages, tracking intervals,
| etc.
| carabiner wrote:
| There is no bill for rescues in Montana per
| https://nbcmontana.com/news/local/missoula-gallatin-co-
| searc.... It's much faster, safer to have professionals with
| helicopters to pick them up rather than getting snow cats up
| there.
| arb-spreads wrote:
| Agreed. Similar to the invention of seatbelts and other safety
| devices, safer technology induces risker behavior.
|
| Would be unfortunate to have an over-reliance on emergency
| services aided by these tools.
|
| Offer a few free texts a year and then charge like 5 bucks to
| text for a day or something.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| No one is asking this but the rest i know about, so i find
| myself thinking "what on earth do you do with a rifle-shot-dead
| elk?", since I have no suburban-kid idea.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| Leaving aside the option to take a side-by-
| side/ATV/snowmobile (with skid or trailer if needed) to solve
| the problem with horsepower, or the option of biological
| horses instead of petroleum horses:
|
| 1. You first field dress it - cut from sternum to tail and
| pull the entrails, leaving them in a pile in the woods for
| scavengers. That takes your elk from 700 lbs (you hope) to
| ~450 lbs.
|
| 2. Quarter it and hang the 4 ~100lbs quarters high in a tree
| safe from bears and wolves (but not cougars) and carry them
| out one at a time using a backpack with a frame and hip belt.
| Be sure to carry the prime cuts (backstraps) out with the
| first load. Watch for predators on the return trips.
|
| 3. It's becoming more common, too, to fully butcher the
| animal in the field, removing the bones, which reduces the
| load to haul down to about 200 lbs. The skin, ivory, and head
| (if you want those) add some weight.
|
| A Jet Sled in 2" of snow makes it surprisingly easy to haul
| an awful lot of elk and gear. As long as you're going across
| flat ground or downhill, that is - uphill is no fun at all.
|
| A whitetail here in Michigan is much easier, even a big one
| is only about 100 lbs after field dressing. You just lay it
| on a drag/tarp or in a sled (or, if you don't care about the
| skin staying pristine and aren't going over super rocky
| terrain, just tie a rope to the antlers and front legs) and
| drag it out.
| COGlory wrote:
| Great comment by LeifCarrotson pretty much explains it. I
| gutted and skinned it, removing each quarter, and the meat
| along the back, ribs, and neck. That took basically all day.
|
| Then, I put about half the elk on a children's sled, and
| pulled it (mercifully downhill or level) about 1.5 miles.
| Then, I went and got the other half. She was a cow, so no
| antlers to carry.
|
| Then, I hung all the meat in a frienda garage for about 2
| days, took it home in several coolers, and fought off my dog
| while every evening for 4 evenings, I separated the muscle
| groups, and/or chunked meat to grind (lower quality meat gets
| turned into hamburger or sausage), vacuum sealed eveything,
| and froze it.
|
| I'm originally from Rhode Island, and this is only my third
| animal (first was a deer, then an antelope) so it was pretty
| overwhelming.
| walrus01 wrote:
| If you're seriously going to go into the back country in the
| rural western US states and Canada, and you have a good paying
| professional job, there is no excuse, in my opinion, not to
| spend $1000 on a full capability Iridium handset and the
| $50/month service plan that goes with it. If you really NEED to
| use it you won't care that it costs $1.20 a minute to make a
| call.
|
| https://www.iridium.com/products/iridium-9555/
|
| People will happily spend $700 on an Arcteryx jacket and $400
| boots but won't buy an Iridium handset. I truly don't
| understand.
| prescriptivist wrote:
| > The SOS button is very expensive. Extremely expensive.
|
| With my inReach I pay for the insurance plan [1]. I do
| wilderness float/canoe/kayak trips and I have it for peace of
| mind in case I or somebody I'm with (or encounter) is
| immobilized, as I can walk out of most places I go to if my
| legs are working.
|
| I haven't been able to find any such option for the iPhone,
| which, amongst other things, means I'll be keeping my inReach.
| Though to be clear I don't know to what degree I would be on
| the hook for anything if I _did_ hit the SOS button.
|
| https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/906397
| DMell wrote:
| I encourage people to know the laws in the state they are
| exploring as they are different across the board - some are
| at no cost to the individual while others have clauses.
|
| Additionally, know how your device works - end to end -
| regardless of what it is. You gain a lot of knowledge and
| life saving techniques by knowing the process that is kicked
| off, it's timeframe, etc.
| lxgr wrote:
| > you really need to be able to send texts.
|
| I'd be surprised if Apple does not launch this as a paid
| feature sooner rather than later (possibly as a perk part of
| Apple One or one of their other subscription plans).
| MarkMarine wrote:
| For Emergency services there is no "activate and pay later"
| because you don't need to activate, and you don't need to pay.
| If you have an iPhone 14 it's supposed to just work if you're
| calling 911.
| martyvis wrote:
| >If you have an iPhone 14 it's supposed to just work if
| you're calling 911.
|
| Did you mean to say "work AS if you're calling 911"? The
| emergency message via satellite function has to be explicitly
| used instead of just calling 911
| MarkMarine wrote:
| Sure, kind of nitpicky, but sure.
|
| To the average user, they will try to dial 911, the iPhone
| won't be able to complete a cellular 911 call and will then
| present the user with the UI for sending an emergency
| message to first responders. I don't really see the need
| for distinction, except between an iPhone 14 and a 13, or
| an android, which would fail to make the 911 call and
| that's it.
| SpikeDad wrote:
| No. If you're offgrid and try to call 911 the interface
| automatically offers to use Satellite services.
| JadeNB wrote:
| > For Emergency services there is no "activate and pay later"
| because you don't need to activate, and you don't need to
| pay. If you have an iPhone 14 it's supposed to just work if
| you're calling 911.
|
| This is nothing special about the iPhone or the version;
| every cell phone is supposed to put through calls to 911:
|
| > All wireless phones, even those that are not subscribed to
| or supported by a specific carrier, can call 911.
|
| https://www.911.gov/calling-911/frequently-asked-questions/
| amscanne wrote:
| The parent comment is referring to the iPhone 14's ability
| to reach emergency services via a satellite network; this
| is indeed something special.
| JadeNB wrote:
| I was confused, because the parent comment says:
|
| > For Emergency services there is no "activate and pay
| later" because you don't need to activate, and you don't
| need to pay. If you have an iPhone 14 it's supposed to
| just work if you're calling 911.
|
| The Emergency SOS seems explicitly to require activation,
| and to have a cost (eventually):
|
| > The service will be included for free for two years
| starting at the time of activation of a new iPhone 14,
| iPhone 14 Plus, iPhone 14 Pro, and iPhone 14 Pro Max.4
|
| So I assumed that the parent was referring to just
| calling 911 using the normal cell network, which can
| indeed be done, on any mobile phone (that is able to
| dial, of course), without activation or payment.
| nneonneo wrote:
| Activation here refers to the activation of the phone
| itself, not the satellite service specifically. A new
| phone needs to be activated (registering it with Apple
| and maybe your carrier) before you can use it at all.
|
| The "use and pay later" scheme refers to an emergency
| system that is pay-per-use or requires an ongoing payment
| (e.g. subscription); the idea would be that if you use
| the feature at all it works immediately but will charge
| you for that sometime later (kinda like how an ambulance
| will pick you up right away but bill you for the
| privilege later).
| MarkMarine wrote:
| It doesn't require "activation, " you try to call 911 and
| when you don't have signal, the phone sends an emergency
| text message to the satellite network.
|
| Just read up on the feature, if you're curious.
| pests wrote:
| What about after the two year free period?
