False fall warning?

[MacInWin]

Last night I went to a Christmas parade in my town. It was cold out, but we had lawn chairs to sit in. At one point I realized my  watch 4 was "thumping" my wrist. So I looked at it and it said it had detected a fall. I tapped to say I was OK, then it asked if I was OK because I had fallen but was OK or I didn't fall. I tapped "didn't fall" and it went away. Later I couldn't find any way of seeing the "history" to maybe find out why the false warning.

Anybody else seeing any false fall warnings? I'm on watchOS 5.1.1, no other issues with it.

[Raz0rEdge]

Falls are not recorded if you say you didn't fall. And unless you are worried about it, you can disable fall detection if the false alarms happen too often. The fall detection is based on the gyroscope in the watch detecting the types of movement associated with a fall. It shouldn't detect a fall if you were stationary, unless your hands were moving in a way that is reminiscent of a fall and you've gotta be flailing your arm around for that.

Read more: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208944

[MacInWin]

Ashwin, thanks. I knew about how to disable the fall detection, but I am old enough to think a fall detector might actually come into use some day. I work out alone in my home gym, so if I fall hard enough to be rendered unable to get up, it would handy for it to call my wife (who is the emergency contact I've set up). Just thought it odd that the thing triggered. I don't recall flailing my arms about, just sitting and watching a parade. Did try to catch some candy canes being thrown to the crowd, but that had been much earlier. Not going to worry about it too much, just thought it curious and wondered if others had seen the false warning. I have disabled the heart monitor as it kept giving false readings both high and low. I'd get the warning, take my own pulse and it would be in the 65-75 range (which is my normal range). I think sometimes if it misses a beat, the low alarm is triggered as it reports, each time, about 30-38 as the recorded low, which is roughly half of normal. Never reported a high, mostly because my pulse stays low unless I workout, and for workouts it ignores the high/low settings. I think the  watch has a way to go to be reliable enough to be called a medical device.

[chscag]

I think the  watch has a way to go to be reliable enough to be called a medical device.

Sometimes even sophisticated fall detectors fail. We deal with this quite often with the folks my wife and I minister to. However, in their situation being without one could be deadly.

[MacInWin]

I think false positives are better in this case than missing a fall. I was just surprised that it triggered when it did as I wasn't doing anything really violent or abrupt. But I'm not ready to have it call 911 if it senses a fall. It calls my wife, who can see if I'm ok and make the decision on who to call.

[chscag]

I think false positives are better in this case than missing a fall.

Most definitely. I can relate to several anecdotes where a fall detector saved a life.

Another interesting note while we are on the subject of Apple Watches... I see where T-Mobile is actually giving away an LTE AW 4 to new subscribers. I don't know all the details but I imagine that it would require some kind of a contract with payments for other T-Mobile services.

[Beachmusic]

I’ve had a couple false warnings, but wanted to tell this story from last weekend when I had 4 within an hour...and finally turned it off. Our daughter and SIL are Aggies and were over to watch the TX A&M-LSU game that went to 7 overtimes and ended with A&M winning 74-72. Word to the wise...vigorous clapping triggers a fall warning!

[MacInWin]

As does jumping into the air signaling a touchdown, followed by hign fives and vigorous clapping. I can see it all now...