Fall detection false trigger

She claims that the software in the watch is "learning" my movements and should improve over time.

Apparently she is correct. I had a false alarm today and the screen gave me two choices. 1) I fell but I'm OK and 2) I did not fall. Presumably the second choice allows the Watch to learn.

I don't think you're having a hardware problem at all. I think Apple's "fall detection" just isn't close to being ready for prime time. I'm totally disgusted with the feature.

I've got a friend with Parkinsons. His hands shake. He regularly gets a false fall detection just from hand shake, but since he has the watch has actually fallen hard four times and when he fell the watch didn't detect any of them.

My Apple Watch has given me several dozen false alarms. Any time I clap my hands together hard over my head at a concert it goes off. About 10-20% of the time when I'm in the kitchen chopping through poultry, smashing garlic, or shaking a half gallon of OJ hard it gives me a false alarm. This is totally reproducable. But the two times I've fallen hard, both from tripping over something on the floor in the middle of the night, it doesn't detect a fall.

Apple won't admit it, but they need to acknowledge they must work on fall detection and get it to actually work. The false alarms are annoying, but the falls, including the one I had last night which resulted in my head hitting the bed frame hard that weren't detected means this feature is an abject failure.

This happened to me just recently. And is repeatable. So not fixed yet.

I think clearly a software bug. I also get false positives on fall detection from gesturing during presentations that I give. Repeatable.

Second level Apple tech support aware and reported to Engineering. No real advice yet.

I was advised to do a reset of calibrations: Watch->Privacy->Reset Fitness Calibration Data.

Now ... my Watch is also reporting wildly wrong pulse rates during certain exercise activities ... also repeatable. Even though pulse rate is largely accurate ... but not always.

These are software issues that should be reported to Apple.

I have had my watch since mid December 2018. It gave 3 false positives, one even on a chair lift skiing. I worked with Apple support, sent the watch in for calibration. Came back "No Trouble Found". Wore it for three days and it gave two fall alerts with just random hand movement. Apple support said that they would try again with the recalibrate and send it back but would not replace until it failed 3 times. So I send it back the second time, find "no trouble found". Then wear it and have it false positive on a fall again and then they would replace it.

Rather than go thru that nightmare, I decided to wear it for a month with fall detection off. Supposedly it learns from your movement as to what a fall is and what it isnt. Sending the watch in for Recalibration just resets this personal motion learning routine so you never really get anywhere.

Anyway, into my second week wearing it without fall dectection on. Two more weeks and I will turn it back on and see what happens.

The feature is not ready for prime time at all in my estimation.

Just got off the phone with Apple. They (the engineers) told me to unpair the watch and set it up a a new watch.

If the issue happens again they will give me a new watch. Hope this works.

This is a part of a letter I sent to Tim Cook:

Here is my experience with Apple Support regarding the Series 4 watch.

Five different times my watch has indicated that I had fallen. Each time the alert was caused by

very normal movements of my wrist. The first time I was so surprised I

mistakenly clicked that I did fall but was not hurt. Each succeeding time I

clicked that I did not fall.

The first time I was placing my toy poodle gently on the ground. The watch alerted me that I had

fallen. I called Apple Support the next day and the tier 1 associate told me

she had never heard of the problem.

Several days later I got the “you have fallen alert” again while doing the same thing. A few days

later I got another alert. Same arm motion. I contacted another Apple Support

tier 1 associate and was told by her that she had not heard of the problem. I

was transferred to a tier 2 associate. She had not heard of my problem, but she

contacted “engineering” as I was instructed to unpair and repair my watch. If

that didn’t work Apple would replace the watch.

About a week later I clapped my hands to get my dogs attention and received another false alert that

I had fallen. I contacted my previous tier 2 associate. She directed me to a “Senior

Customer Relations Specialist”. She said I must return the watch to Apple’s

“depot” for evaluation. I did this, and the watch was returned. The “depot”

couldn’t replicate my experience so in their opinion there was nothing wrong

with the watch. I was advised to set the watch up as new and I did.

A few days later I opened my car door and was again alerted that I had fallen. I was then the

referred to a “Senior Apple Watch Specialist”.

The “Senior Apple Watch Specialist” referred my case to another engineering group. Since the

beginning of this ordeal I have been sharing the Watch Analytics with Apple.

Their conclusion was the watch was working “as designed” and my Apple

Series 4 watch would not be replaced. I pleaded with the “Senior Apple Watch

Specialist” to make me a happy Apple customer and replace the watch

since my experiences could not have been “as designed” by Apple to give

false triggers to such ordinary wrist movements. She said she would review my

case with her manager. She called back the next day and told me that her

manager would not replace my watch.