| MarkMarine wrote:
| Seems like we'll find out in a year or two no? No one
| knows right now but I'm not going to bag on a service
| that will save lives on the maybe chance that 2 years
| from now it might cost something but we don't know what.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| > there needs to be a "use it now, pay later" or no one is
| going to activate it and actually have it available when they
| need it
|
| I've been solo hiking, running, kayaking, and biking in areas
| without cell service since before cell phones were things
| people carried.
|
| Haven't needed emergency search-and-rescue in 20 years, so it's
| just never seemed like a good investment...that's $3600 I could
| have 'wasted' on a service I've never needed. But I would
| probably buy and carry an InReach if they offered use it now,
| pay later plans. I don't carry a PLB, because that would mean
| paying for insurance, and I'd more likely need a lift from my
| brother in a side-by-side than a helicopter from the sheriff's
| office (and the ruinous costs that would entail....
|
| I plan to wear my Fenix 6 Pro for another 10 years, but if they
| came out with a version with InReach 2-way texts my wife would
| buy it RIGHT NOW, express shipping, not even a thought of
| waiting for Christmas.
|
| On the other hand, that's $3600 of profit for
| Apple/Garmin/Iridium/Globalstar/Spot that they're loathe to
| leave on the table until the one time in 20 years when I really
| need it.
| dave78 wrote:
| Depending on the location, perhaps getting your amateur radio
| license and a radio with APRS on it might help fill in some
| of the coverage gaps. I've heard (though cannot confirm
| personally) that there is often APRS coverage in remote areas
| that are otherwise not served by cellular.
| error503 wrote:
| It depends a lot on the terrain and specific area whether a
| typical VHF/UHF ham radio will work. The range is much
| longer than cellular, but it is quite LOS, and
| repeater/digipeater sites with good coverage tend to be at
| established antenna sites for commercical broadcast or
| telecom. There'll be some more remote sites of course, but
| infrastructure and LOS is still more or less required. With
| many popular recreation areas up in uninhabited mountain
| valleys with no infrastructure and where building stuff is
| often prohibited, the chances of hitting a site aren't
| great unless you happen to be below a mountain microwave
| site or such. At least without hiking out of the valley,
| but that's hardly a condition you want to put on yourself
| for an emergency communicator.
|
| That said, it's not a bad thing to carry in your car, as
| there are plenty enough dead spots that would likely be
| covered by packet radio. It's just a lot less clear how to
| get help.
| rcurry wrote:
| This. I've been wilderness backpacking for a long time
| and still carry a 2m radio just for fun, but the
| usefulness is limited in a lot of places. If you're
| climbing up a mountain in NH you can pretty much hit a
| repeater from anywhere, but if you're trekking around in
| Big Bend State Park in Texas you can forget it. Satellite
| communication is much better and if you can't afford a
| few hundred bucks for some kind of satcom then you
| probably shouldn't be going out too deep into some of
| these places.
| michael1999 wrote:
| Would sending your their location have been enough? Because
| that seems to be an option in addition to the 911 call.
| exabrial wrote:
| Interesting observation: You prevented a "uh oh" from turning
| into an "we're dying" state. It sounds like your friends are
| pretty hardened for the backcountry, and they needed to get
| out, but it wasn't life-threatening (at the time). Something we
| should consider while designing these systems. I think the
| pricepoint of InReach services certainly prevent casual usage
| (sending memes, browsing instagram) but allows sufficient
| communication at a reasonable price to coordinate safely.
|
| Also, with 5ft of snow coming down, I have my doubts an iPhone
| would be able to reach out and touch a satellite. It'll be
| interesting to see some tests.
| ingalls wrote:
| First off, super glad to hear your friends are out of the field
| safe.
|
| Want to address one point however: "The SOS button is very
| expensive. Extremely expensive"
|
| In my experience on multiple SAR teams (Search and Rescue),
| this is almost never the case in North America. Search and
| Rescue is one of the few services that is almost uniformly free
| [1]. Thousands and thousands of volunteer hours every year keep
| it that way. In fact, the two most prominent professional
| organizations for SAR (NASAR [2] & MRA [3]) both have
| longstanding policies that teams should not charge for rescue.
| On a personal level, I can tell you that the majority of the
| rescues/recoveries I have worked in the last decade would have
| been easier or led to a better outcome if the subject had
| called earlier. Embarrassment and fear of cost are the two
| primary reasons I have had subjects quote as the reasons they
| delayed calling for rescue, even after they knew self-rescue
| would not be possible. When you realize self-rescue isn't
| possible, call us early.
|
| [1] The only counties that I know of that charge for rescue are
| in Utah:
| https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=54909102&itype=CMS...
| [2] https://www.nationalparkstraveler.org/2009/05/billing-
| search... [3] https://mra.org/what-is-mras-position-on-
| charging-for-search...
| akelly wrote:
| A friend's 18yo brother was motorcycling in the mountains
| with their father, crashed and broke his femur. Ambulance
| would have taken hours, they had helicopter rescue insurance,
| but the only helicopter company that operated there wouldn't
| take it. Got a $25k bill for the helicopter ride and
| negotiated down to $16k iirc.
| dave78 wrote:
| > Search and Rescue is one of the few services that is almost
| uniformly free [1].
|
| I wonder if this will remain true once everyone with an
| iPhone has access to it. The increase in volume could easily
| overwhelm the volunteers, no?
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| The iPhone service sends a pre-written SMS to the 911
| service. They decide whether to deploy rescue services or
| not.
| ingalls wrote:
| The next couple years will give us more concrete numbers,
| but based on my personal experience, I doubt this will
| change call volume significantly. We're mostly seeing
| dramatically increased call volume due to more people being
| involved in backcountry recreation and less so due to
| increased comms coverage through cell or satellite devices.
|
| While there is the argument that these devices give
| increased peace of mind that the backcountry is somehow
| "safer", I don't know that I've seen this cause an uptick
| in callouts for our team. Subjects needing rescue are still
| usually hesitant to call for rescue and usually try to self
| extricate, even when they should likely initiate a rescue.
| Most of our call-outs happen at night for this reason.
|
| That said, the upside of these devices is significant -
| especially in the area of improving our response time and
| reducing total callout time. The advent of the E911 Phase 2
| (including location in 911 calls) has made the majority of
| our call-outs dramatically simpler & faster. What was
| formerly a multi-step process which might involve something
| like deploying multiple hasty teams to sweep large areas;
| determining subject location; deploying specialized
| resources for extraction -- can now jump straight to
| deploying a single hasty team for medical while
| simultaneously deploying specialized resources given that
| the terrain & access is known via the subject's location.
|
| Edit: I can't edit my above comment, but just got
| confirmation from a friend both Grand and Wayne have
| revised their rescue policy and now only charge in
| exceptional circumstances -
| https://www.grandcountyutah.net/734/Donate-to-GCSAR
| dave78 wrote:
| > Subjects needing rescue are still usually hesitant to
| call for rescue and usually try to self extricate
|
| Someone with the knowledge and foresight to bring along a
| Garmin or PLB or something probably has a decent
| understanding of what it means to use it - waking people
| up and deploying expensive assets - and because of that I
| can see why they'd probably hesitate (it surely would
| trigger my "I don't want to be a bother" instinct).
|
| I hope once every iPhone user has the same capability
| that it doesn't become an "eternal September"-like moment
| and flip too far the other way into overly casual use.
|
| Regardless, you're much closer to the situation than I am
| so I'll defer to your expertise. Clearly, more
| communications in an emergency is always going to be
| better, so I look forward to seeing stories about how
| this new feature saves lives.
|
| And thanks for your efforts in providing rescue services
| to the people who need them!
