First it was roller coasters, now it’s skiers and snowboarders. If you’re planning on hitting the slopes with your new iPhone 14, you should watch out because it might just make emergency calls on accident. The Crash Detection feature is supposed to protect, but it can sometimes do its job a little too well.
At Utah skiing sites, dispatchers are receiving false-alarm flags — several a day sometimes — after the Crash Detection was activated on skiers and snowboarder’s iPhones. The story was reported on by Utah news site, KSL.
“We will get a call in that says the owner of this Apple Watch or iPhone has either had a severe crash or they’ve been involved in a car accident,” Summit County Dispatch Center supervisor Suzie Butterfield told KSL.
Since most of the time, people are unaware at the fact that their phones are dialing 911, most people don’t respond. Butterfield said, “They’re usually like, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I was skiing. Everything’s fine.”
Anywhere from three to five emergency calls from iPhones have been coming in daily. None have been activated for a real reason so far. Butterfield did explain that she doesn’t mind the accidental calls, since the feature could genuinely save lives.
With many of the activations, people don’t respond at first because they are unaware that the call was placed. “They’re usually like, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I was skiing. Everything’s fine,'” said Butterfield.
A Reddit user actually explained that he was going down a hill at a moderate pace but his Apple Watch began to dial 911:
“You might want to turn off crash detection on your iPhone 14 if you ski with any kind of pace at all. I was out yesterday for the first time. I had my phone in my pocket and was cruising down Tinkerbell at a totally moderate pace doing some short-radius turns on my second run of the year.
“To give you an idea of how moderate, I had just passed a slow sign with 3 safety patrol by it and none of them even raised an eyebrow at me! I stopped to wait for my wife and my phone immediately started yelling ‘Have you been in an accident? We will call emergency services in 20 seconds! Woop! Woop!’ I turned it off as quickly as possible and then immediately turned off all the emergency notification functions.”
The Apple Watch Series 8, the new Apple Watch SE and the Apple Watch Ultra could also trigger the emergency calls since they also have a fall detection feature.
It looks like Apple is looking into a fix for this issue, but for now, if you’re on a roller coaster or going skiing, make sure to check that your iPhone isn’t calling anyone.
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