How Can I Build a Portable "Dead-Man's" Switch? 169
An anonymous reader asks: "I'm a widower caring for my very disabled child. I have family who check in on me often, but not reliably, and not every day. How can I rig up a 'dead-man's switch' that will alert family or emergency services should something happen to me, so that my child can be cared for? Her medical needs are significant enough that being alone for even an hour could be fatal for her. We do occasionally get out of the house, so a GPS type cellphone and a heart-rate monitor watch would seem to be the ticket, but how to link the two and get the desired dialing behaviour?"
Alive Heart Monitor (Score:5, Informative)
Have you considered a medic alert bracelet for the times when you're out? Or are you in remote, non-populated areas?
Re:Alive Heart Monitor (Score:5, Funny)
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Great! Everytime he walks by a WAP or microwave, emergency services will get a call saying he's dying.
Perhaps a more robust communication method might be warranted here?
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try shopping (Score:4, Informative)
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-Jar.
*Because we all know how easy it is to get a submission accepted.
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Re:try shopping (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:try shopping? (Score:5, Informative)
Friends, lots of them.
Seriously.
If you have this load as a caregiver, just having people around, helping and having someone to kvetch with is not just a good idea, but critical, if only for your own emotional health.
There are other people in the same boat, so perhaps finding or forming a community might be the way to go. Something less collective then a commune, but a structure like http://www.bruderhof.com/ [bruderhof.com] (if christian). Equivalent communities exist in other religious traditions, as well as the religious (monks, nuns and others)associated with a belief structure.
Technolocial measures sound neat, but they have so many points of failure compounded by the people that have to be around to insure that they don't fail, that I would be suspicious of the lot. Not that I feel that way, but I would adopt that attitude by policy.
Consider the call clearing center that an alarm panel calls into: the UL standard calls for redundant systems that fail safe, two levels of backup power generation, duplicated sites, alarm receivers that fail busy so calls can get through, requirement for manual control, full data logging, crisis triage, etc.
A full technology solution is suspect, a hybrid system is probably better, and you have the adventure of searching out the real players from the fakes. Look to the service providers that a hospital might use.
And look carefully at response time: under disaster conditions it probably will swing out past your hour requirement.
Oh, you have to concern yourself with the other side: Are your critical systems on backup power? UPS and autostart generators? Tested each week?
There is a very good reason why the backup batteries in the telcos are usually glass lined lead-acid submarine batteries that (usually) power diesel boats. I don't think the cable co's are quite there yet. Just a guess.
Feel free to email me if required - there are a lot of details I don't know, and a phone call might be needed.
Don't be afraid of the complexity, a few minutes with some brainstorming buddies can cut that down to size. The legwork is a different story!
Best of luck!
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Your point about fail-safe engineering is correct. One thing to watch, though, is the "Crying Wolf" effect. If there are too ma
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Agreed on all counts actually.
Tho... and I hate to really sound cold here, because it can come off that way.
However... maybe its not that big a deal. I really think our society puts a bit too high sometimes of a value on life for the sake of life. I mean, everybody dies. Perhaps "best effort" really is enough. Maybe a little effort spent in comming to terms with what the situation and eventualities of the situation are would pay off more in the end than scrambling to take care of every possibility to ba
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So, I suppose if you really can't afford the proper solution, you are better off with a hack than nothing. Still, I'd cut a lot of other corners in my quality of life before I started trying to s
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Bad Do-It-Yourself Idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bad Do-It-Yourself Idea (Score:5, Insightful)
As hard as this might be for submitter to admit, I have to agree. Around the clock care, be it in the home from a nursing service or in a residential facility can be expensive, but there may be a sliding scale available via some organizations according to need. Chances are that there is an organization that caters to the submitters daughter's specific condition or circumstance.
This is too important to trust to a Rube Goldberg contraption that one of us dingbats on Slashdot recommended.
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Giving the submitter a shopping list and ignoring the ramifications of what he is attempting to do does him no favors. If the submitter is sincere, he has been widowed and has 100% of the extremely demanding burden of caring for a very disabled child. I feel for him and do not envy his position in the least. As heartbreaking as it is, he may need to make
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I was originally thinking along those lines too - sort of the benevolent version of the 118 minute clock in Lost, or the Prozium wristwatches in Equilibrium. But then I remembered that you'd have the same problem as in Lost - never being able to get a full night's sleep. If the delay is longer than 7-8 hours, that's well outside
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Cell Phone, for now... (Score:5, Informative)
Something like a human-based form of OnStar, but with a heart/lung monitor and an accelerometer/impact sensor (to detect the speed and severity of a fall).