| macNchz wrote:
| That decision making process is a key part of what's
| taught in a wilderness medicine course: assessing the
| situation at hand and deciding whether it's necessary to
| evacuate for a higher level of care, and if so, whether
| you need a rapid evac like a helicopter, or can walk or
| be carried out with fewer resources.
| https://blog.nols.edu/2018/02/20/stay-or-go-infographic
|
| I do tend to agree that this has a pretty good chance of
| creating more nuisance calls from people who are not in
| actual danger...I read the New York forest rangers
| reports now and then, and a big portion of the rescues
| involve clueless people who set off alone with no map, an
| hour before sunset in October wearing a tshirt and
| shorts.
| fastaguy88 wrote:
| At least those people probably need to be rescued. The
| more annoying examples are people who are not lost or in
| danger, but just decided they were tired and did not want
| to walk back out.
| kenhwang wrote:
| As someone with a bunch of idiotic friends that always find
| themselves needing SAR in North America. The rule of thumb
| within the group that has generally held true is: if you're
| on federal lands it's fully free, but if you're in resort,
| city, or state jurisdiction they'll absolutely try to claw
| back the costs.
|
| The SAR might be technically "free", but they'll categorize
| as many things under "medical emergency" as possible and
| throw the book of fines at you.
| giobox wrote:
| While this is great to know, the SOS button is still
| fundamentally potentially a completely open-ended liability
| if you haven't taken Garmin's 30 buck annual insurance option
| for it. Even with that, you are only capped at $50k to best
| of my knowledge. Your Utah example illustrates this.
|
| In a real SOS situation the cost is likely immaterial, but I
| can absolutely understand why people would wait a bit longer
| than they should before pressing.
| bombcar wrote:
| Having two-way communications would help tremendously,
| because then you can say "well, pressing the button will
| cost $100, but the person on the other end will know if I
| need rescue now or later".
| post_break wrote:
| Check this video out about that being free:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u49b-_cWlz8
| jsjohnst wrote:
| > Search and Rescue is one of the few services that is almost
| uniformly free
|
| Just wanted to come and confirm based on first hand
| experience that this is true and also say a heart felt thank
| you for doing what you do!
| alach11 wrote:
| > The service will be included for free for two years starting at
| the time of activation of a new iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, iPhone
| 14 Pro, and iPhone 14 Pro Max.
|
| Interesting to see the hidden in the fine print at the end. Will
| they be selling a subscription to the service?
| qubex wrote:
| As remarked by others this is likely so they can kill it off in
| the near future (in a couple of years) if it is an unmitigated
| disaster. It's highly unlikely they'll make it into a
| subscription service because the optics could be so bad ("man
| dies of exposure after Apple declines credit card and
| disconnects satellite emergency service").
| aabhay wrote:
| No one here has mentioned this here, surprisingly, but the UX on
| this feature is absolutely incredible. Clear, thoughtful,
| helpful, and deeply integrated with user services. It almost
| makes me _want_ to get into trouble, just to be able to use this
| service!
| dagmx wrote:
| There's a demo mode in the settings fortunately
| MarkMarine wrote:
| There is!!! Awesome! This should be a top comment because I
| was worried how I'd teach my parents to use it.
| papito wrote:
| This is great, but people do still need to keep in mind that this
| is not a full replacement of the emergency beacons that use the
| Cospas-Sarsat system, which would work anywhere, from pole to
| pole.
|
| If you are going to do extreme hiking in Patagonia, get a real
| distress beacon. There is no service charge except for the device
| itself.
|
| This is no joke - I had to use mine in the middle of Death Valley
| (of all places) during a seizure-like episode. Saved my life.
| RL_Quine wrote:
| Yeah, it's no replacement for a dedicated device, but it's with
| a whole lot of people all the time.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Just like with Apple Watch Ultra, Its for people with serious
| hobbies but not professionals or those on the extreme end. I
| think they have a name for that market segment.
| piperswe wrote:
| In computer hardware, that market segment is typically called
| "prosumer"
| heynowheynow wrote:
| 406 PLB's - monitored by satellite - Garmin InReach Explorer+
| looks alright and doesn't need a special factory battery
| replacement.
|
| 121.5 ELTs - requiring sar aircraft proximity - are obsolete.
| wstrange wrote:
| This is really going to eat into Garmin's Inreach market (ditto
| for Spot, Zoleo, etc).
|
| It says free for the first 2 years. I'm curious what the yearly
| cost will be after that, and how it will compare to an Inreach
| plan. On an ongoing basis, it's the subscription fees that really
| add up.
| brookst wrote:
| I'm not sure it will eat into those markets. Those are device
| for people who know they are going off-grid and may need both
| emergency comms and who (typically) also want to be able to let
| people at home know where they are and how things are going.
|
| My take is the Apple SOS is for people who are unprepared and
| surprised, and who wouldn't have bought a satellite comm device
| and paid for the subscription because they weren't expecting
| the emergency.
|
| I'm a happy iPhone 14 user who will get this nice feature, but
| I'm not planning to cancel my InReach subscription ($20/month,
| pause/resume any time), which I have never used to call for a
| rescue but have used a lot to let family know where I am and
| that things are fine when overlanding. And Inreach works right
| from the dashboard while driving, no need to get situated
| perfectly.
|
| Maybe this is a harbinger and future enhancements will kill
| Inreach, but at least for now it feels like a very different
| application.
| MarkMarine wrote:
| One of my buddies does S&R in Marin county, they get called
| for people getting lost 300 yards off trail that were going
| for a walk CONSTANTLY. Just people out for a walk, no cell
| coverage. They never have gear with them. My friend said this
| a game changer.
| pests wrote:
| I notice we have a lot of SAR people in this thread so
| question for everyone:
|
| Is it wrong to call for help when you are lost only 300
| yards off trail like you said? I would be embarrassed - but
| is anyone going to be upset?
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| SAR here in BC Canada vastly prefer that you call at the
| first hint of trouble, even if you don't think you
| necessarily need help.
|
| They would much rather be on alert and be stood down, or
| assist someone over the phone who called early and is
| easy to find and help. The problem is that many people
| wait until conditions deteriorate or they are much more
| lost.
|
| Sending a team of a few people to go out and call your
| name along a trail during the day in clear weather is
| easy. Sending a team of people to find a hypothermic or
| injured person at night and extract them is an order of
| magnitude more involved and risky.
|
| In other words, no one will be upset if you call out of
| caution.
| MarkMarine wrote:
| Not wrong, it's never wrong to call for help if you need
| help. Call early before you're hypothermic, dehydrated
| and your cell battery is dead.
|
| A lot of my buddies rescues are older people who just got
| a little lost, or slipped down a steep embankment and
| can't get back up. The worst ones are when that happens,
| but it's been 3 days and the chances they find a live
| person are more slim.
|
| The SAR people vastly prefer finding people alive, so if
| you need help, give them a chance for a happy ending by
| calling.
| ghaff wrote:
| Yeah, it doesn't take much. People _should_ be in better
| shape with smartphones in their pockets but I wonder how
| many even think about the compass or have downloaded maps
| if they aren 't in cellphone coverage. And it's not like
| the commercial map providers are all that good with
| mapping trails.
|
| Absent some combination of map and compass--in some form
| --it's super-easy to get totally disoriented absent trail
| and landmarks. Long before cell phones, I still remember
| going on a casual short off-trail jaunt to a lighthouse
| in Nova Scotia and suddenly realizing I really didn't
| know where I was. Took a deep breath, carefully figured
| things out, and I was fine (the boundaries were pretty
| constrained anyway). But it's not hard.
| MarkMarine wrote:
| From what I've been told, there are a ton of incidents of
| just 50-70 year olds that are out for a daily walk and a
| couple things go wrong. The service in the hills around
| here is pretty poor, so it's not hard for me to imagine
| that this was a regular walk, you take a pint of water
| and a sweater and that's it.
