Frequently Asked Questions
FAQs
1. Question: Is the smartwatch a medical device?
Answer: The smartwatch is not a medical device and is not a substitute for face-to-face meeting with your doctor nor is it a substitute for hospital admission. The smartwatch when used with the vWards app can be used as a wearable or part of the IOT to monitor a patient remotely in the community and send data to doctors or the clinical team looking after the patient. Based on the data trends, the clinical team can recall the patient to hospital to verify the data or to implement an intervention.
2. Question: What sort of people or patients can this benefit?
Answer: The smartwatch is sleek and of a fashionable design. Anyone can purchase it and use as a watch or activity tracker or to playback music or to send SMS. To use the smartwatch as part of the vWards programme, a person must obtain it from a hospital or healthcare institution that is signed up to the “Virtual Wards Programme”. The healthcare institution will provide you with a code to use to activate the vWards app after you download it. You will also be assigned a named clinician in the app who is most likely to be your hospital consultant. The named clinician will be responsible for your remote monitoring.
Patients with chronic conditions are most likely to benefit from monitoring in the community. These include:
a. Cardiology patients.
b. Geriatric patients
c. Patients with type 2 diabetes.
d. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and Obstructive Sleep Apnoea.
e. Neurology Patients.
f. Oncology patients.
3. Question: Why can I not complete registration to use the vWards app?
Answer: Though the vWards app is available to hospitals and healthcare institutions around the world, only hospitals that are signed up to the “Virtual-Wards Programme” can use the vWards app. Please check with your hospital that they are on the programme and obtain the hospital code to complete your registration.
4. Question: Can I use the smartwatch without a mobile phone?
Answer: No, you cannot use the smartwatch without a mobile phone. The watch must be paired to a working mobile phone to enable telemetry.
5. Question: Can I use the smartwatch to make voice and video calls?
Answer: Once the smartphone is paired to your mobile device or your home wireless network, you can use it for voice and video calls. Please note that the data used is charged to your mobile phone account or home wifi account by your network provider.
6. Question: I live alone. What happens if I fall at home?
Answer: The app will send a notification to the clinical team looking after you that there has been an adverse event at your last location. The team looking after you will review the telemetry data from your smartwatch and decide to either give you a telephone call to check your status or to dispatch first responders to your address.
7. Question: I am in the VWP. I took off my smartwatch for 4 hours and the Police visited my house?
Answer: Anyone recruited through the “Virtual-Wards Programme” is expected to wear their smartwatch 24/7 except whilst charging the battery. The smartwatch battery has:
a. A charging time of 2 hours.
b. Stand-by mode battery life of 21 – 30 days
c. An active use battery life of 7 – 10 days.
Before recharging the battery, please put your app in “Do not disturb” mode. Failure to do this will trigger an alarm at the monitoring console used by clinical team looking after you after 15 minutes. Should your clinical team not be able to reach you by telephone or video call or should telemetry remain unavailable from your smartwatch, first responders will be dispatched to your address. Please note that your smartwatch will emit the GPS coordinates of your last location to first responders. Also note that anyone who by neglect or design unnecessarily calls out first responders to their address on more than two occasions, will be excluded from the programme.
8. Question: Why is the BP measured by the smartwatch different from that of a mercury sphygmomanometer?
Answer: The difference in the values recorded by the smartwatch is determined by a variety of factors. Aneroid sphygmomanometers are by definition less reliable than mercury sphygs. The measurement site of a standard mercury sphygmomanometer is over the brachial artery in the brachium, and the smartwatch measures the BP over the radial artery at the wrist. This will result in a 5% to 10% variation between the readings recorded by a smartwatch and a mercury sphygmomanometer. Thus, with a smartwatch the BP trend over time is very important.
9. Question: Why can't the smartwatch receive push notifications?
Answer: Review Android device settings:
a. Enable the push message switch on the device.
b. The notification bar of the device will display confirmation message. If there is no confirmation message in the smartwatch notification bar, the watch will not be able to receive the push notification.(Check the phone settings >> notification setting. Click on the notification type: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, SMS, WhatsApp etc of the device client).
c. Open the auxiliary function settings of the smartwatch (see the auxiliary function in the settings on the phone, and open the auxiliary function settings of the smartwatch).
d. Pair the two devices
For iOS devices and Apple phones:
e. Go to settings.
f. Enable push message switch.
g. Follow instructions as for Android devices above.
10. Question: Why does the pedometer not start recording steps immediately I start walking?
Answer: To reduce input error, the smartwatch is set to an initial value of 10. This means that the smartwatch commences the step count after 10 steps.
11. Question: What application is used when connecting to a smart phone?
Answer: The vWards app is designed and built by Medperson.
12. Question: Why does the smartwatch not boot or start up properly?
Answer: Please charge the smartwatch for at least 30 minutes before the first use. This ensures normal device boot and optimal operation.
13. Question: Cannot find smartwatch when attempting to pair device?
Answer:
a. Please make sure the distance between phone and device is less than 12 inches (One foot).
b. Ensure that the smartwatch battery is at least charged for 30 minutes.
14. Question: The Smartwatch Cannot connect to the vWards app?
Answer: Please reboot the smart phone before pairing the device.
15. Question: Android device suddenly disconnects?
Answer: Android devices memory management system will by default turn off the apps running in the background. You need to turn off the power saving mode or pull the app into the system housekeeping green background.
16. Question: Why can’t I connect by Bluetooth?
Answer:
a) First download the app.
a) Enable Bluetooth in your phone/device and smartwatch.
b) Search for your phone/device in Bluetooth menu on the vWards app.
c) Then click on ‘connect’ to connect it.
d) Go back to your phone/device and see request to connect then click “pair”.
17. Question：Is the smartwatch waterproof?
Answer：Yes. The vWards Smartwatch is waterproof up to 2 atm pressure.
18. Question: Does the vWards App support other languages?
Answer: Yes. The vWards app is available in the following languages: Afrikaans, English, German, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Hebrew, Czech, Greek, Polish, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Russian, Vietnamese, Turkish, Thai, Dutch, Swedish, Romanian, Hungarian, Danish, Finnish, Arabic, Ukrainian & Persian. Select your preferred language in the app during registration. Default language is English.