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Frankly, the poster's situation sounds serious enough that a $20/month cell phone bill is the least of his worries.
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Just one please.
Not conjecture, not hypotheses, but an actual example.
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30 seconds on Google. Anecdotal, sure, but here it is:
http://strategize.blogspot.com/2005/10/my-car-was- stolen-this-weekend-onstar.html [blogspot.com]
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It is my understanding that most metro areas have a sensible "hundred block" convention of sequential block by block correlation of street addresses to location in the city. E/W streets num
Professional (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Professional (Score:5, Funny)
Pussy
Re:Professional (Score:5, Funny)
Uh-oh.
Now you tell me.
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Re:Professional (Score:5, Funny)
[24-SEP-2006 16:44:52] Fibrilation detect
[24-SEP-2006 16:44:56] Fuxx0r3d
[24-SEP-2006 16:44:56] Defibrilation start
[24-SEP-2006 16:44:56] Defibrilation complete
[24-SEP-2006 16:45:01] SYSTEM RESTARTED AT 16:45:01 ON 24-SEP-2006
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bash.org is way ahead of you (Score:5, Funny)
The Japanese have done this. (Score:5, Informative)
There are many elderly Japanese people who live alone, some are deaf and can't use the phone, etc. so it's hard to get a way to check in on them to see if they're still alive. But almost every home has a hot-pot, an insulated pot with an electric heater used to keep water near the boiling point, to make tea every day. So some clever guy put a sensor in the hot-pot, if nobody picks it up within a day, it phones a preprogrammed number to alert someone to check in on them. Yeah, these people drink a lot of tea, it was the only thing they could think of that elderly people did EVERY day.
Of course this only checks in once a day, but you could probably think of other ways to adapt this idea.
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The idea is that when you get up in the morning, you'll go to the fridge for food. If nobody opens the fridge beyond a certain time, then an alert goes off so somoene checks on the resident.
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Why does married men get fat?
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Because when you are single you get into your home, open the fridge and think "the same thing again" (pizza, hamburger, chinnese food, etc) and get to your bed.
And, when you are married, you get to your home go to your room "open" the bed sheets and think "the same thing again" and go to your fridge.
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Ya see... (Score:4, Funny)
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-Eric
possible kids/emergency - use phones... (Score:3, Informative)
It is normally meant for kids, but it has reduced number of buttons, and a dedicated emergency button...
http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/store/controll
from the site-
Migo from Verizon Wireless is a kid-friendly wireless phone that lets parents and kids stay in touch. It's fun for them, and added peace of mind for you. The Migo phone has a simplified keypad that allows you to program in 4 numbers, an incredible speakerphone and a dedicated emergency key. And with Chaperonesm, you can use your handset or PC to locate your child's Migo. This is the perfect phone to keep kids and parents connected.
Note: I have no interests / investments / work relationship with verizon wireless.
Some ideas (Score:5, Interesting)
Vigilance control, also called an alerter, is similar to a dead man's switch, the difference being that a vigilance control system requires that the operator press a button at specified regular intervals. If the operator fails to operate the vigilance control, a warning sounds, and should the driver still not operate the vigilance control the machinery will stop.
I have one of these motorola pagers [motorola.ca] that my company gave me to carry around. It may only be available in Canada, but I'm sure you can find something similar in your area.
At any rate, you can send a page to it with an email, and then you have the option to reply to the email with a canned response like "OK" or "Will call back soon", etc. I was thinking that you could write a script on a server that would kick off an email to your pager every 30 minutes and if it didn't see a response within 15 minutes, activate some kind of emergency routine like contacting a relative. The timing could be varied to your needs.
It would be easier if you had something that hung around your neck, or a wristwatch that beeped every 15 minutes and required you to push a button to silence the alarm. Not silencing the alarm would somehow trigger your emergency routine. Using a windows mobile device or a blackberry (the API is available for free) you could write a program for one of these devices to do this task and send an email if you failed to respond.
Of course, this only works during waking hours. I don't know if you hire someone to watch your child during the night while you're asleep or not.
I ran across this article [ibm.com]. I wonder if it has gone any further than that.
Good luck with the search.
If you can't afford anything else (Score:3, Funny)
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Do not create your own! (Score:2, Informative)
You could create a dead-man's switch using a computer with a voice modem and a GPS enabled cell phone. First, determine the longest amount of time the child could survive on her own. For my example I will use 18 hours.