|
| I own a PLB that I use for safety when spearfishing from
| a kayak in Northern CA, but I don't bother throwing it in
| my pocket if I'm just walking the dog in the woods for a
| couple minutes. I can see this being a big help.
| ghaff wrote:
| One can certainly imagine future iterations where you can
| text arbitrary people for $1/text or whatever. A dedicated
| robust device with long battery life would still have its
| niche but that would certainly limit the market even more.
| [deleted]
| DebtDeflation wrote:
| It won't. I have an InReach Mini that I take with me hiking and
| mountain biking. I use the capability to send non-emergency
| texts almost every time I'm out when not in cell range. I've
| never (thankfully) had to use the Emergency capability. What
| the Apple function will do is lead to a flood of people
| triggering emergency alerts when they drop their water bottle
| on a 3 mile day hike in the local park.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Sometimes it is illegal to offer something for free if it
| destroys competition in an area you want to compete in.
| brantonb wrote:
| I was just looking at the Garmin inReach on REI's sale a few
| minutes ago. $350 for the device ($50 off right now), $30
| activation fee, and $12/month for two years is $668. Upgrading
| my 3 year old phone is $800. Kind of a no-brainer to use the
| phone I'd be carrying anyway.
|
| I'm not looking to use it for weeks-long trips. Mostly trail
| running and maybe a few days in the back country.
| ghaff wrote:
| I've looked at the InReach. If I were doing a lot of solo
| remote backcountry travel (whether hiking or something else),
| I'd probably feel that buying one and getting a subscription
| was the prudent thing to do. However, for occasional use for
| mostly day hikes with patchy cell phone coverage? That's hard
| to justify whereas I might consider (though won't) upgrade my
| phone a bit sooner than I might have otherwise for this
| feature.
| alphakilo wrote:
| Echoing others, I don't think this will have a huge impact as
| iPhone SOS is a last resort for those who are unprepared
|
| Garmin inReach is a robust and rugged satellite communicator
| that out classes iPhone emergency SOS greatly
|
| - inreach doesn't require "tracking" the satellite as it has a
| stronger antenna - inreach is more waterproof, dust proof atd
| shock resistant (no touch screen) - inreach has higher battery
| life, SOS can be activated while the device is off - ability to
| send messages, which can be critical if there are no cell
| towers that can be boosned/activated
|
| That said, it is a great innovation; I think the Apple Watch
| Ultra will cut more into the diving watch market than the
| iPhone into the satellite communicator market
| MarkMarine wrote:
| I don't see the market for a high end dive watch without air
| integration, but with the UX they have.
|
| The people that don't care about AI dive with a perdix or
| tables, but basically require something you can operate with
| gloves on. The rest of them with the money for a nice watch
| really want AI.
| ghostpepper wrote:
| "perdix or tables" those are starkly different options. do
| you know a lot of people who still dive with tables?
| MarkMarine wrote:
| Yeah, like everyone that dives with GUE, I plan my dives
| and dive tables and a bottom timer.
| nradov wrote:
| Garmin sells a high-end dive watch without air integration
| as the Descent Mk2 / Mk2S. They also have the Mk2i with AI.
| They don't release sales numbers so it's not clear how well
| those products are doing in the market.
|
| Personally I use the Mk2 because I mostly do technical
| dives and have little use for AI, but divers like me are a
| tiny market niche. The latest Shearwater Perdix models do
| support AI. If Garmin launches a Descent "Mk3" product line
| as expected next year it might include AI as a standard
| feature across all models.
| MarkMarine wrote:
| Ah, yes the garmin watches are nice as well. I swear they
| just added the AI to the perdix line to catch the super
| rich gear nerd + rec diver market, because who needs a
| multi-gas full deco computer and is going to use AI.
| tinus_hn wrote:
| Just like the best camera is the one you actually have with
| you, the best rescue device is the one you actually have with
| you. And for many people, that's not going to be a Garmin
| inReach because they don't own a device and they don't have a
| subscription to the service.
| nickpp wrote:
| > Garmin inReach is a robust and rugged satellite
| communicator
|
| I own one and when I brought it on a remote expedition I
| found it to be a buggy POS: duplicated messages, stuck
| connection requiring resets, garbled messages.
|
| That being said, the current iPhone 14 satellite function
| wouldn't have worked at all for my purpose in those
| circumstances.
| Alex3917 wrote:
| The bigger threat to Garmin is probably just the new GPS. There
| are probably a lot of folks who will now put off buying their
| first bike computer for a couple years now that an iPhone with
| Strava is going to be almost as accurate as an Edge 530 or
| whatever. Having a real bike computer is still going to be
| better, but by significantly less than it was a year ago.
| nradov wrote:
| Some cyclists do already use iPhones with the Strava app as
| bike computers but they don't work very well. The third-party
| mounts are kind of janky, battery life is terrible, screen
| visibility is poor in some lighting conditions, and they
| don't support the ANT+ industry standard for common sensors
| such as power meters. An iPhone is adequate for casual use,
| but Garmin isn't really trying to target that market anyway.
| Those casual cyclists don't care about recording precise GPS
| tracks.
|
| The latest high-end Garmin devices do support multi-frequency
| GPS just as accurate as the iPhone 14. Those chips aren't
| included in Garmin's mid-range products like Edge 5XX/8XX
| series bike computers but will probably be added in the next
| refresh.
| CarbonCycles wrote:
| Garmin has already released the new GPS chipset that uses
| multiband (similar to Apples).
|
| https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=9NWiPDU4gM0JWMfdWFol7A
|
| The new GPS chipsets are absolutely a beast in challenging
| conditions and incredibly accurate/precise over the older
| technology.
| Matthias247 wrote:
| As an enthusiast cyclist I don't think they is a threat to
| Garmin and Wahoo. The customers for those are enthusiasts who
| ride in all conditions and want a rugged device, a device
| with good battery life, a slim form factor that doesn't look
| off place on handlebars. Bike computers offer all of those,
| while phones do it only in a limited way. That has been
| driving cyclists to use bike computers for years, and not the
| lack of GPS precision. So I think nothing will change.
|
| More casual cyclists might use their phones since they
| already have those and don't want to buy an extra bike
| computer - but that was already true in the past.
| petre wrote:
| One doesn't need to buy an expensive Garmin model. I've got
| an Edge 130 and an older Edge 25 that I've bought second
| hand. The 130 came as an upgrade to the older device and is
| perfect for my use. Both devices connect with my Forerunner
| 245 watch for the HR. Whenever I don't want to use them
| (commute or sub 20 km workout), I just use the watch. Dual
| frequency GPS is probably going to make its way into cheaper
| Garmin models soon enough, maybe thanks to Apple.
|
| Having a phone on the handlebar/top tube is cumbersome and
| annoying, battery life is crap and distractions galore. I
| don't want needless phone calls from annoying people
| interrupting my workout and distracting me from watching the
| road. I've set up my Garmin devices to ignore phone calls and
| texts from the phone during workouts.
| mikestew wrote:
| _I 've set up my Garmin devices to ignore phone calls and
| texts from the phone during workouts._
|
| As an FYI, if you have an iPhone, you can set a "Fitness"
| focus mode that turns on automatically when a workout is
| started. From there, you can specify which contacts can pop
| a notification during workouts (or none at all). I let my
| wife and my parents get through.
|
| But, like you, not that I'd use a phone as a bike computer
| to begin with.
