Some user experiences with FlicLocation

[pdo.smith]

My intention was to use FlicLocation as a panic button for vulnerable people. I have been mugged twice, I have fallen 20 m down a mountain slope, and I have fallen into a coma after being stung by bees. I could have greatly benefited from a panic button on each occasion. Many people need to summon help fast for a variety of reasons. With that background I have been testing FlicLocation as a means of summonsing help urgently. I chose FlicLocation because it supplies the victim's location, a vital factor in an emergency. With that background, I have been testing FlicLocation for its suitability. These are my preliminary findings.

1. I ordered four buttons. One died after one day. That is not a good sign of reliability.
2. Appearance is good and it seems robust and durable.
3. The clip is nicely designed and effective.
4. The button surface is scalloped which makes it easy to find the right side of the button in the darkness. Nice design feature.
5. The button press has a strong tactile feel with a definite and unmistakable 'click'. Nice design feature.
6. I cannot open it to change the battery. If the battery can't be changed it is useless for my needs.
7. It cannot be activated with a short click. A long click must be used. This is a decidedly negative feature. My experience of real emergencies(see above) shows that one's mind is often clouded or confused. One should not have to remember to do a long click. This is especially true of young children and elderly people. Come on you guys, what were you thinking? A short click must be sufficient. Make a long click test the connection.
8. A single click gives a double tone on the phone if there is a connection between phone and button. Nice feature for reassurance but this should be a long click, see 7, above.
   9.The single click produces a flashing red light on button if there is no connection. Once again this is a good feature, but it should be activated with a long click instead.
9. If the connection has been broken(no double tone and a flashing red light) it is necessary to hold the button down for about 7 seconds before a connection has been re-established. Why so long? This will never work in an emergency and is especially unsuitable for the young or elderly.. This is a killer failing.
10. But there is an even bigger problem. If you notice the connection has been broken, before there is an emergency, you naturally try to re-establish the connection. But that triggers your emergency alert when there is no emergency. It is no good expecting the young or the elderly to remember not to do this. So there will be many false alarms, since the connection is so easily lost. This real killer failing.
11. When a new FlicLocation is first registered with the Flic app one is confronted with a story about creating tasks. So one sets about doing just that, only to find that the tasks will not work with FlicLocation. It only performs one task so there is no need to create a task. But a newcomer does not know this. The Flic app should simply not present the tasks tab when a Flick Single is being used. This makes the button really unsuitable for my purposes since many users will lack the necessary sophistication to work it out for themselves. Really you guys, what were you thinking?

Conclusion.
I love the button for its physical design and I think it is the best on the market. But its functionality is plagued by questionable design decisions of such severity that it is not really suitable for my purposes. But I really do want to use this button. My next step is to use the API and see if I can get a better result.

I must emphasise that, having had it in my hands and played with it, I love this button and really do want to use it. I hope I can achieve that through the API. I hope the developer team restores more functionality to the setup of Flic Singles.

Very importantly, why can't I open it to change the battery?

[Joacim]

Thank you very much for the valuable feedback.

So sorry that one of them died, that really should not happen. Please contact support for a replacement.

No, the battery in the Flic Single Series (Location, Music, Lights, Find, Camera) cannot be changed, however, it has a bigger battery than the original Flic, capable of sustaining for up to three years. This was a design choice we made in order to make the product at lower cost to allow for a lower price.

We made it so that it would not send an alert on single click because the high risk of sending false alerts. But thank you again for your feedback, we take it in and will reconsider.

If the connection is broken, you should not have to hold it down for 7 seconds, that only happens if your phone deletes the Bluetooth object from it's memory, or if you're using another phone. A single click will reestablish the connection, in fact, just being near it a few seconds will reestablish the connection.

11: Good point, we'll remove that in a future version of the app.

API: The Flic API is unfortunately not available for the Flic Singles. If you need flexibility, development options and removable battery, please consider using the original Flic instead of Flic Location.

Best Regards, Joacim