We have already shown cases where the new feature Accident Detection — which arrived with the iPhones and Apple Watches released in 2022 — helped save lives, but also situations in which it ended up detecting accidents erroneously — especially in regions where skiing is common.
These “false positives” continue to be reported, so much so that they were the subject of an article by the The New York Timeswhich reported that emergency call centers in these regions have been “inundated with automated and inadvertent calls” — dozens or even more per week.
Tina Dummerdirector of emergency services for Summit County (Colorado, United States), claimed that 185 calls were received between January 13th and 22nd — which began to, in a way, desensitize the attendants.
In Grand County, where a busy mountain is located, for example, the local sheriff decided to pay less attention to calls originating with the feature by ignoring calls where there is no one on the other end of the line.
According to him, none of the “ghost” calls he has ever received have been real emergencies. In Colorado, “dispatchers” said they had trouble recalling a situation in which a watch saved a skier in distress.
Through the spokesperson Alex KirschnerApple — which even sent representatives to observe Dummer’s team and has been collecting feedback on false alerts — claimed to be aware of specific scenarios in which the feature mistakenly triggers emergency services.
Claiming to have released updates for the devices at the end of last year in order to optimize the technology and reduce the problem, the company also highlighted that, when an accident is detected, the watch vibrates and plays an expressive sound alert to show the user that a emergency call is being placed—he has ten seconds to cancel the call or inform the dispatcher that it is a mistake.
As the newspaper highlighted, the Accident Detection technology is a kind of evolution of the Fall Detection present in Apple Watches since 2018. Although it has already saved many lives — as we have been showing since then — the feature has already presented the same problem involving skiers in 2019.
As the newspaper highlighted, some pattern in the movement of skiers seems to circumvent the technology and — as they wear helmets and several layers of clothing — they generally do not notice the vibration or hear the warning that a call is being made. Many may simply mistake it for a common call and are unwilling to take the device out of their pocket while having a fun time.
Even though Apple clearly means well with Crash Detection — which is commendable — clearly something must be done to address this issue. Although the feature has been tested in accident situations and in the laboratory, the company seems to have ignored the specific issue of skiers – even with the aforementioned track record.
Obviously, we don’t expect such a feature to be without false alarms, but they should be the exception — not the rule. As there are many cases, instead of saving lives, technology can even end up delaying the sending of help to those who really need help.
While Apple doesn’t resolve the imbroglio, some do what they can. One of the mountains where skiing even has signs on lifts and ticket offices warning regarding the problem involving the new Apple Watches and iPhones 14 — encouraging regulars to update the device or even, lo and behold, deactivate the resource. ????????♂️