| sevenf0ur wrote:
| I have both an inReach and an iPhone 14. Haven't made a
| decision yet myself if I will keep it. Some pros for the
| inReach:
|
| 1. It's nice to have a backup. 2. The battery life on the
| inReach is upwards of a month and it's more rugged. 3. You can
| throw it in your pack, forget about it, and somehow it stills
| gets a signal. 3. Garmin has a dedicated communications center
| (IERCC) that has tons of experience coordinating with first
| responders. They will keep your emergency contacts updated
| about your rescue. Apple's system is less proven.
| brewdad wrote:
| I see the InReach as the system to use if you are an avid
| outdoors-person. This setup is well suited to the millions
| who took up hiking as a way to get out of the house during
| Covid and now maybe go out to the wilderness a couple times a
| summer but don't fully grasp the risks that can be out there.
|
| Another use case: The there are two highways between my metro
| area and the Pacific coast. Both are pretty remote through
| the forest. One has decent coverage with only a couple of
| mile long dropouts along the way. The other road has
| essentially zero cell coverage for about 20 miles and spotty
| coverage for another 20 miles. Winter travelers have gone off
| the road and not been found for hours or even days. This
| device could certainly save a life in that case.
| katbyte wrote:
| Spot and zoleo for sure, not sure about garmin yet. I'll be
| keeping mine as you can text people with it outside or an
| emergency which is super handy. "I'm late don't worry" or "I'm
| stuck but ok"
| JTbane wrote:
| Could this result in false alarms, as people call for help
| accidentally or in non emergencies? I know PLBs in aviation have
| a very high false alarm rate (98%).
| rootusrootus wrote:
| You can't use the service without first dialing 911. Hopefully
| that will convey to most users the gravity of what they're
| doing.
| la64710 wrote:
| FTA
|
| " Apple designed and built custom components and software that
| allow iPhone 14 to connect to a satellite's unique frequencies
| without a bulky antenna."
|
| Quite mind blowing IMHO.
| tyingq wrote:
| As someone who grew up in the era before mobile phones, it truly
| is strange to see devices that do roughly everything Captain
| Kirk's communicator could do. But in my lifetime, and available
| to average people.
| elboru wrote:
| "Available to average people" that's what amazes me. I remember
| when I played with an iPhone for the first time. It was an
| amazing device, but I thought it was a luxury device for rich
| people only. A few years later smartphones got a lot cooler and
| cheaper, to the point where it actually helped spread the
| internet to sections of the population that weren't able or
| didn't want to use a PC.
| sitkack wrote:
| I used to buy used cars for less than the price of a new top-
| end iPhone. They aren't phones, they are pocket
| computers/jewelry that sometimes make phone calls.
| heynowheynow wrote:
| and Dick Tracy.
|
| We haven't arrived at full tricorder yet though.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| We're at bicorder, looking forward to quadcorder.
| braymundo wrote:
| I bet Kirk's communicator couldn't even play games, so it's
| wilder. :)
| heynowheynow wrote:
| No, it was just corporate MDM managed to prevent it. :)
| avian wrote:
| If it did, Scotty would be working on an adtech backend,
| Bones would be researching ways to make games more addictive
| and humanity would never have left Earth.
| goda90 wrote:
| When watching sci-fi movies and TV, I often wonder what
| happened with the development of gaming, social media, and
| virtual reality in the timeline of the show. It seems like in
| most of the cases where they actually get mentioned in sci-
| fi, it's kind of dystopian.
| piperswe wrote:
| Star Trek at least shows using the holodeck for leasure,
| though they don't go into the specifics of using the
| holodeck for communication (you could be in the "same room"
| as someone lightyears away!) or for gaming.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Didn't Kirk have to cheat to beat Spock's unbeatable game?
| Games might not have disappeared, but maybe they changed to
| be unrecognizable by people that can only travel at slower
| than warp speed.
| lancesells wrote:
| As dystopian as the keynote for these new emergency features
| felt, they are real-life helpful features. 99.99% of people
| will never need it but for the small fraction who do it's
| amazing.
| Watchwatcher wrote:
| All the features, and none of the freedom. Kirk and the crew
| would have a lot of bad things to say about the iPhone and it's
| walled lawn. It's tragic that I can't install an application I
| wrote without going through Apple on the thousand dollar
| computer that I bought.
| SaberTail wrote:
| I find it amusing that Star Trek didn't anticipate
| communicators or tricorders having a flashlight function like
| our phones do. When they need lights, they either carry
| special-purpose ones or shoot a rock with a phaser to make it
| glow.
|
| Generously, maybe someone did think of it, but it would have
| been too difficult to make a prop with a bright enough light
| source.
| vel0city wrote:
| I use my phone's flashlight a good bit, it is very useful.
| That said, if I was going on some away mission where lighting
| was going to be questionable, I'd probably bring some kind of
| dedicated lighting equipment like a flashlight.
|
| My flashlights have adjustable beams. They throw out many
| times more light than my phone's flashlight. Using the
| dedicated flashlight gives a way better lighting experience
| than using my phone's flashlight. But it is like cameras, the
| best flashlight is the one on you.
| freeflight wrote:
| As far as I remember the shooting rock with phaser thing was
| more about having a source of heat, as not to freeze to
| death.
|
| I can see the communicator on the chest being used as a
| flashlight with the powerful LED we have today.
|
| But 90s TV show prop departments would probably have had one
| hell of a time trying to make that work, and practical, so
| instead they gave everybody futuristic looking flashlights
| aka "palm beacons" [0]
|
| [0] https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Palm_beacon
| Jemm wrote:
| Honestly if I could shoot a rock with a phaser to make it
| glow, I wouldn't bother with a flash light either.
| [deleted]
| wongarsu wrote:
| And phones like the CAT s61 [1] are well on their way to add
| the functionality of Spock's Tricorder into the same package.
|
| https://www.catphones.com/en-ca/cat-s61-smartphone/
| germinalphrase wrote:
| Listed features:
|
| - thermal imaging - laser assisted distance measurement -
| indoor air quality
| Kye wrote:
| I can do 1/3 with my iPhone already using the lidar and 3/3
| with attachments.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I don't remember anyone using a tricoder saying, "hang
| on. i need to switch attachments to do the thing."
| freeflight wrote:
| Tho I do remember a whole lot of "We can _reconfigure_
| the tricoder to do the thing "
| Kye wrote:
| That's because it's science fiction. Imaginary futures
| are usually better than reality.
| freeflight wrote:
| Even more impressive is the fact how it can do all these
| things for around the same price as other smartphones,
| while being way more rugged.
|
| Definitely gonna keep those CAT phones in mind for the next
| time I need a new one.
| xattt wrote:
| Growing up during proliferation of mobile devices but in
| financially-limited circumstances, there are certain things
| that I've relegated to "not for me" because of an imprinted
| cost.
|
| Getting a smartphone and paying a recurring fee for data (when
| I was perfectly capable) was still a major point of hesitation
| for me.
|
| Satellite-based communication devices remains as one of the
| self-imposed unobtaniums.
| vel0city wrote:
| An amateur radio license, a $30 handheld radio, and another
| $30 of PVC and wires will get you into space communications.
| almog wrote:
| I think it's great for phones to include to have some of the
| functionality of a SEND (Satellite Emergency Notification Device)
| front-country situations where cell service is unavailable. These
| are some of the reasons why I wouldn't use it as a replacement
| for an ad-hoc SEND or PLB (which I use for long distance hiking):
|
| 1. Short wave length (~2.4GHz iPhone < 1.6GHz SEND < 406MHz PLB).
| Shorter wave length are less affected from terrain obstructions.
| 2. UX - to send an emergency signal using iPhone, due to its
| shorter wave length, one has to point to the approximate LEO
| satellite position. Last time I searched on how it would look, it
| seemed that an on-screen instruction would guide the user where
| to point the phone, I'm not sure if there there is any
| accessibility mode that would use voice to do that if for example
| the screen is broken (or the user cannot see). If the screen is
| broken, would the user even be able to activate the SOS feature?
