Fall detection failure

[KFridman]

Writing this in trying to help a friend. She's in Ontario, Canada and I'm in New York State. She bought an AW SE about 5 weeks ago because she is afraid of falling while alone. It happened today and the AW didn't detect it. According to her it sounds like it should have triggered a 911 call. She was three steps up a flight of stairs and went down face first from there. She's not near an Apple Store. She took it into a local store that she gets here cell service through and had a guy look at it. He went through the settings and said everything was set up correctly. Apparently they tried to get it to register a fall and were unsuccessful. I went over the settings with here over the phone and it sounds like it's set up how it's supposed to be. Does anyone have any idea of what could be going on?

She'll be down here for Christmas so I may set up an appointment at an Apple Store that I'm close to if all else fails.

Thanks for any advice.

 

[xraydoc]

Not every fall will be detected. It does need to reject some false alarms, so it's possible her fall wasn't 'impactful' enough to get it to trigger.

 

[jz0309]

Writing this in trying to help a friend. She's in Ontario, Canada and I'm in New York State. She bought an AW SE about 5 weeks ago because she is afraid of falling while alone. It happened today and the AW didn't detect it. According to her it sounds like it should have triggered a 911 call. She was three steps up a flight of stairs and went down face first from there. She's not near an Apple Store. She took it into a local store that she gets here cell service through and had a guy look at it. He went through the settings and said everything was set up correctly. Apparently they tried to get it to register a fall and were unsuccessful. I went over the settings with here over the phone and it sounds like it's set up how it's supposed to be. Does anyone have any idea of what could be going on?

She'll be down here for Christmas so I may set up an appointment at an Apple Store that I'm close to if all else fails.

Thanks for any advice.

as @xraydoc said, not every fall will be detected, depends on several "conditions".
When she visits, try to mimic a fall, meanwhile, read through the following:

Use Fall Detection with Apple Watch - Apple Support

If Apple Watch detects a hard fall, it can help connect you to emergency services if needed.

support.apple.com

Manage Fall Detection on Apple Watch

If Apple Watch detects a hard fall, it can help connect you to emergency services and send a message to your emergency contacts.

support.apple.com

Now, unrelated, I have an Ultra 2 and over the past 3 months or so I have gotten multiple false alarms, all in the shower and I have not fallen nor do I take "sudden movements" that should trigger a fall, but, I'd rather get a false alarm than missing a real one. and I do recall a couple/few real ones when I crashed mountain biking, when I had a S4.

 

[KFridman]

as @xraydoc said, not every fall will be detected, depends on several "conditions".
When she visits, try to mimic a fall, meanwhile, read through the following:

Use Fall Detection with Apple Watch - Apple Support

If Apple Watch detects a hard fall, it can help connect you to emergency services if needed.

support.apple.com

Manage Fall Detection on Apple Watch

If Apple Watch detects a hard fall, it can help connect you to emergency services and send a message to your emergency contacts.

support.apple.com

Now, unrelated, I have an Ultra 2 and over the past 3 months or so I have gotten multiple false alarms, all in the shower and I have not fallen nor do I take "sudden movements" that should trigger a fall, but, I'd rather get a false alarm than missing a real one. and I do recall a couple/few real ones when I crashed mountain biking, when I had a S4.

as @xraydoc said, not every fall will be detected, depends on several "conditions".
When she visits, try to mimic a fall, meanwhile, read through the following:

Use Fall Detection with Apple Watch - Apple Support

If Apple Watch detects a hard fall, it can help connect you to emergency services if needed.

support.apple.com

Manage Fall Detection on Apple Watch

If Apple Watch detects a hard fall, it can help connect you to emergency services and send a message to your emergency contacts.

support.apple.com

Now, unrelated, I have an Ultra 2 and over the past 3 months or so I have gotten multiple false alarms, all in the shower and I have not fallen nor do I take "sudden movements" that should trigger a fall, but, I'd rather get a false alarm than missing a real one. and I do recall a couple/few real ones when I crashed mountain biking, when I had a S4.

