Smartwatch that can detect electrocution?

[jcuadra]

Hello folks,

I and a few others will be working with high power inverters, high voltage batteries (up to 1000 VDC) with very high power (up to 200 kW), in a lab, and sometimes we will be alone.
I've been thinking about safety. (Of course, will have gloves, eye and ear protection, a defibrillator, an insulated personnel hook to pull someone away from high voltage, warning lights, CO2 fire extinguisher, Li-ion battery salt/sand buckets etc.)

Is there such a thing as a smartwatch that can detect heartbeat anomalies after an electrocution? Ideally it will send out an immediate emergency alert to colleagues and the CPR trained folks.

TIA

[mendip_discovery]

Chances are the watch would also be dead.

[IanB]

After an electrocution there will be no heartbeat (flatline). It is easy for a watch to detect this, but what you need is for the watch to send a message alert to someone notifying that you are dead 

I don't know if there is a watch that can do this.

[IanB]

and sometimes we will be alone

Not this. You can never work alone in a lab where there is a danger to life.

[jpanhalt]

If you get shocked and are awake, call for help.  No watch needed.  If you are unconscious, your partners need to get emergency services immediately and start whatever life saving procedures they know.  Rather than a watch, be sure everyone is trained in CPR and maybe get one of those commercially made "DIY" cardioconverter kits.  Be sure everyone knows when to and when not to use it.

[ConKbot]

If a worker gets shocked, they need professional evaluation. If an EMT with  3 lead ekg suffices or a hospital visit with a more complex ekg and a cardiologist looking at it is required, I don't know. A smart watch to save the company the money of providing due care to the workers they potentially injured has no place in company policy.

[jcuadra]

It's not about saving money. It's about making things safer, OVER AND ON TOP of what's usual. YES we are trained in CPR and use of a defibrillator.
It's about alerting co-workers instantly in case someone needs a defibrillator or CPR.

It's a big lab with noisy equipment and people tend to wear noise canceling headphones to prevent fatigue. I can imagine one worker getting electrocuted with another worker 15 feet away completely oblivious.

[SiliconWizard]

There are indeed devices made for workers that occasionally, or always work alone. Those devices don't detect heartbeat, but just movement. So if there is no movement detected after a short while, the device sends an alert. There's no need to detect the hearbeat. If your heart stops, you won't move anymore. At least not for long. So those devices are enough. I don't have a reference in mind, but should not be too hard to find.

[jpanhalt]

I can imagine one worker getting electrocuted with another worker 15 feet away completely oblivious.

15 feet?  That's a problem for management or OSHA.  Turn off the iPods, music, or whatever they are wearing that would hide a possible electrocution event.  What would your hypothetical watch do?  Call 911?  Even if answered, that's a 30 minute delay in our big cities.  911 is a joke.  If you are concerned about safety and have what is effectively a buddy system, be sure the buddies are there and not stoned.

[jcuadra]

If a watch can detect electrocution and alert colleagues, that would enhance safety over existing systems, right?
Existing technology can do it. I was just wondering if anyone put together such a system.

[jcuadra]

OK this app that runs on an Apple watch with no-motion detection is promising:
https://becklar.com/workforce-safety/

[Halcyon]

Most of the "brand name" smart watches will detect heart anomalies including Garmin, Google, Samsung and Apple. Both high and low heart rates are detected, however I don't know if that extends to no or irregular heart rhythm. Many will also detect a fall and notify your emergency contacts.

EDIT: Seems as though the Apple Watch does do some additional detection, you'd have to see if the others do as well https://www.apple.com/healthcare/docs/site/Apple_Watch_Arrhythmia_Detection.pdf

[dobsonr741]

Apple Watch has fall detection. It might serve you well.

“If your watch detects that you've been immobile for about a minute, it will make the call automatically.“

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208944

[jcuadra]

Android watches have it too now
https://blog.google/products/pixel/fall-detection-on-pixel-watch/

[Veteran68]

EDIT: Seems as though the Apple Watch does do some additional detection, you'd have to see if the others do as well https://www.apple.com/healthcare/docs/site/Apple_Watch_Arrhythmia_Detection.pdf

Side note: I owe my life to my Apple Watch. Out of the blue, and without any physical symptoms, it detected some afib events over one weekend last December (2022). I thought it a fluke at first and didn't pay much attention to it, as it stopped after a couple of days and again I felt no symptoms. However it nagged at me so a few days later I made an appointment with my doctor to check it out. An EKG showed no afib by then, but kudos to my doctor -- he ordered a 30-day heart monitor which detected a few minor rhythm anomalies, so he ordered a nuclear stress test in early February. The imaging showed reduced blood flow, signs of possible blockage, leading to a heart cath procedure in late February. That's where they discovered a 90% blockage of my LAD and another artery, and 100% blockage of a smaller vessel. A "widowmaker" in the making. Two weeks later, on 3/14/2023, I had a double-bypass operation.

I was literally a walking time bomb.

All discovered due to an apparently benign warning triggered by my Apple Watch. Having no physical symptoms, and getting regular physicals and checkups that showed no signs, this would have otherwise gone undetected until a potentially fatal event occurred.

