WTH? Last night something happened that caused my machine to shut itself off?

[sheepless]

fwiw, I've used smartstart to start airflow for 4+ years with 3 resmed 10-generation machines and a p10 nasal pillow mask without incident, ever. for no reason other than habit, I don't rely on it to stop flow - whenever I mask off, I always use the button on top of the machine.

[cathyf]

A lot of this I haven't thought about in almost 7 years...

I went through the settings, and there is no separate auto-start and auto-stop. I'm thinking that it must have been that I developed the habit of blowing the machine on, but always turned it off with the switch rather than just tossing the mask aside and waiting for it to turn itself off. And somehow in my head that meant "auto start on and auto stop off."

I'm really afraid to turn it off. When I'm half asleep is the worst time to try to develop new habits. I'm pretty sure that after a bathroom break I will put the mask back on and blow into it to start the machine and go straight to sleep without remembering that I turned auto-start off!

Also, I looked back at that night where the machine started a new session pegged at the max rather than starting at the min. That was wearing a nasal mask, not pillows.

*sigh*

[SarcasticDave94]

This is an AutoSet? Are those Smart settings hidden in the Clinical Menu?

I'll be back, I'll look on my AutoSet dust collector. OK my Dust Collector edition has Smart Start only. Can be accessed either on patient or clinical side. Guess this shows I didn't pay attention to the dust collector's menu the one night I tried it.

[Ratchick]

Yep, it says "SmartStart" but it covers both starting and stopping.

I think it's going to depend on how concerned you are about potentially having the machine turn off if you were to have a long apnea, or the mask shifted. If that's not a regular issue then I guess stay with it on. But personally, that fear of it auto-stopping mid apnea for me (perhaps repeatedly) when the APAP is already barely keeping me from cripplingly bad symptoms until my docs get into gear, is more than enough for me to keep it off personally. But I'm used to turning it on manually anyway so I don't have years of "muscle memory" to undo!

If it stops suddenly, without a 30-second stretch or so of no respiratory effort showing on the flow chart, then comes on again at full pressure rather than at starting pressure again, that would make me wonder about instead a small power outage or a dip low enough to reboot the machine. The Resmed, if the power goes out mid-session, comes back on again and continues the therapy when the power is back on, so perhaps there were different causes for different incidents.

[SarcasticDave94]

OK gotcha. I'm better with higher level machines it seems. I know my ASV a lot more than an AutoSet.

[cathyf]

I wonder if there is specific logic about a power outage and what happens when the power comes back on?

Obviously the machine knows all sorts of things--

• that the power was cut
  
• that you didn't push the button
  
• what time it was when the power got cut, and what time it is when the power comes back on (the clock is in NVRAM)
  
• all of the state that it wrote out to the card and to NVRAM immediately before the power disappeared
  
• it knows you were in the midst of a session when the power disappeared
  
• once the power comes back, it immediately knows that you are at the other end of the hose
  

So, yeah, I can see that ResMed might well have the algorithm written so that if it comes back from a power outage that happened in the middle of an active session, and it can detect that you are still there, it will restart the machine whatever the "smart start" setting, and it will start where it left off rather than resetting to minimum. We know it is capable of that sort of logic, so perhaps that's what it does?

[Sleeprider]

In a power outage, Resmed machines act kinda dumb. If Smartstart is on, they resume operation as if they were started for the first time that night. If a ramp is set, it starts in ramp, otherwise it picks up at minimum set pressure. If Smartstart is not on, the machine remains off. There is nothing particularly intelligent about these devices, and they don't know a power outage from an initial startup. If you want to see exactly what happens, put the machine on a power strip with a switch. While using it, turn it off, then back on. The device deals with it like a new startup if smartstart is on, but won't self-start if it's not.

[Geer1]

I don't think it is that smart but there is an easy way to find out. Put your mask on, let her run for a while then unplug it for a bit and plug it back in.

Edit: Looks like Sleeprider already knows what happens. If you want to test it yourself you can though. If you want to test the pressure side of things then fake a few apnea to increase pressure before unplugging.

[SarcasticDave94]

If applicable, I plugged in my Dust Collector AutoSet to get an image for humidifier settings. For fun, I turned it on and let it run with mask and humidifier tub in place, but no person on the mask side. I then pulled the plug and let it power down. I then waited 30 seconds and plugged it back in. ResMed splash screen and then... It started blowing again. SmartStart isn't on.

[Ratchick]

Huh... that goes against what my sleep clinic told me. I guess that it was, as Sleeprider says, assuming that SmartStart was turned on, then. Which is ironic because it wasn't (and was, in fact, disabled with no way to access it until I accessed the clinical menu the first time and switched Essentials to "Plus"). I will need to talk to them about that. My bad for the misinformation.

Edit: And now I read Sarcastic Dave saying it DOES work. So maybe they weren't? Huh... That'll teach me to reply before reading ALL the responses! I can't reach the plug to test it out right now, but I'll give mine a try later.