Thanks for the reply. Am I understanding this right - if you fall, and the AW registers the fall, but you get up and move, 911 will not be called automatically?

 

[jz0309]

Thanks for the reply. Am I understanding this right - if you fall, and the AW registers the fall, but you get up and move, 911 will not be called automatically?

No, you have to respond to the message on the watch, I always choose “I’m ok” and then in the next screen “I did not fall”.
If you don’t respond on the watch, you’ll be talking to 911.

Now, does your friend have the cellular version? If yes, even when there is no cellular plan active it will call 911.
If it’s a non-cellular, I believe it will call via the phone, but obviously the phone has to be nearby.

 

[KFridman]

Thanks again. I appreciate the help. She has the non-cellular. It seems like the watch is set up correctly so either the watch didn’t feel the fall was significant enough or there could be a problem with the watch. For her piece of mind we’ll set up an appointment at the Apple Store when she is here over Christmas.

 

[BigBlur]

It's more of a "nice-to-have-when-it-works" feature. My mom has fallen a few times and none of them were detected. Yet it will think she fell when she straightens out the cushions on her sofa, which actually happened this past weekend.

There have been other threads with similar experiences.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apple-watch-failed-to-detect-a-significant-fall.2305462/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/fall-detection-works-but-not-in-the-way-i-expected.2175970/

 

[Tdude96]

That does make me wonder if the accelerometer is busted or not seated quite right on some of these. I've had a couple falls with different Apple Watches, mostly ice related and it's been detected properly. The false alarms have been rare and understandable. Once when digging with a shovel and hitting rock, a couple of times when using a hammer.

 

[Starfia]

For clarity about fall detection: Jeff Williams originally explained that fall detection is based on the Watch's accelerometer and gyroscope's data recognizably conforming to repeatable patterns determined using studies on how the body often moves when people fall, such as by tripping or slipping – it's not as simple as detecting a sudden impact.

Presumably that means the Watch is capable of detecting falls at least some of the time and acting on them, but it also means there's no guarantee it will detect every manner or instance of a fall.

 

[Thirio2]

I found fall detection to be way too sensitive and turned it off. If it thought I fell while mowing the lawn I would probably not see the notification and trigger a false 911 call. If her fall detection is not working there may be something wrong with her watch. Do get it checked out.

 

[TechnoMonk]

Thanks again. I appreciate the help. She has the non-cellular. It seems like the watch is set up correctly so either the watch didn’t feel the fall was significant enough or there could be a problem with the watch. For her piece of mind we’ll set up an appointment at the Apple Store when she is here over Christmas.

Definitely get it checked out. And if it is critical, check out medical devices that can detect fall better.

 

[BigBlur]

When she visits, try to mimic a fall

I remember watching this video when the feature came out. They said it was hard to fake a fall, so they needed a stunt double to test it out.

 

[KFridman]

I watched that yesterday. What confused me was she said that if you remained immobile for a minute after you fall it started the countdown to call emergency service. I thought maybe that was why my friends watch didn't initiate the call. I wish she would have mentioned what the watch does during that minute.

 

[jz0309]

I watched that yesterday. What confused me was she said that if you remained immobile for a minute after you fall it started the countdown to call emergency service. I thought maybe that was why my friends watch didn't initiate the call. I wish she would have mentioned what the watch does during that minute.

I am unsure about that “1 minute”.
When I get these false alarms, the watch emits a rather low volume sound and it vibrates, and the screen indicates that it will call 911, but I obviously don’t want to tune that, hence I dismiss it asap. And basically the same when I did have a fall.

 

[jz0309]

I remember watching this video when the feature came out. They said it was hard to fake a fall, so they needed a stunt double to test it out.

Yea, that’s why I said “try”
With the false alerts I’ve been getting, I don’t know what the exact trigger is, in my case I am standing upright with a towel starting to dry off…

 

[KFridman]

With my own AW6 I set it on the counter too hard when I was getting into the shower so I didn't feel the buzzing and when the siren went off I figured it was an amber alert. After showering and looking at the watch I realized what had happened. A few minutes later three local police officers were walking up my driveway.

