A young woman has revealed how Apple’s “confrontation” accident detection feature works by sharing the text message she received when her sister was in a car accident.
The “very scary” text came from his sister’s phone number and revealed her location on a map along with an alert that she had been in an accident.
‘Collision detected SOS. “I called emergency services from this approximate location after the iPhone detected a fault,” the automated message said.
“You are receiving this message because I listed you as an emergency contact.”
The woman immediately messaged her sister to ask if she was okay, as she had never heard of the phone’s feature before.
A young woman has revealed how Apple’s ‘confrontation’ accident detection feature works by sharing the text she received when her sister was in a car accident
His sister confirmed the accident and although he was fine, he suffered some broken ribs in the accident.
‘As soon as I received the message I called her several times with no response. “She was making me very nervous,” the woman wrote.
“Fortunately, her husband called me and told me that he had spoken to her and that she was fine, just beaten up.”
The woman posted a screenshot of the brief exchange on Reddit to alert people to the feature. Most had not heard of it before and expressed how concerned they would be if they received a similar message.
“I would be scared if they gave me this: my sister is my best friend,” one woman wrote.
‘Receiving that message must have been TERRIFYING. I’m glad it’s okay. I hope you are too,” said another.
Some wanted to know how to set up the feature, which works on iPhone 14 and later and Apple Watch 8 and later.
“I’m guessing it’s the accelerometer, but the accident wasn’t minor,” the poster wrote.
The woman said that the accident was quite serious, but that her sister was going to recover.
‘I didn’t know it was a feature either. “I like it, but man, it would give me chills to get that message,” said another.
‘Once I fumbled and dropped my phone when I was getting out of the car after parking. “It went off and I was able to cancel it in time, but it was comforting to know that the crash detection was working,” one person added.
One woman shared her own helpful “accident” trick.
“There is a Siri command that you can set up and say, ‘Siri, I’m being pulled over,’ it will start your front camera and when you’re done recording it will automatically send the video and your location to whoever you have selected,” they wrote.
The crash detection feature, which works using sensor data, must be activated on Apple devices.
It can be added to the SOS tab in settings, and users can choose to have the message sent to their chosen contact or simply to the emergency services.
“Accident detection is designed to detect serious automobile accidents, such as front, side and rear impacts, and rollovers, involving sedans, minivans, SUVs, utility vehicles and other passenger cars,” Apple support page read.
“When a serious car accident is detected, an alarm will sound and an alert will be displayed on your iPhone or Apple Watch.”