| Using voice? What if you're caught in a super noisy wind storm or
| the mic is broken? Perhaps future models will have a physical
| trigger to activate it.
|
| 2. Durability - other than PLB/SEND being much more durable when
| it comes to impact and water damage, the battery itself, at least
| with PLB is rated up to -40. A phone battery starts to become
| unreliable at +30f.
|
| 3. Latency and reliability: iPhone I believe, due to its short
| wavelength only transmit to LEO satellite, where as PLBs does
| LEO, GEO and MEO, which means lower latency in some cases,
| especially when the sky is obstructed by terrain and even more so
| if you're unlucky to be in an east-west canyon that doesn't
| follow a LEO satellite orbit, theoretically at least you have a
| better chance with GEO satellite. Also, in places such as canyons
| where GPS fix is unreliable, COSPAS-SARSAT MEO and LEO satellite
| that serve PLBs will use Doppler location approximation. Not sure
| if Iridium LEO satellite that serve iPhone do that.
| Hippocrates wrote:
| I've had a few situations skiing at resorts where I was just a
| bit off-piste and found myself struggling through waist-deep
| powder. In the dense trees and snow it can be very difficult to
| see and hear even a small distance away. Add an injury to the mix
| and it's trouble. I would never consider buying a standalone
| satellite communicator device for this but having one on my phone
| is an awesome value add for me.
|
| As someone else said "The best camera is the one you have with
| you". Same is true for satellite communicators.
| pqdbr wrote:
| From the article:
|
| > A text compression algorithm was also developed to reduce the
| average size of messages by 300 percent
|
| I don't think that's how percentages work.
| Slartie wrote:
| Also, a 75% reduction (which I assume was meant by their 300
| percent) is not that impressive when it comes to text
| compression. I'd guess that should be easily reachable with
| zstd by just creating a pre-shared dictionary generated from a
| bunch of typical emergency messages. Especially when those
| messages are partially auto-generated by a wizard-style
| questionnaire and will thus adhere to a previously-known
| structure and contain a lot of known elements and words.
| dont__panic wrote:
| You know damn well there's a new "Staff Engineer" at Apple
| who fluffed this "algorithm" up as an argument for a
| promotion from Senior Engineer. And likely a few product
| folks and managers who ballooned this entire project way out
| of proportion for their own career advancement.
| __turbobrew__ wrote:
| Staff engineer at apple discovers gzip
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| From my friends who work at Apple, there's a lot less of
| that promotion-driven work because most of the engineers
| there are at ict4.
| kotaKat wrote:
| I suspect the algorithm is just the frontloaded questions they
| ask you -- of course they can shrink all that down into a
| handful of bytes and unpack it on the other end as "car crash,
| 3 people, injuries reported, lat/long".
|
| So the percentage "works", in a way, until you get to the
| freeform text.
| easygenes wrote:
| Is this enabled by the giant satellite that just went up that
| astronomers are worried about?
| zosoworld wrote:
| No, that's the Bluewalker from AST. This is Globalstar.
| Mo3 wrote:
| Stuff like this is the reason Apple is valued as highly as it is.
| nickcw wrote:
| From the small print
|
| > The service will be included for free for two years starting at
| the time of activation of a new iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, iPhone
| 14 Pro, and iPhone 14 Pro Max.
|
| Which kind of implies it will be a pay for service after two
| years.
| pathartl wrote:
| I would assume it's rolled into the iCloud subscription after
| two years
| BoardsOfCanada wrote:
| That could be some very bad PR in two years. Imagine "X got
| lost and died two days after his apple(tm) subscription
| expired".
| adrianmonk wrote:
| They could just let you use it and charge you a one-time fee.
|
| And don't require the payment to go through before unlocking
| the feature, obviously. There will be some people who you can
| never collect payment from, but not that many.
| president wrote:
| This could be mitigated by not blocking access to the feature
| after the 2 years and charging for each use.
| sneak wrote:
| The product announcement for the iPhone 14 said nothing about
| any sort of recurring subscription costs for such a service.
| brookst wrote:
| Maybe?
|
| If I were the product manager there, I would fight tooth and
| nail to only make a short term commitment to support it at all.
| Two years in, if it's un unmitigated disaster costing $1B/year
| and generating zero rescues and zero PR, kill it. You can't do
| that if you've promised "free for the life of the phone" or
| something.
| DrBenCarson wrote:
| My guess is they're going to keep it free as long as you get a
| new phone every 2 years or add some more features and charge
| for those.
|
| Don't think they want to look like they're charging people to
| keep their lives.
| ausudhz wrote:
| Well, the alternative is that other phones don't have it.
|
| So I think this is an advantage. If, lets say, it costs 4.99
| a year, I think a good percentage of people would do that (me
| included, even though I'm not an iPhone user).
| Cerium wrote:
| $5 a year would feel miserly. A feature like this should be
| free or reasonably expensive. If you can do it for free, it
| is a benefit of belonging to the top tier phone club. If
| you charge a bit you sell it as a lifestyle choice: "I go
| places, but I don't need to buy a separate PLB".
| lxgr wrote:
| This seems more like a legal CYA type of clause to me. I'd be
| surprised if emergency SOS ever becomes paid, given the
| reputational risk ("lost hiker dies of exposure after being
| unable to call SAR due to their credit card declining Apple's
| charge a day into their hike").
|
| Much more likely they'll just add P2P messaging as a paid
| feature.
| barbazoo wrote:
| As a user I'd 100% expect it to no longer be free after 2
| years. It's pretty clear from the copy and shouldn't surprise
| anyone.
|
| I think it's a shitty thing to do to not at least say what the
| cost will be at least given today's information.
| stall84 wrote:
| that is awesome. I wonder if this (it must be) amounts to a
| hardware or software upgrade on satellites already in orbit,
| along with updates to the phone's iOS right ? This article just
| mentions the 'client-side' changes but .. there has to be some
| accounting of the hardware in space being used right?
| millzlane wrote:
| Yesterday I had a cust. come into the store with a iPhone 14 pro
| that was stuck in SOS mode. My tech couldn't resolve the issue
| with a restore in AC2. I wonder if this is related or just a
| coincidence.
| robg wrote:
| Really impressed how Apple is leaning into unregulated "safety"
| features. Fall detection for grandma, crash detection for
| drivers, now this for adventurers. When you're doing as well as
| Apple is, small reasons for consumers to buy keep adding up over
| the competition.
| angrygoat wrote:
| If this becomes available in Australia, it would be a decent
| reason for me to upgrade my phone. I quite like bushwalking,
| and I quite like the idea of more adventurous walks - and
| knowing I can text for help would be a real plus.
| Nursie wrote:
| Yep, extend it to Aus and I have a reason to upgrade from my
| 12 pro!
| nabaraz wrote:
| I wish iphone 14 models still have a sim tray. This is the only
| thing keeping me from upgrading.
| tosh wrote:
| The models in Europe come with a SIM tray.
| taylorbuley wrote:
| I was digging up and replacing a piece of my well-line, in the
| dark because that's always when my well line breaks, and my phone
| accidentally called the police through what must have been some
| serious jostling. The dispatch seemed understanding, and used the
| opportunity to verify that my phone connectivity was coming from
| where it said I was. Later that night, two sheriffs show up
| around midnight to make sure that everything was OK. It was the
| first time that I felt like my personal technology was really
| doing its own thing without me.
| m463 wrote:
| Apple's phone app has one HUGE design failure: touching
| anything in the app will dial a number immediately.
|
| I have accidentally called back phone spammers. It made elderly
| parents scared to use their phone. I've had many many friends
| butt-dial me.
