The SOS emergency notification feature of iOS 11 and watchOS 4 is increasingly accidentally triggered. Especially users who go to bed with their iPhone or Apple Watch accidentally activate it.
Call SOS emergency notifications automatically
More and more users are calling the emergency services at the wrong times, it reports The Verge. Users sleeping on their Apple Watch accidentally press and hold the side button for a long time, automatically alerting the police. Others accidentally press their iPhone’s power button too often, which has the same effect.
That’s what happened to Jason Rowley, an American Twitter user who uses an Apple Watch to track his sleep. Because he held the side button for too long in his sleep, the police were called. They indicated that it is not the first time, because the SOS emergency notification function is enabled by default on the Apple Watch Series 3 and iPhones that come with iOS 11.
Turn off automatic calling
You can’t turn the feature off, but it is possible to add an extra step to the process. By turning off automatic calling, you must first confirm the emergency call before the call is made. Follow the step-by-step plan below to disable it on your iPhone.
- Open the Settings app and scroll to ‘Emergency SOS’;
- Turn off the slider behind ‘Automatic calling’.
The same applies to the Apple Watch. Here too, SOS emergency messages cannot be turned off, but you can add the aforementioned extra step. To do this, follow the steps below.
- Open the Watch app on your iPhone and go to ‘General’;
- Tap ‘Emergency SOS’ and turn off the ‘Automatically call emergency number’ option.
The SOS emergency function works the same as before. If you call the emergency number, your configured emergency contacts will receive a text message with your location. In addition, your iPhone will keep them informed of where you are if your location changes.
Also read: How to send an SOS emergency message with your iPhone and set up emergency contacts