The Kingii is an emergency life preserver that you can strap right to your wrist that inflates in seconds and brings you straight to the surface of the water.
WOAH NO WAIT WHAT I AM A LIFEGUARD DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY MORE LIVES THIS SHIT CAN POTENTIALLY SAVE???!!!
As someone who likes doing water-related things like fishing but intensely fears drowning, I’m gonna need like three hundred of these, okay.
No no. No no no no no. No no no. NO.
This thing might help you if you are swimming in a controlled environment (a pool) with a lifeguard nearby and suddenly have an emergency, but it is not a substitute for a PFD (personal floatation device).
Pictured below are the five types of United States Coast Guard-approved PFDs:
Types I and II are designed to keep your head above water with no effort on your part. If you are on the water, regardless of your ability to swim, you need to wear one.
Anyways thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
I also seriously worry how many people will actually have the presence of mind to reach for their wrist and scrabble for a tiny level and yank on it while they’re drowning. Speaking as someone who has nearly drowned before, when you’re drowning, you’re often in such a blind panic, all you can think of is I’m going to die I need to get air I don’t want to die I need to get up. How many people are going to remember that thing on their wrist and how to operate it? For fuck’s sake, people have forgotten how to operate airplane seatbelts during crashes. Never underestimate how much panic can mess with your head.
And it may not even be ‘better than nothing’ if it instead lulls people into a false sense of complacency and they neglect to take proper precautions such as wearing a life vest, etc. that have been proven to work, and far more effectively.
FantasyBoudicca 