On the computer, you set a 12 hour countdown. At any time, you can reset the countdown. If you are going to jump in the shower, just reset it. Whenever the coun
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I-Kids GPS-equipped GSM cell phone...? (Score:2)
known (in Australia, at least) as an "i-Kids"
K-Mart had the pink version on sale (but each store had only ONE
to sell, when we tried to buy one, so we missed out) for Au$ 35.
See this (or similar) Aussie eBay item listing (of, better, the
web site referred to in it) for details:
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ikids-mobile-phone-Prepaid- with-GPS_W0QQitemZ270032251531 [ebay.com.au]
In Oz, the thing comes locked to Vodaphone and might not work
with other carriers' (except as
Pager? (Score:2)
Might not be perfect, but better then what you are doing now.
( im sure other professional 'life alert' sort of things are out there with 24/7 monitoring, but doubt insurance would pay for it )
Finally! (Score:2, Funny)
It was you!
Maybe you're approaching this wrong (Score:4, Interesting)
There is already one program that I know of that attempts to do this. It is called DMS, but I can not recommend it, it is very flawed. Among the issues I have with the program: It gives no warning before sending out the death notices that you program, no chance for the user to abort it. It will send out the notices and take other actions (such as deleting files) even if the computer has been down for a long time and then is rebooted (assuming that dms is in the start-up directory where it should be), such as caused by hardware failure or even extended power failure. And it needs manual attention to restart it's count down times, it doesn't recognize from keyboard or mouse activity that you are still alive and restart the countdown, so if you ever forget to reset the counter the messages go out with no warning and no chance to stop them.
While the program is flawed, the concept is not. I keep hoping that I will find another version that addresses these problems and can be used for this purpose. I can see that this would be a big help to anyone concerned about the elderly living alone, anyone with a dependent child (or even a pet) who shares your concerns, and many other people.
Doctor. (Score:5, Insightful)
You may also want to look into a managed care facility. You may be able to get them to accept both you and your child so you could continue to care for the child.
Heart monitoring isn't enough (Score:2)
What might work is something that requires you to push a button at regular intervals during daylight hours to verify that you're still alive and well.
The alternative might be to find someone to help care for your child. Easier said than done, I suppose.
If you're feeling like you could die at any moment, maybe you should ad
One has to ask... (Score:5, Insightful)
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This would be easy... (Score:5, Insightful)
... if her medical needs weren't "significant enough that being alone for even an hour could be fatal for her." An hour is just too small of a window to accomplish anything useful without having so many false alarms that your family won't take the alerts seriously anymore. You really need to re-evaluate your living conditions.
How old is your child? (Score:4, Insightful)
Assuming she's old enough, and not severely mentally disabled, this would seem to be the better option. After all, you could be perfectly alive and still be in a situation where you can't get to her fast enough.
Not the best way to do this.... (Score:2)
If one really needs to make sure that one is ok in 30mins intervals it is way easier to build a system that requires the push of a button to reset a 30mins timer before calling th
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Disabled people sleep too, you know, and don't face as wide a range of risks while they are safely in bed. He probably has a portable heart/apnea monitor if that is a risk. Those emit a fire alarm style noise when breathing or heart rate falls outside certain preset limits. My daughter had one for the first few months after she came home from the hospital. We actually slept better with it than af
Watchdog (Score:2)
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Make that once every 108 minutes. And move to a hatch. A plane will probably eventually crash near you, and you'll have a few volunteers to help.
Asterisk can do awake time monitorring (Score:4, Interesting)
Scheduling a call with the cron daemon is pretty easy. A kind of wake up service is also fairly easy to setup. With a cordless phone for home use, this could call said extension at various times of the day. When you answer the call, you would have to press a number or something to confirm that you are fine. Failing to press the number, it could make second attempts in case there was just fumbling, like a followup call within a minute or two. Failing more than once, it could email people, send calls to people, play a recorded message for each call appropriate for the target of the "notification". With the use of a cell phone, it could even check on you when away from home since it could work like any automated phone call/customer service line. Besides having a phone ring to wake you up in the middle of the night, hampering your sleep, I do not know how much help it would be in the night time hours. The cordless phones out now could cover most of people's small yards as well. It can also be easy to "911" yourself carrying it around with you, and with a little more effort, when you call 911, it could make other calls automatcally for you. Think 911 with a custom menu for types of emergencies with phone and email notifications to work with.
