Emergency services continue to slam Apple's Crash Detection
Crash Detection on Apple Watch and iPhone 14 still causing problems for law enforcement and emergency responders.
Crash Detection can save a life, but it also strains emergency services
Reports keep filing in from emergency service departments complaining of being overwhelmed by false reports from Apple's Crash Detection. Ski lodges, theme parks with roller coasters, and even gyms are running into repeated problems.
A story from The New York Times gathered several anecdotes about how Crash Detection has affected emergency services operations. The stories range from the usual false alarm from a skier to someone taking spin class -- each perfectly fine despite the 911 call.
A Summit County call center in Colorado shared one such story, as Sergeant Watson walked through a busy day dealing with false alarms. The calls from Crash Detection alerts were about a third of those coming in.
"I wanted to check the numbers," Sergeant Watson said. "I was writing a letter to Apple." He described his basic message to the company as "I'm struggling to get my daily job done. I don't have all day to do Apple products."
Another story takes place in Grand County, where Sheriff Brett Schroetlin says the operators have been instructed to ignore Crash Detection calls with no one on the other end of the line. None of the "ghost calls" so far have been real emergencies, according to the Sheriff, and he couldn't waste limited resources.
The better technology, he reasoned, was human beings.
"It's rare that someone falls on the mountain and there's not a passer-by," Sheriff Schroetlin said. "We're hoping to get an actual 911 call from the person or someone on the scene."
It isn't meant for skiing and other extreme sports -- but that's the issue at the core of the ski area complaints.
Apple says there isn't a silver bullet for being able to tell the difference between a car crash and a roller coaster or skier. The company touts the times lives are saved as a reason to keep the feature on.
Users can toggle Crash Detection on and off
Perhaps, there is a middle ground. The technology seems to be catching a lot of users off guard as if they didn't know their brand-new Apple Watch or iPhone was going to dial 911 for them.
Instead of leaving Crash Detection on by default for all users, Apple could provide a prompt during setup asking the user if they'd like to turn on Crash Detection -- making it opt-in. Fall Detection, the less severe cousin of the feature, is only automatically enabled for users over 55, for example.
Or another option is prompting users to temporarily turn off the feature using geolocation. They could visit a theme park or ski lodge and have an alert pop up to notify them of the feature and its potential problems.
However, turning off a safety feature isn't ideal either, as it could save the user's life. Apple will have to find a happy medium between satisfying customer needs and emergency services' plight.
Read on AppleInsider
Crash Detection can save a life, but it also strains emergency services
Reports keep filing in from emergency service departments complaining of being overwhelmed by false reports from Apple's Crash Detection. Ski lodges, theme parks with roller coasters, and even gyms are running into repeated problems.
A story from The New York Times gathered several anecdotes about how Crash Detection has affected emergency services operations. The stories range from the usual false alarm from a skier to someone taking spin class -- each perfectly fine despite the 911 call.
A Summit County call center in Colorado shared one such story, as Sergeant Watson walked through a busy day dealing with false alarms. The calls from Crash Detection alerts were about a third of those coming in.
"I wanted to check the numbers," Sergeant Watson said. "I was writing a letter to Apple." He described his basic message to the company as "I'm struggling to get my daily job done. I don't have all day to do Apple products."
Another story takes place in Grand County, where Sheriff Brett Schroetlin says the operators have been instructed to ignore Crash Detection calls with no one on the other end of the line. None of the "ghost calls" so far have been real emergencies, according to the Sheriff, and he couldn't waste limited resources.
The better technology, he reasoned, was human beings.
"It's rare that someone falls on the mountain and there's not a passer-by," Sheriff Schroetlin said. "We're hoping to get an actual 911 call from the person or someone on the scene."
The problem with Crash Detection
Crash Detection is a new feature that uses various sensors and machine learning to determine if a user has been in a car crash. The iPhone 14 lineup, Apple Watch Series 8, and Apple Watch Ultra all have this feature.It isn't meant for skiing and other extreme sports -- but that's the issue at the core of the ski area complaints.
Apple says there isn't a silver bullet for being able to tell the difference between a car crash and a roller coaster or skier. The company touts the times lives are saved as a reason to keep the feature on.
