Fall detection false trigger

I have had this problem many times, more than 15.

Each time I tell the watch I have not fallen. I was hoping that the watch would gradually learn my movements, but so far that has not been the case. I upgraded to a series 4 watch. I intended to purchase one for my 93 year old father as I want him to have the fall detection. However I don't think he would notice the alarm on his wrist indicating that the watch thinks he has fallen and stop it from calling EMS. At present I am not purchasing one for him as I think there would be many false alarms transmitted.

Too bad as this is a very useful feature. Apple either fix this, or make the alarm situation more obvious.

Thanks,

nancy

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.

I can certainly identify with what you’re experiencing. I’m a senior and I purchased this Series 4 watch for mainly the fall detection feature. The first series 4 watch began almost immediately with the fall detection being activated randomly. I was referred to the senior advisor and all the troubleshooting steps were taken to no avail. I was still within that 30 day timeframe and the Watch was replaced. I received the second series 4 and within days the same issue. With reluctance I returned the watch . Maybe when software is pushed out to alleviate the problem, I will purchase the watch for the third time. Sorry to hear you are experiencing this problem.

This happened only once to me so far. It was on New Years Eve. I got down on my hands and knees to grab something and then used the steps nearby to pull myself back up. I’ve had multiple surgeries on my right hip and back issues so I’m just not very flexible anymore. It’s plausible in that situation to set off fall detection. I’ve been very careful not to drop the watch and I wear it on my left wrist since I’m right handed. I too have this watch only for the fall detection feature. It came updated with the most recent software and I intend to keep looking at these posts for updates. Thank you all.

Hopefully this is the last chapter in the "false fall detection" saga. The Apple Senior advisor who "reached out" to me refered me to another Senior advisor. He said I had 3 options. 1. Send the watch back for further evaluation. 2. Turn off the fall detection feature completely or 3. Apple would send me a new series 4 watch.

I chose option 3!

They sent me an empty box overnight to return my watch. I returned it and am expecting a new one in a few days.

This ordeal took only about 14 hours! Those of you with similar problems, hang in there. There is light at the end of the tunnel.

Thanks virgilfromcypress for sharing your experience and the resolution offered.

I am not sure I have the patience to go through what you have done. I would like to hear if the new replacement fixes your issue. If so, I may try to see what I can get done.

My major issue in this was deciding whether to get one for my father. Given the large number of false alarms I was experienceing, I decided to purchase the Guardian Freedom watch instead. This does not have the fall detection but does have an alarm button. The Initial cost is lower, but monthly cost much higher. It is designed for seniors, and is realtively defeatured which will probably be a good thing for my elderly father. We shall see.

I have the same problem, starting one Christmas Day when I took my watch off to put it on its charger when going to bed. It happened again the next day while sitting at a football (soccer) match, and I contacted Apple Support, who were very helpful and put a monitoring app on my watch - it had happened again without any obvious cause before they took that step. Of course it did not happen again within 24 hours so they took the app off again. All was well for about three weeks, when the alarm went off again while I was sitting at a football match (there had been a winter break but I had been at one match in between the two occurrences. This time the support guy just started again, didn't seem to have looked properly at my notes, and told me that the two options were to switch off fall detection (not an option when the main purpose of my upgrading to Series 4 was for fall detection) or to take it in to an Applestore to check the hardware. In between the call and the Applestore visit, the alarm triggered but this time it was a genuine fall when I slipped on the ice while curling, so I know that it actually does work. By the way, that advisor told me that sharing the diagnostics with Apple would not help my case but simply provide Apple engineers with data which they could analyse along with lots of other data about fall detection.

The watch passed all the hardware tests and the advisor told me that she thought it was a software problem. All she could do was set it up as a new watch, which she felt would solve the problem. It didn't - the fall alarm went off again the following evening, once more while I was sitting at a football match. Maybe something to do with clapping? There is a delay between the cause of the alarm and the alarm going off so I don't know what I had been doing - too anxious to turn it off before it called 999.

The Applestore advisor did not offer to exchange the watch as she said that if it was a software problem it would happen again with a new watch. My wife has a Series 4 and sits beside me at the football, and she has never had the fall alarm go off.

The original advisor sent me an email telling me I could reply to it if the problem recurred but when I replied after the last incident, no reply has come back after two days.

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.

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.

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 am on my 3rd Apple Watch. The first 2 told me I fell when I was sitting. I then got the watch with gps and I fell on the ice. The watch did nothing. I have been talking with senior advisors and corporate customer relations. So far no one can figure out what is going on. I don’t have much confidence in this fall detection feature, which is the main reason I got the watch.

I stopped at two watches because of fall detection false trigger. Maybe the issue will be resolved when Apple Watch 5 is released. I seriously hope that Apple sees that there is a problem with this feature. And by the way the fall detection was the reason I purchased the watch also

I'm still on my first Apple Watch Series 4. Apple Support now has logs created by a diagnostic plug in which I was asked to install. To create these logs, I had to do a special button press of both buttons, and then contact my personal support person who gave me the instructions on how to send the files created to Apple. As the button press procedure is not documented anywhere, I had to try to remember exactly what to do, so it took me a while before I managed to do it correctly. On this occasion, the false alarm triggered three times within 25 minutes while I was sitting watching a football (soccer) match - the common situation for a false alarm to go off. It doesn't happen at every match but it has gone off at all but three matches I have attended over the last two months.

My advisor told me that it could take a while for the engineers to analyse the data but it's now ten days since I sent it and I haven't heard back. Meanwhile I was at another match three days ago and it didn't go off.

The fall detection has gone off twice when I had real falls, one on the curling rink and one when I fell off my bicycle on a patch of ice. I wore it two days ago while training for field hockey and it went off repeatedly when I hit the ball, so I switched off fall detection for the duration of the training, figuring that someone else would notice if I fell! The Watch app on the iPhone does warn that active pursuits may trigger the alarm in error.

I'm confident that the watch will pick up an accidental fall and can live with its going off in error, since it almost invariably happens at a football match. Hopefully, the engineers will pick up the sequence of my movements which triggers it and tweak the software to avoid false alarms. I'm pretty sure it isn't a hardware problem - my watch checks out just fine.

I'm not at all confident that the watch will pick up when I fall. It hasn't done it yet and it hasn't done it for my closest friend, to date, who also has an Apple Watch 4. That said we both continue to get plenty of false alarms. I particularly get them while in the kitchen during chopping and smashing actions when the arm with the watch on does short, rapid, downward motions, where my arm moves less than 10 inches. There doesn't seem to be any learning going on.

I know of 38 watch 4 replacements just in my home town alone from people who know I follow Apple devices closely. Assuming there is nothing special going on here, that's astounding. Of the 38, "only" 12 were over fall detection. One person is on their 3rd watch. The others were due to problems linking their iPhone to the watch or battery woes.

Personally I had an initial problem linking my watch to my iPhone, but after a reset on the iPhone and turning the watch off then on, I had no problem. As to my battery, I get two full days between charges. I don't think you can ask for more from the battery. Other than fall detection it's worked great. I have had some app problems, but they are clearly the apps having problems, not the watch. Most have been fixed by updates, two were made worse by updates and I've deleted them and found alternatives.