iPhone 14 and Apple Watch take falling skiers for road accidents and call emergency services
In the iOS 16.2 firmware, Apple has fixed the problem of false activations of the ‘Crash Detection’ function. But it didn’t help.
Skiers encountered problematic function operation. As it turns out, falling while going downhill is treated as a traffic accident by Apple’s smartphones and smartwatches. That’s why the devices call 911.
911 services in Summit County, Colo., have been working at their peak this month. Apple devices have often mistaken falls while snowboarding and skiing as road accidents. Also, false activations of the ‘Crash Recognition’ function have been recorded in Utah. There, iPhone 14 smartphones sent 3-5 notifications to 911 every day.
Despite this, emergency services do not recommend that skiers disable the ‘Accident Recognition’ function. It works on the basis of a gyroscope and an accelerometer, and the algorithm was trained on road accident simulations. In the iOS 16.2 update, the company fixed the function, as the Apple Watch Ultra, Series 8 and Series SE, as well as the new iPhone 14 smartphones sent notifications about road accidents while riding a roller coaster.
