Apple's new crash detection feature on the iPhone 14 and Apple Watch Ultra was tested by The Wall Street Journal'sJoanna Stern. Apple gave more information about the feature.
Michael Barabe was recruited to crash his demolition derby car with a heavy-duty steel frame into two cars in a junkyard, which were not occupied.
When I contacted Apple with the results, a company spokesman said that the testing conditions in the junkyard didn't provide enough signals to the iPhone to trigger the feature in the stopped cars. It wasn't connected to Bluetooth or CarPlay, which would have indicated the car was in use, and the vehicles might not have traveled enough distance prior to the crash to indicate driving. Had the iPhone received those extra indicators—and had its GPS shown the cars were on a real road—the likelihood of an alert would have been greater, he said.
Apple's crash detection feature is powered by advanced Apple-designed motion algorithms trained with over a million hours of real-world driving and crash record data. Hardware and software are used to detect a crash on supported Apple Watches.
• Motion sensors: All the devices have a three-axis gyroscope and high-g force accelerometer, which samples motion more than 3,000 times a second. It means the devices can detect the exact moment of impact and any change in motion or trajectory of the vehicle.
• Microphones: The mics are used to detect loud sound levels that might indicate a crash. The microphones are only turned on when driving is detected, and no actual sound is recorded, Apple says.
• Barometer: If the air bags deploy when the windows are closed, the barometer can detect a change in air pressure.
• GPS: Readings can be used to detect speeds prior to a crash and any sudden lack of movement, as well as inform the device that it's traveling on a road.
• CarPlay and Bluetooth: When connected, these give the algorithms another signal that the phone is on board a car, so it knows to look out for a crash.
The Apple Watch Series 8, second-generation Apple Watch SE, and Apple Watch Ultra have crash detection enabled by default. The feature is not available on older models of the phone.
According to Apple's website, the crash detection feature is designed to detect "severe" car crashes, including front-impact, side-impact, and rear-end crashes. The feature can't detect all car crashes, so it's not failproof.
An alert and alarm can be sounded when a car crash is detected. If a user is able to call emergency services, they can either dismiss the alert or use the Emergency Call feature on their phone. If they don't respond to the alert within 10 seconds, the device will start a new 10-second clock. The device will call emergency services if they haven't responded yet.
If a car crash is detected, users will use the Apple watch. Users interact with the phone
It is reassuring that the feature was able to detect some of the crashes, even though the test was not scientific. Testing stationary vehicles in a controlled environment can't really recreate an on-street collision.
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