Considering the fact that I go mountain biking by myself rather often, I bought a new Apple Watch as I had heard about its “fall detection feature”, something my old watch did not have.
I checked the settings, switched the fall detection on and off a few times and forgot about it after a while.
Days later I went with my bicycle to a parking lot at Wiener Berg to practice some technical skills.
In a corner, hidden behind bushes, I put my cones on the asphalt to practice cornering.
After a while I thought “Why not practice lifting the front wheel?” as I always had considered it to be fun. I found a small log among the bushes, small enough to easily lift the front wheel over it so I could focus on my technique.
During a few attempts I noticed that on one occasion the front wheel slammed onto the asphalt, something I had never achieved before. I thought “well done” and just ignored the vibration and strange sound from my Apple watch. As it did not stop, I looked at the display. The watch had detected a “fall” and asked whether I was all right. I had totally forgotten about this feature and immediately pressed “I am ok”: Slightly frightened that it would have already contacted my Emergency contacts, I instinctively switched off my watch. Only to switch it back on immediately, because facing unpleasant circumstances is usually better than pretending they don’t exist.
I was relieved that the display looked as normal, no notification or warning. To be quite sure, I called a friend from the emergency contact list. He had not received anything.
Glad that nothing had happened, I switched off the fall detection feature, but quit practicing too, just to be on the safe side.
Back home I thoroughly checked out the fall detection feature. If I had not responded to the vibration and notification, the feature would have given me another minute . Then it would have triggered an alarm😱 and contacted emergency contacts.
As useful as it seems to be, I have not switched the fall detection on since then. I will wait for an update. I don’t want to imagine the alarm being triggered, when going over roots and stones.
Photo: Practicing lifting the front wheel at Perchtoldsdorfer Heide with Eva.