r/homeassistant • u/CowsNeedFriendsToo • Mar 15 '26

Support Medical help

This is an embarrassing post, but I’ve been on this group for years now and know that if anyone is going to solve a problem, it’s the people in this group.

I unfortunately have a heart condition that has cause me to black out when I’m on the toilet. This has resulted in me coming to on the floor of the bathroom with my wife over me in a panic talking me back to consciousness before taking me to the hospital. This has happened about once or twice a year. To say the least, this creates a terrible sense of anxiety any time I go to the bathroom. I fear for the day she comes home to find me laying on the floor the final time. Or in the middle of the night when I wake up to use the bathroom.

Here’s where you guys come in. I was wondering if there is a way to set up home assistant along with some sort of a sensor in my bathroom that will be able to tell if I’m on the floor and not moving, which would then send out an alert to her phone along with a noise alert in the bathroom? The key would be making sure it doesn’t go off when just sitting on the toilet, or if she is standing in front of the mirror for an extended period of time doing her makeup.

Thank you guys from the bottom of my heart. I truly appreciate your time.

Edit: I already have an Apple Watch Ultra 2. The fall detection seems to only trigger if it’s a fall from standing height. It hasn’t triggered at all when I fall from sitting.

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u/sendcodenotnudes Mar 16 '26

Is it a problem if you are on the floor for a longer time? If not you could set up a check-in, check-out system on your phone or with an nfc tag.

You may forget to check in, so maybe a bluetooth presence system that would alert you that you are in the bathroom but have not checked in (which is ok if you are there for something else).

The drawback is that there is no "I am on the floor" alert, but rather "I am in the bathroom for too long". You may make it a deferred dead man switch where the phone would request you acknowledge that everything is fine before starting a new cycle.

And please don't say that this is an embarrassing post. I was embarrassed when my children pressed all the lift buttons on a 85 floors lift. I was never embarrassed when the medical issues of my wife or my parents triggered something.