Fun fact: A remote heart monitor, if placed on the side table on the right side of a queen sized bed may interfere with the Amazon Echo Show on the left side.I found this out last Thursday when I pressed the button on the little white box that sends data to the cardiologist weekly from the defibrillator that has been implanted in my chest cavity!
The light was flashing on the box, so I pushed the button to send data. Thinking it would just do its thing, I walked away from the box. An hour or so later, I came back into the bedroom and it was still flashing. I thought, maybe I didn’t press hard enough and tried again, this time staying with the box and hopefully seeing a signal that the data was sent.
No such luck!
So, as a patient with a fairly new ICD, I tried not to panic, but called the cardiologist’s office. I left a message that my magic little white box was not working. The nurse called me back and gave me the number of the help line of Boston Scientific, manufacturers of the ICD and the magic white monitor box. The customer support person stayed online with me to troubleshoot what was going on and finally she asked, “Do you have an Amazon Echo device near your device?”
I did not define on the side table on the opposite side of the bed as “near,” but apparently I was incorrect in not doing so. She asked me to unplug the Echo Show that was on the opposite end table and the data went through.
The Echo Show now resides just below the 55” TV screen in the living room.
And now I know that as, my friend David Hunker said, I had one “magic device interfering with another magic device.” Just another example of ain’t technology grand . . . except when it isn’t?
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