|
| There should absolutely be an option that is on, or can be
| enabled: confirm before calling.
|
| In the case of emergency calling, they should figure out how to
| confirm before calling. I'm sure apple has some scenario in
| mind where it has to be the way it is now, but I think there
| should be a way.
|
| At a minimum, opting into the current behavior should train the
| user how calls are initiated and what options are available.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Apple's phone app has one HUGE design failure: touching
| anything in the app will dial a number immediately
|
| Agreed 100%. I hate that I have to be super careful and
| really think through each time I press something to make sure
| it's not going to be a shortcut that immediately dials a
| phone number. I too have called spammers back.
| thwayunion wrote:
| Can this replace an inReach yet?
| Centrino wrote:
| The article doesn't mention which satellites or which satellite
| provider is used. But Apple invested $450 million in Globalstar.
|
| https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/11/emergency-sos-via-sat...
| CarbonCycles wrote:
| Anyone know performance wise between Garmin's use of Iridium
| and Globalstar?
|
| Iridium has been around for soo long...I am getting constant
| outages from the status page. Kind of disconcerting at times.
|
| Ah, I found the following article that somewhat explains the
| different technologies w/
|
| "The main difference between Iridium and Globalstar is the
| relaying mechanism. Iridium requires relaying between
| satellites. Globalstar requires relaying between satellites and
| earth stations."
|
| https://www.mobilsat.com/the-best-satellite-phone-globalstar...
| ratg13 wrote:
| in non-dollar terms:
|
| Apple is paying for 95% of Globalstar's new satellites and
| plans to use 85% of their network capacity.
| WhyNotHugo wrote:
| I was really wondering what kind of satellite-based emergency
| SOS they were using -- mostly because I'd never heard of it
| until it was being shipped in a commercial product, which is
| something very rare to see.
|
| So basically, they have their own infrastructure for their own
| proprietary 911 service with global coverage? It's really
| amazing that we live in a world where we can have such
| infrastructure, but at the same time, it's owned and controlled
| by a single corporation.
|
| I notice there's multiple mentions of these satellites working
| with the "Find My" service, which keeps track of where a device
| is (in order to find it where it's lost). So I guess all this
| infrastructure also allows Apple to pinpoint down any user
| worldwide -- even if they're off-grid.
| 310260 wrote:
| >It's really amazing that we live in a world where we can
| have such infrastructure, but at the same time, it's owned
| and controlled by a single corporation.
|
| I get this sentiment. Globalstar does have competitors at
| least. Iridium and Inmarsat offer comparable services though
| not as seamlessly integrated into a popular consumer device.
|
| I do wonder what happens if you aren't paying for the service
| but have an emergency. I guess they just don't connect you at
| all? Is there an automatic charge for accessing it?
| lxgr wrote:
| It's currently free (for the first two years after purchase
| of the device), and I suspect that while emergency SOS
| messaging will always remain free, they will add paid P2P
| messaging soon.
| rtkwe wrote:
| GPS has always been available to get location information
| even offline. What you usually don't get at the user end is a
| map of where you are because maps apps don't cache or
| download automatically. I've installed OSMAnd+ and downloaded
| a lot of maps to avoid that and I wish Google Maps or Apple
| Maps made it easier to download a large swath like you can
| with OSM. (you can even download POI to still be able to do
| some searching for places if you don't have an actual
| address)
|
| As for infrastructure I think Verizon is doing something
| similar with Starlink and there are multiple possible
| satellite constellations that could be connected too Apple is
| just the first to include what I think has to be a new radio
| or radio component.
| brookst wrote:
| I believe it is T-Mobile and Starlink, though very early
| stage (just a press release[0] about "a vision to give
| customers a crucial additional layer of connectivity" that
| "aims to work" with existing phones, far as I can tell).
|
| And yes, the Apple announcement is just the productization
| of a feature in the Qualcomm X65[1]. But I think this is a
| case where the technical implementation is the easiest
| part; I would be surprised of other X65 adopters also
| delivered satellite comms, at least unless/until it's
| obvious it's driving phone purchasing decisions.
|
| [0] https://www.t-mobile.com/news/un-carrier/t-mobile-
| takes-cove...
|
| [1] https://9to5mac.com/2022/09/18/iphone-14-satellite-
| connectiv...
| lxgr wrote:
| "Band n53" has been widely reported in the context of
| various iPhone satellite rumors, but I still believe that
| this was actually just bad reporting: Band n53 is
| essentially terrestrial LTE/5G usage of Globalstar's
| global spectrum rights in a band that was previously
| designated for ground-to-space usage.
|
| Whatever the iPhone 14 is using to talk to the Globalstar
| satellites, I'd be extremely surprised if it looked
| anything like LTE or 5G at the physical or logical layer.
|
| [1] https://investors.globalstar.com/news-releases/news-
| release-...
| rtkwe wrote:
| I think it depends massively on how much it costs the
| company to provide. If it's just a chip and a bit more
| software I think companies will include it. It's not
| clear from the press reports if the money Apple spent on
| building up base stations for this are just for them or
| if the satellite providers could use them for other
| companies phones.
| totalZero wrote:
| Knowing Qualcomm, there's probably a major royalty cost
| involved.
|
| If Apple spends $450 million to enable the service [0],
| that's about $2 per phone sold in 2021 [1].
|
| [0] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/10/apple-
| spending-450-million-w...
|
| [1]
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-11/apple-
| exp...
| Scoundreller wrote:
| > I wish Google Maps or Apple Maps made it easier to
| download a large swath like you can with OSM.
|
| Google Maps on iOS let's you choose squares on the planet
| and download offline maps.
|
| Open the app, click your initial at the top right and
| you'll see Offline Maps in the drop-down.
|
| Driving directions only though. But you can search for POIs
| and it will navigate you there. Or you can look at the
| maps/streets.
|
| I use it regularly in USA and Europe when I don't have a
| data plan there. Or when I'm low/out of data in Canada
| because Canadian telecom sucks. Or when Rogers shits the
| bed.
|
| I also have Kiwix with full copies of Wikipedia (about
| 85gb) and a few other resources. And a small solar panel so
| when doomsday hits...
| rtkwe wrote:
| Yeah I've used that in the past on Android and it's been
| very sketchy. The app will seemingly let the map expire
| and if I don't remember to check every time I go up to
| the mountains where I need it I'll usually get stuck
| without a working up to date map. It also doesn't seem to
| hold that many POI locations so I'm stuck just navigating
| to the right town and hoping I get signal eventually to
| find the actual place I'm going. OSMAnd+ however just
| keeps the data even if it's older so I'll always have at
| least some street data.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| The maps used to expire after 30 days, but is now 365
| days. I agree: it's arbitrary and unnecessary.
|
| It does background refresh but unsure how great it is.
| Right know my maps expire with different dates between
| July and November 2023, so I guess it's keeping up to
| date enough.
| rtkwe wrote:
| Maybe it's better now I have haven't travelled much this
| year and after downloading the OSM data I haven't
| bothered with offline google maps because I have all the
| roads and more already.
| kotaKat wrote:
| It's basically running on the same system as their current
| SPOT trackers in the S- and L-band. L-band up, S-band down.
| addaon wrote:
| Are you sure about that? I was under the impression that
| this was running on N53, which is towards the bottom of S
| band, both directions.
| 310260 wrote:
| It's suppose to be on Globalstar's existing network which
| would be S-band and L-band but CDMA. It's not 5G-NR just
| yet though that's likely where they're headed.
|
| I think Apple added n53 as part of this deal at
| Globalstar's request. Globalstar is trying to lease their
| spectrum terrestrially for small cell networks and
| network capacity solutions for the carriers.