The mutltiple notice to people for multiple types of needs using multiple methods of communication could be of some help. Cell phone calls to my house, being identified as my cell phone via "caller id", I get prompted with a menu to allow me to cause things to happen, when any other call would ring the phones in the house. A cell phone speed dial could be setup to call home and cause functions to occur using said "menus" which are limited by what you can get a pc to execute. (email, phone call outbound recordings, serial cable control for some devices, IR controls of something near the computer with a TV universal remote function....)
Some of these ideas could enable automated response testing, and easy one button emergency notification. The GPS portion could be handled by recorded messages from cell phone orginating "emergency button" to mention the cell phone number/carrier to emergency contacts for use in tracking. Not so automated in that respect, but seems to be a workable solution.
Push a button every 108 minutes (Score:5, Funny)
What happens when its not pushed? (Score:2)
Sorry, SPOILER WARNING for LOST in parent (Score:2)
Don't do it alone. (Score:2, Insightful)
Simple Technology is the best technology (Score:2)
MedicalIntelligence.ca (Score:2)
I'm not sure it can be programmed to your requirements, but at least it has all the required components in one package: GPS, GSM, ECG
Piece of cake... (Score:2)
1) Give her an account on your NAT machine
2) Add "export TMOUT=3540" to her
3) Write a
4) Log her in
If she doesn't whack a key every 59 minutes, it will log her out, thus alerting everyone necessary via email, paging, fax, whatever you like.
Paging Mrs. Fletcher... (Score:2)
"Help! I've fallen, and I can't get up!" [lifealert.com]
Seriously. It may be marketed to the senior citizen set, but this or a similar service is exactly what you're asking for.
Hacking a solution (Score:3, Interesting)
Monitoring for falls uses off-the-shelf accelerometers. Another poster in this thread mentioned a BlueTooth enabled heart monitor, of which there appear to be several. The hard bit is notification.
Take a look at the Telit GM682 for the cell phone portion of your control. You can get 'em in quantity one from Spark Fun, and probably other places. It's basically a cell phone with a serial port that takes AT style commands, and is great for mobile hacking applications. After that it's just a microcontroller or a Gumstix depending on where your power consumption, weight, and processing power curves meet.
Given my experiences with cell phone coverage and reliability, I'd have your actual dead-man switch on your server somewhere, and have it trigger if it didn't get an "alive" signal from the device you carry every so often, because it sounds like you'd far rather trigger false positives than have a false negative.
why waste two lives? (Score:2)
For the love of God man... (Score:2)
Spend some money and buy something that is proven todo the job from a professional company.
Hire professionals (Score:2)
Um make friends? (Score:2)
Re:Homeland Security (Score:5, Interesting)
Our species survives because most of us are decent. The day that ceases to be true this little experiment called "Man" is over. No "Loose lips sink ships" jibber-jabber is going to prevent that.
-Peter
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Also, this isn't really applicable to terrorism. I read it and thought of that, too, and I was going to tell him to go with the classic-for-a-reason clothespin method, but apparently he just wants other people to know when he's dead. Not particularly useful for killing others.
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Large, gaping holes can be quite an indicator (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd consider this to be either a legitimate question, or a fake one well crafted. It occurs to me that a suicide bomber really wouldn't have the need for GPS anywhere in this system, as the location of someone who has just blown himself up is really rather apparent.
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The issue is that slashdot posts are not the output of the brightest minds in the world, just the average knowledge of an engineer. And most people who want to kill others in big quantities, can hire an engineer, or have on of them in their organization.
I think we should safely think that
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Often the solution is a box attached to a phone line which is used to call a preset number in Emergencies.
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info on builing mid size engines with scrap type material
I've always fancied building a jet engine but I was thinking of a turbojet made from a truck supercharger (or something similar). I mean really, a PULSEJET! didn't those go out with doodlebugs?
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Just because something can be used for evil doesn't mean that it should never be made --- Just about everything ever made has some kind of an evil use -- e.g. paper cutters and 9/11
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I do hope he will make the same intervention for you. You seem to be very confident that you are on the living side of the plan. Don't worry, I will not interfere.
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Re:Yeah, I guess I should give up on this insulin. (Score:4, Insightful)
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I don't normally post in quite such inflammatory language, but I'd had a moron-infested day... and the urge to improve the gene pool was still with me
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With the exception of domestic breeds of animals, nearly the entire wild kingdom is in better health than us... I forget the numbers, but the incidents of nearly all genetic-related health defects, such as blindness or diabetes, is drastically less in the animal world.
Society brought abo