Thanks to its integrated services or downloadable applications, your smartphone can become your best ally in difficult situations.
Often presented as an enemy of our health, a smartphone can also reveal its talents as a guardian angel in situations that put your health at risk.
Properly configured, it can quickly alert the emergency services or communicate crucial information about your identity if you cannot speak. We explain how to put the odds in your favor in the event of a problem.
On iPhone
With iOS 8, Apple introduced Health, an application gathering a large amount of data on you and your activity. Number of steps, calories burned, heart rate… The service connects to various applications and acts as a Hub so that you can find everything in one place.
Behind the fun side of discovering the distance we have covered during the day, Health offers an important feature to configure: the medical form.
In this section, you fill in basic information about yourself. Name, date of birth, height… and other more important ones such as his blood type or his position on organ donation.
We also have the possibility to detail certain personal information such as any treatments or operations that we have undergone, or other medical history. The interest is simple: to allow the stranger or the rescuer who finds you in the street unconscious to know more about you, and to quickly be able to identify a problem (if it is recurring for example).
Accessible directly from the locked screen without a password (via the Emergency section), the medical form also gives access to people to contact. Your parents, your boyfriend, your children… Enough not to leave them in the dark in the event of a problem and, for the rescuer, obtain more information.
Since iOS 11, Apple offers “SOS Mode”. Originally intended for the Indian market (where it is mandatory to be able to sell smartphones), this feature is very interesting.
In an emergency, you press the side button (or unlock button) on your iPhone five times and help is automatically contacted after a three-second countdown. You also have the option in the settings to request that a message be sent to your emergency contacts or to deactivate the siren sound which lacks discretion in the event of an attack.
In France (and Europe), SOS mode contacts 112 and disables Touch ID or Face ID to prevent someone from using your finger or face without your knowledge.
On android
Natively – with the exception of Samsung devices which have a dedicated mode to which we will come back in a few lines – Android offers emergency options from Nougat.
In the “Users” settings, you have the possibility, like iOS, to create a medical file accessible to all on the lock screen. Similar to iPhone in operation, this feature is intended to help someone who comes to your aid identify you.
Android requires, some manufacturer overlays differ and do not integrate the native Android medical form. Good news for third-party developers who have jumped at the opportunity to offer equivalents of this feature on the Play Store. If we find dozens, we have tried Medical ID Where ICE – In Case of Emergency which do the exact same thing by constantly showing a notification on the lock screen with your details.
The Samsung case
Samsung’s Galaxy run on Android, but we felt it necessary to devote a subsection to them as their system is so different, and complete.
In the advanced settings of the device, there is an SOS mode similar to that of iOS, and even a little more complete. By pressing the locked button three times, the Galaxy not only sends a simple text message to your trusted contacts but sends them a selfie, a photo taken with the rear camera and a precise location.
The smartphone also emits an audio recording of about ten seconds allowing your loved ones to identify the situation (someone is threatening you, you can be heard suffocating, etc.). The photos can then be used as evidence of an assault, for example, or theft.
Finally, with Samsung Health, the Korean offers a similar hub to iOS, with one difference: it can use the heart rate sensor function that uses the camera flash on the back of the phone to measure your pulse and your stress level.
In case of concern or discomfort, it allows you to communicate important data to the emergency services, or to reassure you.