This a statement not backed up by any evidence and frankly, is useless. And I can tell you firsthand, visit the Apple Watch forum on this site, and you can read various threads where a multitude of geriatrics over 65 that have an Apple Watch and have already mentioned how this feature would be pivotal to them. You seem to undermine technology and how it can be beneficial for those who are even older.
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Apple Watch Series 4 Fall Detection Feature is Off by Default Unless You're 65+
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This a statement not backed up by any evidence and frankly, is useless. And I can tell you firsthand, visit the Apple Watch forum on this site, and you can read various threads where a multitude of geriatrics over 65 that have an Apple Watch and have already mentioned how this feature would be pivotal to them. You seem to undermine technology and how it can be beneficial for those who are even older.
Define "elderly." Many people who are 65 or older that I know are highly adept with technology. It depends more on socio-economic status and background than age.
Again, it depends. I know a lot of older folks who are well able to afford Apple Watches and other devices while spending within their means. Given their low aggregate savings rate, many young people would be better off investing money for retirement than buying new iPhones or other expensive tech annually.
This really, really isn’t the way Apple should be marketing their products. The combination of disclaimers that the heart monitor and fall detection are intended as medical grade products along with marketing of the same as potentially life saving is a very dodgy ethical minefield.
What about people younger than 65 with disabilities? Apple making poor UX decisions once again.
They go to Settings, turn on the feature, and are done?
Maybe, but this isn't one of them.
While the Apple watch can be a great tool, it still needs to be adopted and for it to be adopted the wearer needs an iPhone. I don't know the exact demographics on iPhone vs other brands but I do know we are just now nearing 50% of 65+ owning a smartphone. There's still half of that range that needs to adopt into all of it and given that the ones who are more independent are more likely to adopt into a smartphone than the ones in a care facility, it's going to be a potentially expensive process.
Secondly Apple's attempt to compete in this market faces the same challenges as it's competitors, getting them to actually use it. These type of sensors for falls have been around for a while but those that have them don't maintain consistent daily use of them. Working Rescue, we rarely get toned out for reported falls and when we do get one it's been more times than not a false alert. Usually it's from someone (staff/neighbor) finding them.
I'm not here to discount the technology by any means as I've seen care facility staff reflect their low pay with low care effort but this is still an uphill battle as it's going to take adoption and trust that it's going to work. These people get very bugged after you show up to their floor for another false alert and it continues to discourage its use.
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You don't live close to me then! I'm 74 and have the AW4 upgraded from the AW3 specifically for the fall detection and upcoming egg
If you are in that category, simply turn the falls detect feature on. Easy.
Though I know, that sort of common sense approach doesn't lend itself to yet another forum cred-building Apple smack. Keep wearing those blinders, oblivious to the underlying reasoning and motivation with respect to Apple's decision.
Ouch that's an expensive upgrade. I have a KardiaBand on my Series 3 and it's been great, not much supplement for fall detection directly in the watch though, only necklaces/bracelets so I definitely feel your pain of that cost despite potential value.
They can simply enable it. It’s a GOOD ux decision since young active healthy people are likely to accidentally trigger fall detections and older people are not.
No pain involved!
I'm working on a plan to spend my last dollar as they throw the last shovel of dirt on me at the end!
Actually I was surprised that there was no fall app for the AW3, or at least not one for the types of falls I envisioned. There was/is(?) an app for falling off a ladder or some such for the iPhone, nada for the Watch. And while I'm sure there will be quite a few false falls calling 911, it will probably be no worse/better than the other fall devices we see advertised on TV. My local emergency services tell me that they would rather make visit on a false call than just to miss one.
And it is important to me. I remember when one of my neighbors lived alone and fell on a Saturday and no one knew until Sunday night when her son dropped by for a quick visit. Like me, she lived alone and no one made daily visits to check up on her. Fortunately for her she survived the broken hip that caused the fall.
Exactly, this is a safety net for those people that are going to fall down and stay down. Not doubting the people who are at risk below this level but the inherit risks at that age group go up exponentially and the risk of infection and disability is far greater from even a simple fall with prolonged down time.
There's already two posted incidents about Fall Detection being set off from regular activity. While it would be great to have it on by default out of the box for everyone, it can also become a disturbance to ambulatory people having a close call/doing something that the watch detects as a fall. Also the target age group of 65+ usually like easy set it and forget it things, which is what draws them to the iOS ecosystem in general so not having to think one thought about it besides knowing from marketing that it's there is a nice peace of mind for them I feel.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/dug-******-with-my-series-4.2141455/#post-26553008
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/fall-detection-triggered.2141121/#post-26547735
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No pain involved!
I'm working on a plan to spend my last dollar as they throw the last shovel of dirt on me at the end!