I also have to take it off if I'm using a chainsaw. I've gotten the "have you fallen" notifications more than once doing that.

 

[Timpetus]

My experience has been a mixed bag. It has been set off when I wear my watch on my dominant side and spike a volleyball. I've told it these are false alarms and it seems to know now that these hits aren't true falls. It also called my wife and helped save my life when I had a motorcycle crash and was unconscious.

 

[jz0309]

With my own AW6 I set it on the counter too hard when I was getting into the shower so I didn't feel the buzzing and when the siren went off I figured it was an amber alert. After showering and looking at the watch I realized what had happened. A few minutes later three local police officers were walking up my driveway.

I also have to take it off if I'm using a chainsaw. I've gotten the "have you fallen" notifications more than once doing that.

So, there you have your test case for when your friend visits: wood chopping

 

[KFridman]

So, there you have your test case for when your friend visits: wood chopping

Ha! She is Canadian. Must know how to handle an axe and saw.

 

[Parowdy]

No, you have to respond to the message on the watch, I always choose “I’m ok” and then in the next screen “I did not fall”.
If you don’t respond on the watch, you’ll be talking to 911.

Now, does your friend have the cellular version? If yes, even when there is no cellular plan active it will call 911.
If it’s a non-cellular, I believe it will call via the phone, but obviously the phone has to be nearby.

Wait, you tell the watch you didn’t fall when you did?

 

[doogm]

I watched that yesterday. What confused me was she said that if you remained immobile for a minute after you fall it started the countdown to call emergency service. I thought maybe that was why my friends watch didn't initiate the call. I wish she would have mentioned what the watch does during that minute.

I've had three detected legitimate falls since I bought the Series 5 and it was detected almost right away each time. It asks right away if you want to call, confirm that you've fallen, etc.

If you don't answer within a minute, the watch begins a process to automatically contact emergency services and your emergency contacts, assuming that you were disable by the fall (I never was and I was able to cancel this.)

See https://support.apple.com/en-us/108896 - that's exactly what happened with me.

 

[jz0309]

Wait, you tell the watch you didn’t fall when you did?

no, I had false alarms ... but when I did fall I had the option to say I did fall but I'm ok

 

[tcuprof]

Every time I've gotten a fall alert, it's been a false alarm caused by a stumble or banging on something. The one time I actually did fall was during a recent run and it was a pretty good tumble (lots of road rash). The fall alert did not go off.

 

[Parowdy]

no, I had false alarms ... but when I did fall I had the option to say I did fall but I'm ok

Sorry that was not apparent from the previous comment.

 

[androo79]

Writing this in trying to help a friend. She's in Ontario, Canada and I'm in New York State. She bought an AW SE about 5 weeks ago because she is afraid of falling while alone. It happened today and the AW didn't detect it. According to her it sounds like it should have triggered a 911 call. She was three steps up a flight of stairs and went down face first from there. She's not near an Apple Store. She took it into a local store that she gets here cell service through and had a guy look at it. He went through the settings and said everything was set up correctly. Apparently they tried to get it to register a fall and were unsuccessful. I went over the settings with here over the phone and it sounds like it's set up how it's supposed to be. Does anyone have any idea of what could be going on?

She'll be down here for Christmas so I may set up an appointment at an Apple Store that I'm close to if all else fails.

Thanks for any advice.

I hike over 2K miles per year with an Apple Watch and fall down often. I think it depends on many factors. What you are doing when you fall, how you fall, and what you do after. For instance, I almost always immediately get up and have a hiking workout active so the watch knows I don’t need help. One time, I fell on my bottom and didn’t immediately get up and the countdown started. Probably also depends on cell connection and satellite availability.

That said, my wife fell on her knee pretty bad on ice this morning and it did not activate. I didn’t witness so not sure how she fell or what she did after.