“My watch thinks I’m dead.” With a bit of irony, Stacey Torman, fitness cycling instructor, tells of her adventures with her Apple Watch at the New York Times. Obviously, your movements activate the fall detection function of your bracelet that automatically calls the emergency services.
Sudden movements, intense sports activity, the fitness teacher has repeatedly noticed that her Apple Watch has sent an emergency alert for no reason. Whether it’s during her fitness class, when she raises her arms to cheer on her students, or even when she’s at a party.
The fall detection feature is available on Apple Watch SE and all versions since Series 4. When it detects abnormal activity, it sounds an alarm and displays an alert. If the user does not deactivate the alert within 10 seconds, it automatically calls the emergency room.
Stacey Torman says the Apple Watch, however, didn’t react when it was in an actual accident. She fell while running when she wanted to catch a bus. “I fell violently,” she recounts while her watch did not notify the emergency services.
Overwhelmed call centers
Another user, Jon Baron, also noted the limitations of the Apple Watch. While at the amusement park, he tried his hand at a game of force, the object of which is to hit a target with a hammer to ring a bell. “I was trying to show that I was physically strong, but my watch was thinking otherwise,” he explains to the New York Times. Her watch then activated the detection alarm.
In this ski season, emergency call centers are also “inundated” with deceptive phone calls, says the American newspaper. Skiers’ watches detect falls that don’t occur like they do in Colorado ski areas in the United States. The emergency services received 185 such calls between January 13 and 22.
Questioned by the US media, an Apple spokesman explains that the Apple brand was informed that “in certain specific cases, these functions activated emergency services when the user was not the victim of an ‘accident’.” He ensures that the updates made at the end of 2022 are aimed at reducing these false emergencies and recalls that this function has already allowed “several lives to be saved”.
Source: BFM TV