I have spent over 10 hours on the phone with Apple on this case and two to three hours waiting on

Apple to return phone calls only to be told there was nothing wrong and the

watch was “learning” my movements.

I will say that all your people that I contacted were professional and courteous, but “no one,

no one” in all my conversations was aware of a problem such as mine.

I cannot adequately express my disappointment with their conclusion or with Apple. I have the

highest regards for Apple, but your company would never have designed the

Series 4 to operate as it has for me.

Both my wife and son-in-law have Series 4 watches and neither has experienced such problems.

I respectfully request that you look again into my case and replace my Series 4 watch.

End of letter to Tim Cook.

A few days later i was contacted by another "Senior Apple Specialist". He was reaching out to me concerning my "problem".

We downloaded additional software to my watch so that "engineering" could monitor my watch.

I'm now up to 12 Hours om the phone with Apple.

We'll see how this goes.

That could very well be that the rapid downward motion makes the detection system think a fall has occurred. In fact, I'm sure that's true.

Having said that, permit me to point out some problems assuming that fact.

1. The motion is only a foot at most for anyone. I even measured my drop from a video taken and it was 12 inches max and a mean of 10 inches. One would hope that the watch wouldn't consider 10-12 inches of movement a fall. Even if you were sitting and fell out of the chair, wouldn't you have fallen more than a foot generally.
2. Shouldn't the watch know by now that my chopping motion isn't a fall after I've told the watch each time that I didn't fall.
3. The constant fall detections and telling it I didn't fall without improvement in the area of false-positives indicates to me that the watch is failing to learn.
4. The lack of knowing I have fallen, when I first tripped and fell thrice since getting the watch and then noticing it didn't detect the falls, purposely falling about a dozen times without detection tells me the software needs significant rewriting and that the base algorithm is faulty as is the AI component since it doesn't seem to learn.

I agree that an unworn Apple Watch should not trigger a false alarm.

After re-reading Apple's description of fall detection:

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

I no longer consider my two false alarms an issue at all. Many cases described here are also nuisance alarms that as Apple designed it, will not call in emergency services even if no action is taken by the wearer. In my cases, I was moving and no such action would be taken.

However, if an unworn watch can trigger a false alarm (pet knocking down or whatever), then the un-moving watch could trigger emergency services. That is a minor concern that Apple should engineer around.

Still digging the little device. I derided it quite a bit when they were announced. Not any more.

Read this, it might explain why your watch displays a false Fall Detection...https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208944

The fall detection failed again. This time I clapped my hands to get my dogs attention. Apple "Customer Service" said "no new watch", but rather required that I send the watch to Apple for inspection and repair. They couldn't repeat my fall detection problem. The techs at Apple updated the internal software and returned the watch to me. It hasn't failed again yet. Apple Customer Service called yesterday to see how the watch was performing..nice! So far no more problems.

I just left my month old watch at the Apple Store to have it sent in for recalibration. They obviously have an issue. Mine went off 5 times, one time sitting on a ski chair lift and the last time just putting it down as you would normally put down a watch on my bathroom counter. The watch went off as I went into the shower and did not hear the alarm. Luckily my wife heard it and we were able to shut the 911 call off before it completed.

If it isnt a swr issue, they have a lot of watches in peoples hands that arent using the feature that may one day and have these same issues out of warranty. Especially if you are under their required age to use the feature right now and try to turn it on in say 5 years.

After 7 weeks on the phone (14 hours) with multiple Apple support people, they finally replaced my series 4.

I haven't had a false fall detection since.

Anyone wonder why there is nothing in the news about this problem?

I disagree. A false alarm is a problem. I’ve had my watch since Christmas and have had three false alarms. The third was yesterday after I clapped my hands then set my hands in my lap. At that point I called apple care to tell them. I did raise the volume and haptics hoping if I had background noise when it happened again I could stop it from calling the ambulance. I was told to call back if it continued and they would see what could be done. The fall detection is the only reason I chose the series 4 watch. Would you not consider it a problem if your home security had a false alarm when you were quietly sleeping away and the siren went off and police came to your house? It’s the same principal. People invest in these things so they have peace of mind and help quickly in a bad situation.

I have had several false alarms, each where I took a sudden hard impact to my wrist ... but not a fall, and one real fall during a step workout, which my watch detected. However today I followed a routine I’ve had ever since I got the watch, taking it off and putting it on a table while I took a shower, and my husband says it actually rang 911. He had no idea what was going on, but when he heard the voice asking what was the emergency, he was able to let them know there wasn’t any. This is of concern to me, since there is no reason on earth why the fall detection should be triggered when I’m not even wearing the watch.

Maybe the rapid motion of your hand resembles a fall.