Enlarge / Fall Detection on the Pixel Watch. (credit score: Google)

With the launch of the Pixel Watch in October, Google began slowly attempting to claw its method again into smartwatch relevance. Just a few months later, it is launching an enormous characteristic that has been on the Apple Look ahead to 4 years: fall detection.

As Google describes the characteristic, “fall detection makes use of movement sensors in-built to your watch and on-device machine studying to find out if you happen to’ve taken a tough fall and can name emergency companies if you happen to don’t transfer or reply inside a sure timeframe.” Like on an Apple Watch, if a fall is detected, you may get a full-screen pop-up asking if you happen to’re OK. In case you do not reply, an alarm will sound for the following minute, and if you happen to nonetheless do not reply, the watch will name 911. Fall detection has been an enormous cause at-risk individuals just like the aged have an Apple Watch, so it is good that Google is lastly delivering this characteristic.

The Apple Watch model, together with automotive crash detection, had led to some false positives, with the watch dialing 911 when the customers weren’t damage. Google says it has labored to cease that, saying, “Frightened that doing burpees or hitting the ski slopes will set off an unintentional emergency name? Your Pixel Watch is aware of the distinction between taking a tough fall and performing a vigorous bodily exercise and even rapidly recovering from a small stumble—due to our machine studying algorithms and rigorous testing.” Google calls out snowboarding, burpees, leaping, and swimming as actions that would trigger false positives, however hopefully it has labored out the bugs by way of the “rigorous” testing course of.