by pixl97 on 1/29/23, 5:58 PM
I remember the day my wife and I were driving on the interstate and I tossed her iphone in the center console of the car. Suddenly I get a text saying that she has been involved in an emergency and the authorities have been called. The phone starts dialing and I hit the end call button, unfortunately this is 911 ending the call doesn't do any good. We get a call back a moment later asking if we're ok. Then minutes later from all of our family contacts asking what happened.
I'm 99% sure she disabled that feature after that.
by nahkoots on 1/29/23, 6:06 PM
> The Gujo City Fire Department in Gifu Prefecture, which has many ski resorts within its jurisdiction, received 351 emergency calls between Jan. 1 and Jan. 23. Nearly 40% — 135 calls — were made erroneously.
I wonder how many of the 351 emergency calls and how many of the 135 erroneous calls were made by a phone's automatic crash detection system. It's obviously not great that the automatic system is placing so many erroneous calls, but it may be worth the burden on Japan's (or any other country's) emergency services if such calls aren't an overwhelming majority.
by ilikehurdles on 1/29/23, 6:54 PM
Anyone who's been skiing with an actual fitness watch over the last 5+ years knows this feature doesn't work even with devices that gather and understand more vitals than annual consumer iDevices. It's a shame the gadget geeks, techies, and Apple couldn't learn from others before going down this path.
by hinkley on 1/29/23, 6:55 PM
I have to wear my smartwatch backward and upside down because it kept sending random emojis to my partner when I was doing yard work. Drove her nuts. Either flexion or just the glove would push the button, causing it to take input. If the last thing I looked at was messages from her, then she’d get responses out of some cheesy horror movie.
I haven’t tried again with my latest model. I would have thought the lock would prevent such things, but it didn’t, and I am starting to forget the repro steps.
by theptip on 1/29/23, 6:54 PM
We should remember to evaluate interventions based on the cost and rate of false positive/negatives, vs. the benefit of true positive/negatives.
In this case, the pertinent benefit to weigh against is the benefit of fall detection, particularly for elderly people, but also for active folks e.g. falling while cycling.
Obviously we’d rather not make false emergency calls, all else being equal. But it could be worth it on its face, we need to analyze the benefits to know.
by zackangelo on 1/29/23, 9:44 PM
I stopped wearing my Apple Watch while surfing because this feature would trigger almost every time. It’s made worse by the fact that the touch screen is inoperable when the phone senses that it’s wet, so it’s difficult to cancel.
by meltyness on 1/29/23, 6:44 PM
This isn't a disaster if you've got your AirPods in, you just explain everything is OK. Just put on your Rosegold Apple AR, you'll see.
by 0110101001 on 1/29/23, 11:03 PM
by JshWright on 1/29/23, 11:17 PM
I’m a firefighter/paramedic in a suburban town. We average one of these a month (false automated reports of vehicle crashes). I’ve never see a true positive report.
by mildavw on 1/29/23, 10:55 PM
US ski patroller here, this is happening via Apple Watches here too. Not nearly as many as in the article, though. Couple times per month per resort.
by _rutinerad on 1/30/23, 4:29 AM
I had this happen to me in an unexpected way as well. I parked my car on the side of the road, ran to my parents’ house, ran back to the car and jumped in. When I jumped in the car, the phone thought I had been in an accident and called emergency services. Luckily I think I was able to cancel it in time.
by mtgentry on 1/29/23, 5:58 PM
Seems like an edge case that Apple can solve by comparing phone behavior on a ski lift vs that of a car. There’s gotta be some patterns in the data that are distinctly skier behavior. However if they want to help those skiers that are truly in need of help, it gets much trickier.
by alana314 on 1/29/23, 6:46 PM
I got two of these alerts while snowboarding. I was able to catch them in time.
by pflenker on 1/29/23, 6:35 PM
I am surprised this edge case exists - last time I set up an iPhone with Apple Watch I had to specifically enable the feature (it was for an elderly person so it made sense)
by Aeolun on 1/29/23, 6:10 PM
> The department usually calls the number to check the situation when it receives an automated alert but there is no follow-up from the smartphone’s user. If the user does not answer, the department calls again sometime later
This doesn’t make any sense to me. The user has been in an (assumed) crash where they are presumably unable to call 119 themselves, but the fire department tries calling back to see if it was an actual emergency?
Then if nobody answers, instead of rushing over there, they try again in a little while?
by snvzz on 1/29/23, 11:51 PM
by hulitu on 1/29/23, 9:35 PM
It seems (from the comments) to be a "feature" of Apple devices.
In some countries calling emergency "for fun" can have legal consequences.
by jonplackett on 1/29/23, 6:13 PM
This seems like a pretty easy thing to fix right, a quick GPS check to see if you’re anywhere near a road?