How to Enable Fall Detection on the Apple Watch

Fall Detection is a crucial Apple Watch feature that has already saved many lives. It detects when you’ve had a hard fall, and if you are immobile for a minute after the fall, it’ll automatically contact emergency services. Fall Detection is not enabled by default though, so we’re going to show you how to make the most of this.

Does my Apple Watch support Fall Detection?

Fall Detection works on Apple Watch Series 4 or newer Apple Watch models. That includes Apple Watch Series 5, Apple Watch SE, and Apple Watch Series 6.

How to Set Up Fall Detection on Apple Watch

If you have one of the Apple Watch models mentioned above, let’s start setting up Fall Detection.

1. Go to the Watch app on your iPhone.
2. Head over to the My Watch tab.
3. Tap Emergency SOS.
4. Enable Fall Detection.

While this will enable Fall Detection, you need to set up your Medical ID to make sure that your Apple Watch can contact emergency services. This is where you can add people close to you as your emergency contacts as well, and these people will receive a text stating that you’ve called emergency services along with your location at the time of making the call. Follow these steps.

1. On your iPhone, go to Settings > Health > Medical ID.
2. Now tap Create Medical ID.
3. Tap add emergency contact and select the contacts that you want to ping in case of an emergency.

With that done, there’s just one more step involved in making sure that your Apple Watch can contact emergency services. Follow these steps.

1. On your Apple Watch, go to Settings > Passcode.
2. Now you need to enable Wrist Detection. If it’s enabled already, then there’s no need to change anything.

These steps will enable Fall Detection on your Apple Watch.

What happens when Fall Detection is triggered

Fall Detection will be triggered on your Apple Watch after a hard fall. If you don’t move for a minute after the fall, the watch will start a 30-second countdown. Apple Watch also alerts you that it has detected a fall and you have an option. During these 30 seconds, the watch will tap you on the wrist and sound an alarm, which keeps increasing in volume, as well. The intention of the vibration is to make sure that you are unable to respond, and the alarm tries to let people near you know that you need help.

Once the countdown is over, the Apple Watch will contact emergency services and alert your emergency contacts.

Once the call goes through, the watch will play an audio message that informs the emergency services about your fall along with your location coordinates.

Where to check when Fall Detection was triggered

Apple’s Health app logs all instances of hard falls, so if you want to check when Fall Detection was activated, you can go to the Health app on your iPhone and head over to the Health Data tab. Now you can tap Results to see your fall history.

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