Google may have started rolling out Fall Detection to the Pixel Watch. The company hasn’t officially announced the rollout but at least one user has confirmed receiving the feature via what appears to be a server-side update. Their watch showed a prompt to set up Fall Detection after a restart. The watch is running firmware version RWD9.220429.070 which rolled out early last month.
Fall Detection appears to be rolling out to the Pixel Watch
During the Pixel Watch launch in October last year, Google said it will add Fall Detection to the watch “this winter”. It didn’t provide a precious timeline but the wording suggested the feature will arrive in early 2023. The watch’s first post-release update last month expectedly didn’t bring it. Google’s official support page still mentions it as an upcoming feature.
However, a Pixel Watch user tipped 9to5Google that their watch recently gained Fall Detection while still on the December 2022 update. Upon restarting the wearable, they were shown a prompt to set up the feature to “get help quickly after a hard fall by allowing your watch to call your primary contact”. Tapping the notification took them to the Safety & Emergency section in the Settings app where Fall Detection sits alongside Emergency SOS.
You can access this feature directly from the watch or through the Pixel Watch app on your connected smartphone. The wearable can reportedly detect falls up to 32 g-forces. However, a description on the app notes that Fall Detection may not detect all falls. The description also notes that the feature is dependent upon network connectivity and other factors. It may also be geo-restricted in some markets. For example, Australia and Germany do not support auto-dialing emergency numbers. International emergency calling will require a 4G LTE-enabled Pixel Watch.
A wider rollout should be right around the corner
As said earlier, this Pixel Watch unit picked up Fall Detection while still running last month’s software build. It didn’t get a new software update. So the feature seems to be rolling out via a server-side change. Hopefully, it’s not an accidental release, and the feature is ready for prime time. In that case, we should see a wider rollout in the coming days. We are also expecting an official announcement from Google soon. Meanwhile, if you’re using the Pixel Watch, you can check if a reboot of the wearable enables the new feature for you. If not, stay tuned for more information.
2023-01-05 15:08:02