Apple’s recent hardware events have been punctuated by a touch of doom and gloom. It’s a tonal shift from the usual celebratory nature of these presentations – all by design, of course. The Apple Watch was the first of the party. Features such as AFib measurements and fall detection gave way to video testimonials from users who survived close calls thanks to the wearable.
At its September Far Out event, the company introduced another feature that falls into the category of updates that you will hopefully never need. Crash detection for the iPhone and Apple Watch has since proven to be a misunderstood addition, in part due to the fact that it’s extremely difficult to test.
Last week, TechCrunch sat down with some Apple executives for a chat about the ins and outs of the feature. Vice President, of Sensing & Connectivity, Ron Huang, and Vice President, of Worldwide iPhone Product Marketing, Kaiann Drance, answered some of our burning questions about crash detection to help us better understand what Apple’s latest security brings to the table for iPhone and Apple Watch users.
The feature’s addition comes in large part thanks to a new gyroscope and accelerometer. “It’s mainly the G Force detection,” Drance says. It can detect G Force up to 256 Gs. That was one of the main differences for the new accelerometers that the new watches and phones have.”
Huang adds: “It started with our fundamental understanding of what is experienced during a crash. In these crashes, you will see impact forces of more than 100 (Gs). We started around 256. Anytime you try to increase that range, there are trade-offs, in terms of higher range precision and power costs. It took the team a lot of work to build the sensors in this way.”
The new gyroscope, meanwhile, is designed to sense speed changes faster than the older versions. As for the countless other ways the components are used on the devices, Apple says, “They offer the same great level of performance for other things like camera stabilization, playing games, etc.”
Ultimately, the gyroscope and accelerometer are just two of the sensor parts here. The list also includes the GPS to determine if the user is traveling at high speeds, the microphone to monitor for the sounds of a crash, and the barometer, which detects the change in pressure that occurs when airbags deploy. Not all systems need to collect associated data to activate the system. For example, if the windows of the car are down, the change in air pressure will be too subtle to affect the reading.
“There is no panacea when it comes to activating crash detection,” Huang says. “It’s hard to say how many of these things should be triggered because it’s not a straight equation. Depending on how fast the driving speed was before, determines which signals we will see later. Your speed change, combined with the impact force, combined with the pressure change, combined with the noise level, it’s all quite a dynamic algorithm.”
However, the system needs to detect multiple data points at once, so simply dropping the phone into a moving car shouldn’t accidentally activate the feature.
“I actually had a rear fender bender when I was in New York before,” Drance says. “My crash detection didn’t go off because it’s just one of those little things where you just get out of your car and keep going. That’s part of the sensor fusion and accuracy because we don’t want to make a lot of false calls to 1-1 when they’re not needed.
The company notes that the feature wasn’t specifically designed for something like — god forbid — a train accident, though it adds that other features like fall detection have been used for cases outside of their original design. “We think Crash Detection could be too,” says Huang.
Bluetooth and Carplay are also used to determine if you’re in a car, although neither is strictly necessary for the function. “In addition, we added a lot of signals,” Huang says. “Whether it’s road noise or engine noise, we can see that. We can see that the Wi-Fi routers you use change very quickly — faster than if you were walking or cycling, and so on.”
Apple has worked with a number of crash labs to collect the necessary data and conduct field tests to ensure an acceptable level of effectiveness of the feature. It is intentionally difficult to activate outside of the intended scenario so that you don’t accidentally call emergency services. That also applies if your phone accidentally falls off the holder while driving, or even a less severe crash.
“We’ve put iPhones in a lot of different places in the car — on the dummies and the car itself and holders and so on,” Huang says. “And then during such a crash, we collect all the raw sensor data coming from these devices. We also put cameras inside and outside the cars, so from the images you can time the actual impact, which the pressure sensors see as the “We can view data in high-fidelity. We also look at DATA from the Department of Transportation or the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to understand the types of accidents that are the leading causes of injuries.”
The company didn’t give an exact number of car accidents needed to create the final data set, but did suggest it was more than “dozens” and added that “thousands” of its own devices were used in the process. Apple says such crashes in the real world are difficult to simulate, especially crashes that can tick the necessary boxes.
It’s easy to see how the system can be most valuable to drivers in rural areas. After all, if you are involved in an accident in a densely populated area, the chance that someone is nearby to report the accident increases considerably. In a more remote area – especially in the case where it’s a one-sided crash involving an object like a tree – the feature could be a potential lifesaver.
However, like bystanders, wireless signals in such areas can be more difficult to obtain.
“As with any 9-1-1 call, we would try calling it through your network first. If your network is not available, we will try to route to another available provider, even if it is not the one you have with your SIM card. If there is no coverage, it will be linked to the emergency SOS via satellite function. If you have such an accident and there is absolutely no coverage where you are, we will still try to connect via satellite via the emergency SOS capability.”
When asked if there are any differences in accuracy between the phone and the watch, Apple only says “They are both very accurate.” Huang adds: “There are differences. The watch sits on your wrist and the kind of impact you see on your wrist during a crash will be very different. Those differences are there, but the barometer, for example, is very similar to the iPhone and Watch. So there are differences based on how the devices are used, placed or worn.”
The feature is available for iPhone 14 and 14 Pro models, along with the Apple Watch Series 8 and Ultra.