You may have noticed during a fall on the ski slope: Apple Watch has fall detection. Your Apple Watch notices that you’re hitting hard and gives you the option to send your emergency contacts a message with your location with one tap. 112 is also automatically called. Here’s how it works and how to enable it.
Fall detection, for example, is very useful for the elderly, who often have difficulty walking, who have problems with their vestibular system and are sometimes less able to call for help themselves once they have fallen. Even as a young person you can probably use it well. If you fall into mountain biking or any other sport, or at all. Sometimes you get so hurt that you need help and your Apple Watch can help you with that.
Looks like you fell hard
The Apple Watch comes to a fall with the message ‘Looks like you fell quite a bit’ with the button below it SOS emergency message and Everything good† If you don’t respond to this, the watch will vibrate and beep after a minute to get your attention. If nothing happens, the watch itself will call the emergency number. In short, even if you are unconscious in a place without other people around, help can still be called in and that is a pleasant thought.
It goes even further than that, because after that minute of waiting where your watch activates the emergency services, it starts a 15-second countdown. A fairly loud noise is then heard, on the one hand to try to wake you up and on the other to alert people who are nearby. Then don’t press Cancelthe emergency services will be notified by your watch.
The smart watch can do this thanks to various sensors that are on it. The most important is the gyroscope. This motion sensor knows exactly what the position of the gadget is thanks to small vibrating plates that you cannot see with the naked eye. The gyroscope can ‘feel’ how the device is positioned. Because of this, he knows that if there is suddenly a large vibration, something has probably gone wrong.
Enable fall detection on Apple Watch
We now know what to use it for and how it works, but how do you enable it? Fall detection is only available on the Apple Watch SE and Apple Watches from Series 4 and above). When you set up the Apple Watch, you enter your date of birth.
If you are 55 years and older, fall detection is automatically switched on. If you are between 18 and 55 years old, you have the option to manually switch on the fall detection yourself. You do this by taking the following steps:
- Open the Institutionsapp (recognizable by the gear wheel) on your Apple Watch.
- Go to SOS † fall detection and switch fall detection in.
- If you want fall detection to be turned on all the time, you can Always on but if you only want it when you start exercising (when the risk of falling is significantly greater), you can opt for Only enabled during workouts†
If you are between 18 and 55 years old and you set up a new Apple Watch with WatchOS 8.1, fall detection during workouts is already enabled by default. Switching on does not necessarily always have to be done on the smartwatch itself. You can also enable it from your iPhone, when you go to ‘My Watch’, then ‘SOS emergency notification’ and then ‘Fall detection’.
Saving lives
Fall detection is a handy solution, but you should keep an eye on your Apple Watch if you fall and there is nothing else to worry about. After all, you don’t want to wrongly call in the emergency services. At the same time, fall detection can save lives. Consider, for example, an allergic reaction in which you lose consciousness.
There are so many possibilities where you fall and need help. It can even work if you have a collision with the car. Due to the large impact, fall detection is likely to be triggered and the emergency services can then also be activated automatically. In short, it’s worth turning it on.
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