The Pixel Watch’s promised fall detection is finally here – Ars Technica

With the launch of the Pixel Watch in October, Google slowly started trying to claw its way back into smartwatch relevance. A few months later, a big feature that had been on the Apple Watch for four years was released: fall detection.

As Google describes the feature, “Fall detection uses the motion sensors built into your watch and on-device machine learning to determine if you’ve experienced a hard fall, and will call emergency services if you don’t move or respond within a certain time frame.” As in the case of the Apple Watch, if If a fall is detected, a full screen popup will appear asking if you are OK. If you don’t respond, it will beep for the next minute, and if you still don’t respond, the watch will call 911. Fall detection has been a huge trigger for vulnerable people like the elderly for the Apple Watch, so it’s nice that Google is finally offering this feature.

The release of the Apple Watch, along with car crash detection, made this happen Some false positives, with the watch calling 911 when users are not hurt. Google says it’s worked that out, saying, “Worry that doing a burpee or hitting the ski slopes will trigger an accidental emergency call? The Pixel Watch knows the difference between a hard fall, performing vigorous physical activity, or even recovering quickly from a small bump — thanks to its algorithms.” Machine learning and rigorous testing.” Google calls out skiing, jogging, jumping, and swimming as activities that can cause false positives, but hopefully you’ve fixed the issues with its “rigorous” testing process.

Fall detection is enabled, so calling 911 won’t happen at all, unless you specifically enable it. “You can turn on the feature on the Updates page on the Watch Companion app or directly on your Pixel Watch in the Personal Security app,” Google says. If your Pixel Watch doesn’t have LTE, your phone must be nearby to complete the call.