Stay safe with Apple Watch
KEEP A WATCHFUL EYE ON YOUR HEALTH AND SAFETY WITH APPLE’S WEARABLE.
HAVING A COMPUTER strapped to your body at all times isn’t just useful for making sure you don’t miss alerts and easily setting timers when you’re cooking. The Watch can really come through for you if there’s an emergency.
The Emergency SOS feature is built in to watchOS, and we’ll show you how easy it is to trigger a call to the emergency services when you need them. For most Watch models, your phone will need to be within range of your Watch, because your phone is what actually makes the call — however, you don’t need to actually touch your phone. If you have a Watch Series 3 with 4G built in, you don’t need your phone nearby, because the Watch can make the emergency call directly, even if you don’t actually have a call plan for it.
That’s not the only way the Watch could help you in an emergency, though. If you set up some essential medical information in the Health app, emergency workers can access it from your Watch, which could be vital if you’re unconscious. You can enter your allergies, blood type, medications, and more. We’ll also show you how to set those details.
Of course, apart from being a communication device, the Watch is also a health monitor, so it may be able to help keep you healthy in more direct ways. Its heart rate monitor can keep a constant eye on your ticker (if you have a Watch Series 1 or later, it can keep track of your heart rate during rest or walking passively; on the first-generation Watch, it tracks your heart rate during a Workout, or when you open the Heart Rate app).
The heart rate monitor is accurate enough to potentially detect heart conditions, though it won’t do that on its own! What it will do is warn you if things look iffy. You can set Watch to warn you if your heart rate is creeping worryingly high even though you’re not exerting yourself. There are cases where people have used these warnings as a prompt to see their doctors, and been diagnosed with heart conditions as a result. Your Apple Watch really could save your life!