Sickweather

Hypochondriacs rejoice!

Free From Sickweather, sickweather.com Made For iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch Needs iOS 9.0 or later

Crowdsourcing has been a real boon to navigation and travel services, but Sickweather offers a more compelling concept: collecting real-time illness reports from more than six million people each and every month, and sharing this information with others through a free iOS app.

Combine such data with geolocation, and you’ve got a pretty powerful way to get a region-specific heads-up on the cold and flu season, as well as 20 other illnesses including ailments common among children like pink eye and whooping cough. Sickweather touts patent-pending technology to keep tabs on illnesses that pop up on social media, along with a healthy(!) dose of crowdfunded reports from users.

The watchOS app displays a trademarked “SickScore” of your current location — a color-coded circle with a number from zero to 100 — along with a graph showing the potential risk of catching something. Scroll down with the digital crown and you’ll see a list of the Top Illnesses, as well as a timer unique to the Watch app to make sure users are washing their hands long enough (at least 20 seconds).

You’ll also receive push notification alerts on Apple Watch when entering an area where illnesses have been reported. These real-time “Sick Zone” alerts require background location services, which are known to consume battery life faster, but in our tests the app did an admirable job of managing this. The iOS app does other cool stuff like connect to Bluetooth health devices and call a doctor, and there are iMessage stickers thrown in for fun. The bottom line. Great for germaphobes or those with kids but, like any crowdfunding app, Sickweather is only as good as the information available.