An adrenaline-junkie has told how his Apple watch sparked a bizarre false alarm during a day out at the racing track – by sending text messages alert to his wife that he’d been involved in a serious accident every time he spun his car at speed.
Ben Wood’s wife was frantic with worry after getting the messages while her husband sped around the PalmerSport race track in Bedford as a birthday treat.
Oblivious to the chaos he was causing, Ben, 52, drove three high-powered vehicles, a Caterham, a Ginetta G56 GTA and a BMW M4 GTP, and during his careering around the course he spun off a few times.
But unbeknown to Ben this made his Apple Watch Ultra 2 think he’d had a real accident and each time an SMS was sent to his wife Nix, 53, alerting her that he had crashed a car – leaving her beside herself with worry.
Ben said: ‘As an old-school Land Rover Defender driver, I’m not particularly gifted in fast cars, so I spun out several times as I pushed them to the limit, but nothing that seemed particularly serious.
‘I had a terrific afternoon and was quite absorbed. But when it was over I was surprised to get a call from my worried wife saying she had received a series of messages telling her I’d been involved in an accident.
‘I was initially surprised because I hadn’t even taken my phone onto the course with me and then I realised they had been sent by my Apple watch.
‘I didn’t specifically recall even nominating her as my next of kin but I must have done so at some point in the registration process.’
Ben Wood’s Apple Watch sparked a bizarre false alarm during a day out at the racing track – by sending text messages alert to his wife that he’d been involved in a serious accident every time he spun his car at speed
Ben Wood’s wife Nix (right) was frantic with worry after getting the messages while her husband sped around the PalmerSport race track in Bedford as a birthday treat.
Nix, a charity worker, received a series of messages telling her to call Ben to find out more about the ‘crash detected’.
Ben, chief analyst at technology research firm CCS Insight, from Newbury, Berks, continued: ‘In fact, because she got the alert via text messages – and there is so much spam around in that format – she had initially thought it was some sort of attempted scam.
‘But then when she got a second alert she did start to worry.
‘So when she finally got through to me she was very relieved – but we were both amazed by what had happened.’
Nix said: ‘Ben is always testing the latest and greatest gadgets so nothing surprises me anymore, which is probably one of the reasons I ignored the messages to start with.
‘Initially I just assumed it was more SMS spam but when it dawned on me that Ben might actually have had an accident my heart missed a beat!’
Ben, who later wrote about the strange experience in a blog [please link to blog https://www.ccsinsight.com/blog/the-crash-detection-dilemma/], went on: ‘With hindsight it was a funny experience – but it also raises a few serious issues.
‘Firstly motorsports organisers should suggest people not only leave their phones out of the cars, but also take off smartwatches or disable the crash detection capability.
Nix, a charity worker, received a series of messages telling her to call Ben to find out more about the ‘crash detected’
Nix said: ‘Initially I just assumed it was more SMS spam but when it dawned on me that Ben might actually have had an accident my heart missed a beat!’
‘But it also strikes me that there needs to be far greater consumer awareness of these capabilities.
‘At first, I did wonder if the alerts should be clearer, but looking at them again, Apple has gone to great lengths to make them concise and understandable.
Advising recipients to call rather than text back makes a lot of sense if someone is in an emergency.
Even so, there’s evidently some work to be done here to help people immediately recognize when a notification is a true emergency.
‘This got me thinking about how crash detection algorithms work on smartphones and wearables, and their implications.
‘There was a tragic case recently of a teenage driver whose iPhone alerted the emergency services after a crash, but the alert was ignored and precious minutes were lost.
‘But unlike my false alarm, this was a real emergency.
‘However, had my smartwatch or phone been configured to call the emergency services, it could have sent an unnecessary alert – and no one wants to do that with our already constantly busy 999 services.’
Oblivious to the chaos he was causing, Ben, 52, drove three high-powered vehicles, a Caterham, a Ginetta G56 GTA and a BMW M4 GTP, and during his careering around the course he spun off a few times
He added: ‘This is a potentially huge dilemma for device manufacturers wanting to implement a feature with enormous life-saving potential – if false alarms dramatically outnumber real incidents, the capability will be devalued quickly as public confidence will be undermined.
‘Car manufacturers are facing the same challenges as a growing number of vehicles have crash detection systems that alert emergency services or first responders.’
Ben later joked on his LinkedIn page: ‘OH NO – I’ve crashed the car…..Well, maybe not, but that’s what my Apple Watch thought and decided to tell my wife (without me knowing!).’
Apple has been contacted by MailOnline for comment.
