iPhone 14 And Roller Coaster, What Could Happen

Accident detection on iPhone 14 and Apple Watch is activated on a roller coaster. False alarms force you to switch to airplane mode or turn off devices. Accident detection (or crash detection ) is one of the features introduced on the new generation of Apple devices, such as the iPhone 14 and the Apple Watch 8, Ultra, and Se 2 smartwatches. The new security feature can understand if the user has been involved in ” serious road accidents, such as frontal and side impacts, rear-end collisions and rollovers ” and send a call for help. 

Arrived after years of tests and data research, accident detection is based on the combination of data collected by internal motion sensors that perceive sudden accelerations and movements that indicate a collision and a potentially dangerous condition, being able to distinguish them from everyday actions of daily life. However, there is a specific case in which the system seems to be misled and generates false positives or when you are on a roller coaster. The patients reported are increasingly numerous and are creating many problems as emergency calls start automatically.

Roller Coasters Fool The Crash Detection System

Like all novelties, it is possible that the system can create false positives in extreme situations. And this is precisely what happened in the amusement parks of Kings Island in Ohio and Dollywood in Tennessee where, according to what was reported by Joanna Stern and Coaster101 of the Wall Street Journal, in recent weeks, there has been an abnormal increase in emergency calls tendentially due to the counterfeit detection of traffic accidents of users with iPhone 14 or Apple Watch on a roller coaster. Roller coasters are a variable Apple had not considered: they have characteristics capable of deceiving the algorithm that considers G-force measurements, pressure variations, speed / GPS variations, and loud noises to recognize traffic accidents.

How Not To Create False Alarms

Users with iPhone 14 or new generation Apple Watch get on board. During the journey, the accident detectives believe it has witnessed a collision between vehicles. It activates the procedure that requires user feedback but is busy enjoying the ride, and he does not pay attention to smartphones or smartwatches, so the 911 distress calls start. To overcome false positives, the only option is to set the phone to airplane mode or turn it off before getting to the attractions. Alternatively, you can disable the detection of incidents: from Settings, find the item Emergency SOS and disable “Call after a severe accident, “even if, in this case, doing so makes ineffective the functionality for which Apple has worked.

Don’t Bring An iPhone 14 With You If You Go On A Roller Coaster

The curious details that emerged on the new iPhone 14 concern the possibility of automatically alerting emergency services thanks to the automatic detection of accidents implemented in the smartphones of the Cupertino company. This is because those iPhone 14 users were on attractions, such as roller coasters involving sudden direction changes, acceleration, and hard braking. This is related to the activation of Apple’s automatic incident detection feature on the new iPhone 14. The same feature has also been rolled out for the Apple Watch Series 8, Apple Watch SE, and Ultra. This function is based on the detection of sensors integrated into the devices, which, if they detect movements and accelerations that go beyond certain thresholds, propose an automatic call for help.

The automatic rescue call consists of a pre-recorded message for the rescue authorities and is accompanied by the geographical position to allow rescue workers to locate the Call. The user can reject this Call within 20 seconds of the proposition. If this does not happen, then the Call is made automatically. This is what most likely happened to the owners of the iPhone 14, who became the protagonists of the calls for help during the experience at the amusement park. During the attractions, they will not have had the opportunity and time to realize the notification sent by the system to avoid the automatic Call. 

The events occurred for amusement park goers in Cincinnati, but we can easily speculate that the same would happen in other places under similar conditions. All this represents a risk: a call for help for a false alarm can jeopardize the timeliness of rescue interventions for other situations in which the threat is real. Therefore, we expect Apple to take an official position on the incident. A solution could include advising its users to deactivate the functionality when carrying out particular activities, such as those in an amusement park, or modifying the activation parameters of the functionality to make it more robust to false alarms of this type.

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