Vratislav Holub The new iPhones 14 and the Apple Watch have received quite interesting news - they offer automatic detection of a car accident, after which they can automatically call for help. This is a rather great novelty, which once again clearly shows where Apple is heading with its products. However, the question remains how the car accident detection actually works, what is happening at the given moment and what Apple is basing it on. This is exactly what we will shed light on together in this article.
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Pavel Jelic What is car accident detection and how does it work?
So let's get straight to the point. As the name suggests, the new car accident detection feature can automatically detect whether you are involved in a traffic accident. Apple himself mentioned one rather important piece of information during his presentation - most car accidents happen outside of "civilization", where it can be many times more difficult to call for help. Although this description probably applies primarily to the United States, it does not change the importance of calling for help in these moments of crisis.
Car accident detection on Apple Watch
The car accident detection function itself works thanks to the cooperation of several components and sensors. When driving, the gyroscope, advanced accelerometer, GPS, barometer and microphone work together, which is then fundamentally complemented by sophisticated movement algorithms. All this happens inside iPhone 14 and Apple Watch (Series 8, SE 2, Ultra) while driving. As soon as the sensors detect an impact or a car accident in general, they immediately inform about this fact on the display of both devices, i.e. phone and watch, where a warning message about a possible car accident will be displayed for ten seconds. At this point, you still have the option to cancel contacting emergency services. If you do not click this option, the function will go to the next stage and inform the integrated rescue system about the situation.
In such a case, the iPhone will automatically call the emergency line, where the voice of Siri will start talking about the fact that the user of this device was involved in a car accident and is not responding to his phone. Subsequently, the user's location (latitude and longitude) will be estimated. The location information is then played directly by the speaker of the specific device. The first time it is played, it is the loudest, and gradually the volume decreases, in any case, it plays until you tap the appropriate button, or until the call ends. If the given user has set up so-called emergency contacts, they will also be notified, including the mentioned location. In this way, the new function can detect the front, side and rear centers of cars, as well as the situation when the vehicle rolls onto the roof.
How to activate the function
If you own a compatible device, then you don't need to worry about activation. The function is already active in the default setting. Specifically, you can find it in Settings > Emergency SOS, where all you have to do is (de)activate the relevant rider with the car accident detection label. But let's quickly summarize the list of compatible devices. As we mentioned above, for now these are only news that Apple revealed during the traditional September 2022 keynote.
- iPhone 14 Plus
- iPhone 14 Pro (Max)
- Apple Watch Series 8
- Apple Watch SE 2nd generation
- apple watch ultra
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