|
| https://www.globalstar.com/Globalstar/media/Globalstar/Do
| wnl... (PDF warning) Here's a presentation with some
| details.
| kotaKat wrote:
| https://fccid.io/BCG-E8140A
|
| The "emission type" for the satellite service is 198KG1D
| and operates under FCC rule Part 25 (Satellite
| Communications). They run 400mW or so up on 1.6GHz
| L-band, and ~90mW downlink S-band.
|
| https://fccid.io/L2V-PT3
|
| A Spot Gen3 runs around 200mW on L-band only for both
| ways. There's a slightly different emissions type, but
| same satellites.
|
| The ground stations had additional hardware added by
| Cobham to support Apple's use on L/S-band.
| bmicraft wrote:
| > So I guess all this infrastructure also allows Apple to
| pinpoint down any user worldwide -- even if they're off-grid.
|
| Well, they could do that in the past - GPS works (almost)
| everywhere. They'd just have to wait with sending the data
| back.
| mwint wrote:
| Looks like it requires consciously deciding to share your
| location, and pointing your device where it tells you in the
| sky.
|
| They're not going to burn precious bandwidth on an always-
| active tracking thing.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| This article from LeMonde seems to imply that they're using
| Globalstar:
|
| > "To offer this new feature, Apple had to integrate a
| miniature antenna in its smartphone. It captures part of the
| signal of satellite constellations without relying on a
| satellite dish or a specific telephone handset. The iPhone
| manufacturer signed an agreement with Globalstar, one of the
| operators of low-altitude constellations, sets of satellites
| flying at about 500 kilometers from the Earth, in order to
| cover low-coverage areas of the globe. Specializing since 2007
| in professional satellite messaging, Globalstar explained that
| it reached an agreement to launch 17 new satellites for 327
| million dollars, 95% of which will be financed by Apple in
| exchange for 85% of their bandwidth."
|
| https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2022/09/13/apple-a...
| brookst wrote:
| The "85% of their bandwidth" part is super interesting. It
| implies usage for much more than occasional emergencies.
| Globalstar has ~12Mhz of global S-Band spectrum[0], which
| they describe as "3.7 Billion MHz-POP", a unit I'm not
| grokking.
|
| But I am pretty sure that is a LOT more bandwidth than what
| will be used for highly compressed text messages in
| emergencies.
|
| [0] https://www.globalstar.com/Globalstar/media/Globalstar/Do
| wnl...
| portyllo wrote:
| A MHz-POP is just bandwidth times population covered by the
| Geographic Service Area (i.e., where the company is
| licensed to operate). For example, in the US, they would
| have 11.5 MHz x 330 M = 3.79 Billion MHz-POP.
| brookst wrote:
| Thank you! Doesn't that seem like a weird metric? I would
| think MHz/POP would make more sense. I guess the idea is
| to assume unlimited and independent channels to everyone
| as a first order?
| totalZero wrote:
| I think multiplying by population serves as a way to
| normalize for link speed. Ten people who use a lot of
| spectrum are probably bigger customers than ten people
| who use a tiny sliver of spectrum, and thus constitute a
| bigger user base.
| portyllo wrote:
| MHz-POP makes the most sense in cell networks, where an
| operator (AT&T, T-Mobile,...) wants to acquire a spectrum
| license in a particular region of the country. Evaluating
| the MHz-POP makes sense as the price they are willing to
| pay varies a lot depending on the population density in
| that region area. In general, cell networks can reuse
| spectrum more easily (deploy more towers, add more
| sectors), and they design their network deployment to hit
| whatever MHz/customer they are targeting (which mostly
| depends on the technology 3G/4G/5G).
|
| In sat-networks, well, MHz-POP doesn't matter that much,
| because, generally, every operator is licensed to operate
| in the whole country. As you mentioned, what really
| matters is (a) the bandwidth of their license allocation
| (e.g., Globalstar is 11.5 MHz), and (b) how efficiently
| can they reuse spectrum:
|
| * how many beams can they land (# satellite x # beams /
| satellite)?
|
| * how much freedom do they have to chunk bandwidth and
| allocate it to individual beams based on demand?
|
| * what type of satellite are they using, bent-pipe or
| regenerative payload?
|
| * how big are these beams?
|
| * can they allocate resources dynamically or is
| everything fixed?
|
| * how much power does the satellite have? how big are the
| terminal antennas? what kind of link-budget can they
| close?
|
| In the end, the MHz/customer they can achieve depends on
| the answer to all these questions.
| balozi wrote:
| Predictions of where this tech goes from here: shall the
| satellite SOS infrastructure be adapted into full-blown
| satellite-based wireless service for all mobile devices? I am
| thinking global 5G capabilities off satellites, untethered from
| domestic wireless network carriers. Sort of like how doctors got
| pager service in 1950 progressed into the smartphones we have
| today.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| I'm hoping for some low bit rate stuff.
|
| I suspect coordinating the uplink might be difficult to squeeze
| a lot of data through, but downlink could have a linear stream
| of repeating data (weather, news) that you could get an update
| on at any time by pointing your phone the right way, especially
| if you can draw an arc that follows the satellite going past
| by.
|
| And that wouldn't chew battery power either.
|
| My bandwidth needs are extremely minimal outside of work/home,
| so with a tiny bit of bandwidth, some texting and news updates
| could make it possible to live a wireless-subscription free
| life.
|
| Something like othernet:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Othernet
| rapsey wrote:
| Eventually absolutely yes.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Isn't that exactly what AST is attempting with their BlueWalker
| satellite and the planned "bluebird" network?
| jabagonuts wrote:
| For those wondering...
|
| > The service will be included for free for two years starting at
| the time of activation of a new iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, iPhone
| 14 Pro, and iPhone 14 Pro Max. ^4
|
| > ^4. Users who purchased an iPhone 14 model before the
| availability date of Emergency SOS via satellite will receive two
| years of the service free starting from the service availability
| date.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| I think Garmin's VERY afraid of this camel's nose under its
| heretofore exclusive tent.
| lou1306 wrote:
| Uh, care to elaborate? I thought Garmin specialized in GPS and
| similar "passive" satellite-based tech, not actual comms?
|
| Edit: nvm, just googled and found out about the Inreach thing.
| tosh wrote:
| > the service extends to France, Germany, Ireland, and the UK in
| December
|
| This is new to me. I thought the feature was limited to US +
| Canada. Did they mention additional regions in the keynote?
| rtkwe wrote:
| It'll need to be approved in individual countries so it'll
| probably get turned on in a lot more areas.
|
| In the US there's an explicit exception to life threatening
| emergencies that let you use basically any radio frequency I
| wonder how many countries have something like that that could
| at least allow them to enable the emergency contact portion of
| this without the check-in for non emergency situations.
| stevewatson301 wrote:
| Not in the keynote; this seems to be a recently finalized
| expansion.
| ryeights wrote:
| >"Some of the most popular places to travel are off the beaten
| path"
|
| I think this would imply the path is very well beaten.
| knodi123 wrote:
| No one goes there anymore because it's too crowded.
| Jemm wrote:
| Groundbreaking? Hardly.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Then you should have no problem pointing me at what other
| smartphone already has this ability.
| adamredwoods wrote:
| Terrestar Genus (2011, now defunct)
| https://www.engadget.com/2010-11-23-terrestar-genus-now-
| avai...
|
| Android: https://www.thuraya.com/en/products-list/land-
| voice/thuraya-...
|
| Lynk: https://lynk.world/
| https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/09/a-virginia-
| company-h...
|
| Add-on for existing phone: https://www.bluecosmo.com/iridium-
| go-global-smartphone-acces...
|
| T-Mobile is planning on it: https://www.t-mobile.com/news/un-
| carrier/t-mobile-takes-cove...
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