Essex WiFi: Life Saving Apps
Here at Essex WiFi, we wanted to use this blog as an excuse to tell you about some life saving apps! We know that nothing is certain and that danger is, unfortunately, an everyday possibility. So we want you to be prepared for any eventuality. With this range of mobile and tablet apps you can be a little bit safer should you find yourself in a dangerous situation.
First Aid by The British Red Cross
Arguably the pinnacle of the life saving app technology, that is free and available for instant download, is the First Aid app by The British Red Cross. As of April, this app only has 100,000 downloads on the play store, and by comparison, Candy Crush Saga has 500,000,000 downloads. This makes us sad. So stop crushing candy and download the first aid app, it could be the most important thing you do all day!
With this app, you can ascertain help for a vast and varied range of health issues from a broken bone to a seizure. It really is a limitless source of vital information and we are certain that should you or someone in your vicinity suffer a burn or an asthma attack, for example, then this app will be exactly what you need in a potentially life threatening situation. The app provides pictures and step-by-step guides so that you can save precious minutes! Sometimes you are out of signal and need help, this app can go a long way to giving you that help.
As of April, this app has been updated by third party developers so that now it is able to support Alexa voice automation. This negates all need for you to pick up your phone and scroll through the app, saving even more time in an emergency. The commands that you can now give to Alexa are as such:
“Alexa, open First Aid”
“Alexa, ask First aid how to help someone who is having a seizure”
“Alexa, ask First aid how to treat a nosebleed”
And much more.
The Red Cross have just published research that indicates up to 59% of pre-hospital deaths may have been preventable had members of the public or members of the family assisted the injured individual(s) with rudimentary first aid.
Joe Mulligan, Head of British Red Cross First Aid education has said that “The British Red Cross’ new skill for Amazon Echo will teach people simple first aid so that they feel well prepared to help someone in an emergency.
Glympse:
Glympse is a really fantastic app that allows you to share your location in real-time, via GPS, with friends and family. This app runs in the background and the individual who you want to share your location with does not need the app themselves – making this an incredible tool when it comes to ensuring personal safety of yourself and of other users of the app!
Glympse also has a dynamic range of other applications that allow you to:
- Coordinate an evening out with friends
- Let your partner know when you’ll be home from work, or whereabouts you are in the traffic jam!
- Let your family know you are safe while running or cycling
- Find friends at a festival
With all this and more, we absolutely recommend that you download Glympse.
Trusted Contacts
If Glympse is not quite to your liking then we would advise you look at Trusted Contacts by Google. It is similar to Glympse though it is a little light on the features front. With Trusted Contacts you are only allowed to share your location with a select group of contacts.
If you do share your location for whatever reason, then your contacts will see where you are. They are also able to request to see your location. If everything is okay and if you are safe then you can simply deny the request. If you leave the request for over 5 minutes however, your locationon will be automatically shared with your contacts.
One superb feature that Trusted Contacts comes with is that it is able to work offline. If you find yourself offline and are in need of the app then it will display your last known location.
We sincerely hope you have found this blog post informative and we also hope that you will at the very least consider downloading one if not all of the life-saving apps that we have discussed. Stay safe, and stay tuned for more valuable information from Essex WiFi. We’ll be bringing you a very important case study soon!