Actually I was surprised that there was no fall app for the AW3, or at least not one for the types of falls I envisioned. There was/is(?) an app for falling off a ladder or some such for the iPhone, nada for the Watch. And while I'm sure there will be quite a few false falls calling 911, it will probably be no worse/better than the other fall devices we see advertised on TV. My local emergency services tell me that they would rather make visit on a false call than just to miss one.
And it is important to me. I remember when one of my neighbors lived alone and fell on a Saturday and no one knew until Sunday night when her son dropped by for a quick visit. Like me, she lived alone and no one made daily visits to check up on her. Fortunately for her she survived the broken hip that caused the fall.
I've never once been mad that I got interrupted for an uneventful 911 call so I have no worries that will be an issue.
I'm almost 71, a tech enthusiast, active and fit physically. I have a Series 0 and have the Series 4 on order. Once I heard about the new health features (including ECG and fall detection), the new screen size, and the other improvements, I knew I had to upgrade.
The Activity app on the watch is a terrific motivator for me. I've had a sedentary job for over 40 years, and any encouragement to get off my duff is welcome. Though I haven't fallen for a couple of years (slipping on a plastic bag that flew at my feet on a windy day), I do worry about getting knocked off my bike by a curb, a trolley track, a pothole, or a car.
Apple is not aiming ANY of its devices at elderly folks who have limited income, so that argument is a red herring. The market for the Apple Watch is limited in any case; so many people don't want to spend upwards of $400 on something that has to be paired with an expensive iPhone. But, for me, it's three cheers for Apple to have these new features! If you don't need a watch to be active and fit, that's great. For me, it's been great to have an Apple Watch for 3.5 years. And it might be a lifesaver.
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At almost 71, I've had one for 3.5 years. Maybe I hang with an older crowd than you, but I know there are others in the 65+ crowd who have one.
Sudden rapid descent, combined with a sudden stop, as well as little to no movement afterward, is what it likely looks at, at a minimum. You would not see those same characteristics in an amusement park ride. So I agree, I doubt they would cause an alert to happen.
I suspect that emergency services will likely be receiving an increase in false positive calls though, related to this new feature.
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Hmmm. On mine when I first setup my new Apple Watch 4, when it asks you all the questions on what features you want to enable or not, it also asked if I wanted to enable fall prevention and warned that it can go on more easily if you are heavily active. I never had to manually go into any settings to enable it. Is this not the case for others? I was using the beta on my series 3 but believe my series 4 is the default version.
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Only if you "fall" out of the car. This feature detects falling, not sudden stops.
Seeing pretty much everyone, including myself, failing to get it to detect a fall, why not add a setting allowing you to change how sensitive it should be when to detect falls? And combining it with the heart monitor....
I absolutely expect it to recognize the difference between a real fall and a fake fall.. That's kind of the while point. Good hardware with good algorithms can do impressive things.
same here every time the power goes out my folks call to reset clocks on the oven and microwave and VCR.
Yeah, not buying that. The watch will wait ONE minute before it will call 911, and only if it didn't detect motion during that minute.
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Penalty because the algorithm is finely tuned, and if you could adjust it yourself or would result in way too many false positives.
I have been on crutches since I received my AW4 on Friday. So far, the Fall Detection has gone off 5 times and considering I have not fallen (yet) I can say this feature has not been tested throughly, at least not with crutches. Apple Support has had me turn the watch on and off, next time they had me unpair and re-pair. Last time they had me unpair and then set up as new. None of these have resulted in any better performance. Senior Support says I am the first to report such an incident and they are mildly curious as to why the watch is behaving in this fashion. They have offered to look at the watch; but that involves them sending me a box, me sending it to them, their doing an analysis and then sending me back either a defective watch or the same watch. And they estimated that would take around 2 weeks, which is past my return date. With any luck I will be off the crutches, before Apple figures it out. Meanwhile I have had do disable the feature.
One other interesting thing to note is Apple insists there are 3 options you are given after Fall Detection has gone off. 1) call 911 2) I fell but I am OK and 3) I did not fall. The 3rd option has never appeared. It is possible that one has to scroll down the page to see it, but that certainly is not intuitive. I noticed that the image of the fall detection at the top of this article does not show the 3rd option, although it talks about it. I would assume if the 3rd option were actually available that it might learn to disregard that pattern and would not trip again for the same reason.
Meanwhile I have to decide if I want them to analyze the watch or return it and try another.
One other interesting thing to note is Apple insists there are 3 options you are given after Fall Detection has gone off. 1) call 911 2) I fell but I am OK and 3) I did not fall. The 3rd option has never appeared. It is possible that one has to scroll down the page to see it, but that certainly is not intuitive. I noticed that the image of the fall detection at the top of this article does not show the 3rd option, although it talks about it. I would assume if the 3rd option were actually available that it might learn to disregard that pattern and would not trip again for the same reason.
Meanwhile I have to decide if I want them to analyze the watch or return it and try another.