Back in 2018, Apple introduced Fall Detection with the Apple Watch 4 – a feature that has the rare distinction of being a very literal life saver. And now it seems like Apple is working on ways to improve it with future wearables.
But first a little recipe. With current wearables – and probably the upcoming Apple Watch 6 as well – Apple is looking for a series of metrics that could indicate a fall, and then sends you a notification asking if you’re okay. If you do not respond in a timely manner, contact the Apple Watch emergency services on your behalf, tell the responder that their owner has fallen and provide a location so that an ambulance can be called. It then comes in contact with your emergency contacts for good measure.
Now it looks like Apple wants to move on. First tracked down by the eagle-eyed patent watchers at Patently Apple, a new series of patents explores how the company can build on this with additional data that the watch about you can invent as additional useful information for the emergency services.
“Information about the user’s previous health conditions can help emergency services identify what type of medical attention is needed, and what type of technicians should be sent to the user’s location,” the patent suggests. “Health metrics that may be calculated using the electrodes include, without limitation, cardiac function (ECG, ECG), water content, body-fat ratios, galvanic skin resistance, and combinations thereof.”
Eagle-eyed readers will notice that not all of the above metrics are things that current Apple Watches can measure, which in itself is an interesting assessment of where the company might want to innovate in the future. But even if galvanic skin resistance is not added immediately, the accompanying Health app of your iPhone may help, if you or your smart scales have dutifully filled in gaps such as age, height, weight, BMI and so on.
So while currently a basic call to the help services of your Apple Watch can tell you your location and that you have fallen, a future laptop could share all sorts of additional data: your age, weight, heart rate, BMI and how often you exercise. Sure, that kind of information being shared can make you feel a little shrunken, but if it’s a matter of life and death, then most people will probably agree that their privacy of data should take a temporary backseat.
Of course, it’s important to remember that just because Apple patents something does not necessarily mean it will ever end up in a commercially available product. That said, this one feels a little more likely, given the build on technology that already exists and that Apple rightly praises. We may not see it in the Apple Watch Series 6, but fingers crossed we have something for the inevitable Series 7 …