I wrote Tim Cook an email (his address is publicized and he had been reported to read customer emails) relaying the story, and in fact received a personal reply from him.

[VK3DRB]

Read the fine print. Apple watch does not have a lifetime warranty. So when you get electrocuted, the warranty is null and void. And so are you.

Seriously though, many smart watches send heartbeat data to the cloud. You could have a system where if you are scheduled to work in a dangerous location and there is no heartbeat, call emergency or set off an alarm.

Decades ago, I worked on IBM mainframes. Rule #1: No watches or jewellery. From then on, I wear neither even to this day, even plastic ones through habit. Metallic watches/watchbands and electronics don't mix.

[VK3DRB]

EDIT: Seems as though the Apple Watch does do some additional detection, you'd have to see if the others do as well https://www.apple.com/healthcare/docs/site/Apple_Watch_Arrhythmia_Detection.pdf

Side note: I owe my life to my Apple Watch. Out of the blue, and without any physical symptoms, it detected some afib events over one weekend last December (2022). I thought it a fluke at first and didn't pay much attention to it, as it stopped after a couple of days and again I felt no symptoms. However it nagged at me so a few days later I made an appointment with my doctor to check it out. An EKG showed no afib by then, but kudos to my doctor -- he ordered a 30-day heart monitor which detected a few minor rhythm anomalies, so he ordered a nuclear stress test in early February. The imaging showed reduced blood flow, signs of possible blockage, leading to a heart cath procedure in late February. That's where they discovered a 90% blockage of my LAD and another artery, and 100% blockage of a smaller vessel. A "widowmaker" in the making. Two weeks later, on 3/14/2023, I had a double-bypass operation.

I was literally a walking time bomb.

All discovered due to an apparently benign warning triggered by my Apple Watch. Having no physical symptoms, and getting regular physicals and checkups that showed no signs, this would have otherwise gone undetected until a potentially fatal event occurred.

I wrote Tim Cook an email (his address is publicized and he had been reported to read customer emails) relaying the story, and in fact received a personal reply from him.

Great story, thanks. Glad you are OK. Yes, we get little notice. I had at least 98% blockage in the main heart artery and unbeknown to me I was near death when the local hospital had me left in the waiting room for seven hours, so I just walked out struggling and drove myself home at 3 am in the morning as the heart was shutting down due to no blood supply. I made it back to the hospital after I knew I was in strife, and raised my voice at the triage nurse in no uncertain terms to bloody help me. The cardiologist told me a few times later to get a lotto ticket because I should have died before I even got to hospital, and that I was the luckiest patient he had seen in a long time. They even used my case for training doctors. A later investigation said it was a systemic failure of the hospital to look at me within 20 minutes of arriving. Anyway, I got a stent and 100% OK now. Maybe an Apple Watch could have alerted to a problem a lot earlier.

[Marco]

There are indeed devices made for workers that occasionally, or always work alone.

Seems to be named "man down" alarm or system.

[TERRA Operative]

No jewellery while working on electrical equipment and no working alone on low voltage or higher.

That's the rules an electrician or technician lives by to stay alive.

[eutectique]

If you want to know a specific brand, Rombit in Antwerpen makes wearable devices for lone workers. They have a representative in the US.

[SeanB]

Looik at fire brigade man down devices, designed to sound a loud alarm if you stop moving afer a minute or so, and which you normally wear on you, plus you get detectors that are across the chest heart monitors, which work better than a watch that is looking at pulse using a LED and reflection of doppler shift off the blood in the skin. Incidentally the IR monitors tend to suck badly at reading those with high levels of melanin in the skin, so YMMV in use of them.

[m98]

I and a few others will be working with high power inverters, high voltage batteries (up to 1000 VDC) with very high power (up to 200 kW), in a lab, and sometimes we will be alone.

Remembering my high voltage safety training in Germany, the latter is probably forbidden. If for some reason it wasn't, get a professional, certified solution. For example: https://www.swissphone.com/solutions/components/terminals/lone-worker-alarm-system-trio/

[SiliconWizard]

This thread got me wondering, could a smartwatch be worn on the thing and programmed to detect subconscious arousals? (Like the cases where you're at work, doing nothing but boring code, yet for some reason your log burns with passion.)
Sadly I don't have any to try it out.

An Apple Watch (since it's expensive) could be used to impress other men at the gym.

 

[jcuadra]

There's Proxxi which aims to detect and prevent electrocution through electric field sensing: https://www.proxxi.co/

Can it detect proximity to HV DC??

[Infraviolet]

If you've had a serious shock something that waits a minute or two to send a warning is likely waiting too long.

Maybe be better to assume a serious shock would fling someone out of their chair, then have a weight sensor in the chair, have it send an alarm within seconds if it sees the weight removed without some special switch being turned (a switch to turn when someone is deliberately getting off the chair so it won't false alarm).

[MarkT]

Hello folks,

I and a few others will be working with high power inverters, high voltage batteries (up to 1000 VDC) with very high power (up to 200 kW), in a lab, and sometimes we will be alone.

In which case you should not have any hand/wrist metal jewelery or watch on due to the short-circuit hazard these introduce?

It one thing to get a shock but having molten/vaporizing metal as well isn't going to help!

Surely this is a situation for a lock-out system?