Here’s one of those pieces of gear you buy in the hope you’ll never have to use it. The ICEdot is a small, bright yellow crash sensor that mounts onto, for example, your bike or ski helmet and when paired with the ICEdot app on a smartphone will detect motion and critical changes in forces and impacts.
“So what?” you may ask. Well, the ‘critical’ force or impact bit is what’s important here, because let’s say you’re tearing down the ‘Beast of Brenin’ at Coed-y-Brenin and get launched over the handlebars and end up out cold or badly injured.
The ICEdot will recognise the fact that you’ve been involved in a heavy impact with terra firma, and triggers the app over low-energy Bluetooth to sound an alarm and initiate an emergency countdown.
Unless the countdown clock is stopped either by your, your riding partner or a rescuer, once the countdown has completed the app will notify your emergency contacts (details of which you input into the app) and send GPS coordinates of the incident so that appropriate follow up actions can be taken.
It’s especially useful for those of us who like to make solo journeys into the mountains and whilst as with any safety device it can’t replace being sensible and safety conscious when partaking of your chosen activity, it does add a valuable safety net should the worst happen.
Currently the Crash Sensor app is available for iPhone 4S and later. An Android version will be released soon for phones utilizing the new Android 4.3.
