Apple Watch Series 4 has a robust fall detection feature that alerts emergency services in the event of a hard fall. It uses a bunch of sensors to finally decide if it was a fall and alerts emergency services with an escape button in case it was a false positive or you are okay after a fall. Turns out Apple is working on a car crash detection feature as well. It will work with Apple Watch and iPhones as early as next year where the feature will auto-dial 911 when it detects a car accident.
According to Apple, it has been working on a car crash detection feature for a long time now. The feature senses sudden spikes in gravity on impact. The feature has already collected a tonne of data for Apple Watch out there shared anonymously. The document states that the feature in testing has reported 10 million instances of suspected impacts and even dialed 911 in 50,000 instances possibly saving lives. This was revealed by internal documents reviewed by the folks at The Wall Street Journal.
The Cupertino-based giant uses 911 call data to triangulate its crash-detection algorithm making it smarter every day. The feature is expected to arrive as early as 2022 with watchOS 9 and iOS 16 presumably although Apple hasn’t confirmed it official so there could be some changes in the timeline.
Apple has already showcased its expertise with the fall detection feature on Apple Watch 4. Google has a similar feature (to the proposed Apple car crash detection) in the Personal Safety app on Pixel devices. It used users’ microphones, motion sensors, and location to detect if users had been in a car crash or not.
However, Google’s solution was limited to select countries only. The availability for Apple’s car crash detection feature appears to have the same limited availability as well.
