Garrett Genest, Blackline GPS, believes that mobiles are too unreliable to fully protect lone workers
All around the world, millions of lone workers rely on their mobile phones each day to ensure that they get home safely. Calls are made to check-in with headquarters every hour or two. Additionally, calls or messages are sent to communicate amber alerts with management or Alert Receiving Centres. If your workers rely on a mobile phone to check-in with their managers, they could be over-complacent.
Your phone doesn’t care what happens to you
Your phone was designed to do only two or three things: (1) make calls, (2) send and receive text messages, and (3) run apps. Unless you are conscious and physically able to unlock your phone and perform one of these actions, your phone will sit there, watching patiently as events unfold.
Your battery can give out at any time
The battery in your mobile phone is overworked. It single-handedly powers all of the processes that are running on your phone. Your battery often runs out at what seems like the worst possible moment — perhaps during a conversation, or when stranded on the side of a highway with a broken leg.
Your phone can lose its coverage
Every time a lone worker travels with a phone that relies on cellular coverage, they are putting themselves at risk. Injuries, collisions while driving, violent attacks (animal or human), and health incidents such as heart attacks or strokes can occur anywhere, at any time. The inability to communicate for help in these circumstances could leave workers stranded.
Your phone’s GPS is useless indoors
It’s not that it has anything particularly devious planned (this time at least), it just doesn’t offer any information beyond the standard GPS data which is terribly imprecise when located indoors. The moment you step inside, the location data that your phone can provide to rescuers changes from a precise set of coordinates to the general location of a building. If the building is particularly large, rescuers may require many extra minutes or even hours to perform a sweep in order to find you.
The alternative: lone worker devices
While mobiles have certainly played an important role in safety practices to date, battery issues, lack of coverage, other phone functions, and the inability to communicate precise indoor location information makes the mobile phone a risky primary safety tool.
Instead, organisations should deploy a dedicated lone worker-monitoring device to reduce battery strain on your phone and ensure that alerts are sent promptly in the event that a worker is incapacitated. For out-of-coverage issues, look at devices that utilise a satellite data uplink, allowing them to connect to the network even while located outside of cell coverage.
Garrett Genest is the content manager of Blackline GPS, a manufacturer of lone worker safety equipment.
The latest generation of Lone Worker Smartphone apps have features inbuilt which mitigate against the issues raised in this article. 1. Apps have functionality which means the alarm can be raised discreetly, such as shaking them in a pocket or handbag. 2. Optimised battery management within the app, reduces power drain on the phone. Dedicated devices need recharging sometimes as much as smartphones do. 3. Features such as delayed alarm allows the alarm to be raised on the protection supplier’s server, irrespective of whether the handset has signal coverage at the time. The monitoring centre will receive the alarm and… Read more »
I wholeheartedly agree with Garrett. Mobile phones are fine when they are working, but the technology is still just too unreliable for lone workers. You have no control over the infrastructure – network providers can turn off masts at the drop of a hat – and signal strength, range and battery power remain issues when thinking about lone worker protection. At SBES (www.sbes.co.uk), we specialise in world leading lone work protection systems that operate on local wireless transmission rather than mobile phone technology.