There’s talk about the need for a list of ICE contacts, or In Case of Emergency contacts on your phone so emergency crews know who to contact if something should happen. But what if you need to contact your ICE list to get emergency crews to come look for you? We hope that never happens, but if you’re like us and go for bike rides, hikes, climbs and other activities in the outdoors, you may want to set up a safety net.
ICEdot is an emergency communication device the size of a bottle cap that attaches to any helmet and measures trauma to the head to determine if it should alert your ICE contacts. The device monitors for major head injuries using sensors such as an accelerometer. If it determines that a head injury has been sustained, it will ping the wearer. If it is not answered ICEdot will sound an alarm to attract people nearby. If the alarm is not answered, it will use its Bluetooth connection to a smarthone to contact people listed in your ICE list via email or text message with your GPS coordinates. It can also help alert emergency crews of any medical conditions – other than the current trauma – by information on the ICEdot ID Sports Band, which is a rubberized band, but operates like RoadID.
We saw ICEdot at the 2014 International CES earlier this month. Though we’ve written about the device in its earlier days, we thought a refresher was due.
ICEdot can be attached to any helmet, making it possible to use across many sports such as cycling, skiing, rock climbing (though we hope you don’t do that alone), and even in motor sports such as motorcycling. ICEdot goes on the list of the best equipment we hope you’ll never need, but always have on you.