Users can toggle Crash Detection on and off
Perhaps, there is a middle ground. The technology seems to be catching a lot of users off guard as if they didn't know their brand-new Apple Watch or iPhone was going to dial 911 for them.
Instead of leaving Crash Detection on by default for all users, Apple could provide a prompt during setup asking the user if they'd like to turn on Crash Detection -- making it opt-in. Fall Detection, the less severe cousin of the feature, is only automatically enabled for users over 55, for example.
Or another option is prompting users to temporarily turn off the feature using geolocation. They could visit a theme park or ski lodge and have an alert pop up to notify them of the feature and its potential problems.
However, turning off a safety feature isn't ideal either, as it could save the user's life. Apple will have to find a happy medium between satisfying customer needs and emergency services' plight.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
A skier and rollercoaster also travel in a pattern - down hill fast then up the slope slowly, repeat for the skier and multiple abrupt changes in height and direction for a rollercoaster.
The iPhone can automatically detect driving mode based on movement:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208090
That would be a good place to start and only enable crash detection by default when driving mode was detected first. If people doing sports want to enable impact detection manually, they can enable a more sensitive setting and perhaps set it to notify emergency contacts first.
- default mode should be for vehicles, detect driving mode and high speed collision
- all modes should check for followup normal movement so don't contact emergency services for at least 2 minutes
- people who do sports can enable a more sensitive collision detection mode and set it up to notify emergency contacts first before emergency services
Apple is financing dispatch centres for the Satellite feature. Maybe that could be where all emergency calls go first, to be evaluated and escalated to 9-1-1 if needed?
The phone/watch should still detect movement after the "crash" detection. It's either not a crash or the crash is still ongoing. Wait for it to finish before starting the alert process.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Wrb5N7dfCBc
That would be noticeable in a quiet environment. For a skier, if they are coming down a slope fast, hit a bump and keep moving, they will have their headgear/ear covering on and have wind rushing past. Rollercoasters are similarly noisy. Wrist vibration would be better for them but might cause a skier to have an accident if they try fiddling with their watch to prevent an emergency call while moving fast down a mountain.
If they are not able to turnoff the count down, it’s an legit emergency . It doesn’t. Have to be a car accident …
The plural of anecdote isn't data.
"'I wanted to check the numbers,' Sergeant Watson said. 'I was writing a letter to Apple.' He described his basic message to the company as 'I'm struggling to get my daily job done. I don't have all day to do Apple products.'"
So by his own admission Sergeant Watson doesn't know what the impact is but decided to write Apple a letter saying he was struggling to get his job done.
All I am getting from this is there is a clear lack of data but press, including AppleInsider, have decided on a narrative and are going to press it. Perhaps y'all should do your job and look into rather than blindly repeating what you read else where. You know... actual journalism?
"The calls from Crash Detection alerts were about a third of those coming in."
An earlier article has other stats:
https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/01/30/iphone-14-crash-detection-false-positives-are-now-a-problem-in-japan
134 calls out of 919 emergency calls in one area, 135 out of 351 in another.
People can get fined for making unnecessary emergency calls.
https://www.cbsnews.com/detroit/news/new-law-means-tougher-penalties-for-phony-911-callers/
If someone is all the way in a remote location and emergency services have to travel a long distance, that comes at a cost.
The number of incidents globally are likely minimal, people aren't frequently skiing or on a rollercoaster but the volume of false calls in those areas is still much higher than it should be. Apple just needs to tune the feature.
I'm not sure what an article about Japan has to do with Sergeant Watson. Sergeant Watson isn't in Japan.
Did AI reach out to Sergeant Watson for clarification ? Nope. They just summarized what was in another article. There is literally no unique content here. No addition of anything. Just a clickbait headline.
That all said, I will retract what I said. I suggest AI should do their job, journalism. That was unfair of me. AI doesn't do journalism. The simple regurgitate what journalists say in a clickbait kinda way. That ends up with articles that apply no critical thought and dumb crap like using a picture of an iPhone in the banner of of an article about Apple Watch.
It makes Buzzfeed look like Pulitzer Prize contenders.