My partner and I are getting older, and sleep in different rooms at different times. We’ve both worried about the other dying unbeknownst. I wear a pulse watch, but don’t know if it will do what I want. Any ideas, friends? I’d like us to be able to glance at a screen and see a heartbeat, ideally without spending more than a couple hundred dollars, and without too much hassle or cumbersome equipment. I appreciate any suggestions. (edit - we use android and Linux.)
I don’t have an end-to-end solution, but I will say as a former Pebble user that I’m delighted with my BangleJS watch. It’s inexpensive, I charge it once a week, and it has the usual activity tracker hardware including heart rate monitor. There are a ton of apps. It’s less “hacker” and more polished for non-technical users than you might expect; if you’re running Linux, this is absolutely within your comfort zone. It also has a temp monitor, so it can detect when the watch it being worn or not.
The customized GadgetBridge Android app is good, most of the programming is in JavaScript, and the developer community is active and responsive.
A quick glance through the app “store” (they’re nearly all free) shows there’s a heart alarm app, which seems aimed at notifying the wearer. Another app publishes heart rate over bluetooth, so someone must have a pair device that monitors heart rates.
I didn’t see anything obvious in the ecosystem, but since the data is going to GadgetBridge already, it’s most of the way there; if GadgetBridge could publish to web hooks, with ntfy you could get alerts from watch to partner’s phone. I haven’t yet looked through the GB issues to see if someone has already requested it, and I’ve only done light digging in the app itself; it may already support this.
It’s worth investigating.
Edit looks like others have requested similar features (and this, and this); it hasn’t been implemented yet.
Don’t use your thumb to check a pulse, you’ll mistake your own pulse for theirs.
ETA: Doh, you said different rooms. 🤦🏽♀️😂 Well I’ll still leave this somewhat helpful advice here.
Excellent. I do this all the time, answer the wrong question. But yes, you are completely right, check pulse with your fingers. I feel very close to you right now.
I’m afraid I can’t offer any recommendations but I just wanted to say how beautiful it is to think of you keeping track of each others heartbeats while you’re apart. That’s love
Streamers sometimes use a heart rate monitor widget on stream. There might be multiple solutions here but checking out pulsoid.net it seems like a free solution can be made here if it is compatible with the smart watch used. Android app to webpage might be possible with setting up a local host server. Don’t know what it’ll do to the battery life of your watch and if the widget works without OBS integration. Maybe someone familiar with this can weigh in?
Oooh, this sounds promising. We have a local server. And my Sense 2 can go a week between charges. Thank you very much. I’ll look into it.
If you have an iPhone, you can get an Apple Watch and set it up using the other person’s phone. The health app will tell you what the person’s heart rate is. It will also do sleep tracking and check blood oxygen levels. It will also notify you if the person falls. It can also be used to contact 911 if it is in range of your phone, or if you buy the cellular version and add it to your cell phone plan.
If you live near an Apple store, stop in and ask about it. The trick will be to set up/link your spouses watch with your iPhone so you can continuously monitor the other person.
We’re all android and Linux here, but thank you!
Looks like the pixel watch 3 can do something like this, but it only calls emergency services (and plant l only in some regions!)
Oh, many years ago I had a baby monitor that included a pressure mat. If it detected no movement for a while (it was sensitive enough to detect breathing) it set off an alarm.
Although if such a thing exists today, it probably requires an app and a subscription. Enshitification.
I had one of those too. Every so often, bad baby would scoot off the mat it 3am. Nothing like the absolute fucking panic of hearing that alarm going off when you’re dead asleep and now halfway to juniors room before you wake up only to find he scooted off the mat. AGAIN.
I don’t miss the pure anxiety of being a new parent. I had forgotten about that thing and I’m so glad it is a faded memory.
Thank you. As a former IT guy, I’ve been trying to keep my family away from Apple products. They’re way overpriced for their limited and locked down functionality compared to everything else out there.
My dad had Parkinson’s late in his life and my sister replaced his Android with an iPhone, specifically so she could give him this fitness tracker. He spent the last few years of his life struggling to figure out a new phone, and we could never get the damn app to work anyway. He fell all the time and it never once reported it.
I spent 20 years in the IT field and getting my computer-illiterate family to consult me before buying computer tech is like pulling teeth. I offer them free consultation and support all the time and they just go out and buy spyware-riddled junk on their own. They only come to me when their stuff is no longer useable.
My sister finally stopped buying iPads… only for her to go and buy Amazon Fire tablets for her kids. I had to go in and lock them down because they were constantly shoving ads into every function of the tablet. Her kids kept trying to buy games because they were constantly being advertised to them. And guess who left their credit card credentials on the tablet?
My apologies, /rant.
It’s funny; I recommend Apple stuff for practically all the same reasons you don’t. The walled garden pisses me off sometimes but when I talk to friends using Android stuff and their gripes it really reinforces that I made the right decision for my family, just as you have for yours. What I find even more amusing is that I design embedded linux devices, all my servers/vms are Linux based and I really enjoy using Linux… just not supporting/using it as a primary UI.
Not shitting on your choices at all, I know that many people really like/enjoy the Android side as much as I do the Apple side. Chacun à son goût and all that.
Brazenly praising Apple on lemmy? Ruin upon you, Andrew Appleton!
Brazenly praising Apple on lemmy? Ruin upon you, Andrew
Appleton!AppleShill!
