Hiking and outdoors: what the phone detects and what happens after a fall

The app on your phone detects when you fall, and gives you a short time to cancel. If you do not cancel, it sends an alert to people you chose in advance, up to 10 people, who are called contacts in the app. The alert includes text messages and calls from your phone. Contacts who have installed the app get an alarm in it, that is, a loud ring that is heard even when their phone is on silent. Contacts who are connected to Telegram, a messaging app like WhatsApp, also get the alert there.

The 'Hiking and outdoors' profile suits anyone who hikes, runs or cycles alone outdoors. A profile is a setting in the app that decides which falls the phone detects, which sound it plays and how much time you have to cancel before an alert is sent. There are three profiles: 'Hiking and outdoors', 'Field work' and 'Older adults'. This page explains in detail what the 'Hiking and outdoors' profile does. This is the profile the app uses as long as you have not chosen another profile.

The phone detects falls only when the app is turned on. You turn it on with the switch at the top of the app's main screen, and then it says "On" next to it.

How the phone detects a fall

In this profile the phone detects only a hard fall, so that ordinary movements during the hike are not mistaken for a fall. The phone detects the fall with its motion sensor only, so it needs to be on you, in a pocket or in a bag. For the phone to decide that you fell, all of these things need to happen, in this order:

1. The phone drops for at least a quarter of a second. While it drops, the phone's sensor measures that it is almost weightless, like any object that falls.
2. Within 1 second after the drop there is a hard impact, with a force of 5 times the force of gravity or more.
3. After the impact the phone waits 2.5 seconds, and then checks for 10 seconds that it is lying almost without movement.
4. The phone is lying at a different angle from the one it was at before the fall.
5. The phone's screen is off.

If one of these things did not happen, the phone does not decide that you fell, and nothing is sent. For example, if the impact is weaker than 5 times the force of gravity, or if you picked up the phone and it moved during the 10-second check, it is not a fall.

The phone checks the screen only once, 12.5 seconds after the impact. If the screen is on at that moment, for example because you are navigating with a map, the phone assumes you are using it, and does not detect a fall. If the screen turned off by itself before that moment, the fall is detected.

The warning sound and the countdown

When the phone detects a fall, it plays a warning sound, vibrates and shows a yellow screen. At the top of the screen it says "Fall detected", and under the heading a large number counts down 15 seconds. This time is called the countdown. If nothing happened to you, tap the green button "I'm OK", and nothing is sent to your contacts. You can also tap "I'm OK" in the small notification that the app shows at the top of the screen. Moving the phone does not stop the countdown. Only tapping "I'm OK" stops it.

A smartwatch is an extra that you do not have to buy, and the watch app works only on Garmin watches, model fēnix 8 and fēnix 8 Solar. If you have such a watch and it is connected to the phone, it also vibrates and shows the countdown, and you can also press "I'm OK" on it.

The warning sound in this profile is a very loud siren, which rises and falls, so that people nearby hear it too. The sound starts quietly and gets louder gradually, and after 6 seconds it reaches full volume. While the sound plays, the app turns the phone's alarm clock volume all the way up, and after the sound ends it sets it back to what it was.

From the moment of the impact until an alert is sent, about 28 seconds pass. For 12.5 seconds the phone checks whether you fell, and then there are another 15 seconds of countdown.

From the moment the countdown starts, the phone sends your location to the server every 5 seconds. The server is the system's computer. That way, if an alert is sent, your contacts will be able to see where you are on the live map. The live map is a page that opens in any browser, from a link that the contacts get, and shows on a map where your phone is.

When you tap "I'm OK", the phone sends the server a report that you are OK, and your contacts get nothing. The app also notices when you got out of the car and did not come back to it within 90 minutes, as explained further down this page. If you got out of the car, tapping "I'm OK" also resets the time until that alert. From the moment you tap, you have 1 hour until the alert, even if you had more than an hour left before you tapped.

What happens if you did not tap "I'm OK"

If 15 seconds have passed and you did not tap "I'm OK", your phone does 3 things at once:

• It sends a text message to all your contacts. The text message says that your phone detected a fall and that no confirmation was received that everything is OK. If the phone's location is known, the text message also has a link to its last location in Google Maps.
• It calls your contacts. First it calls the contact you chose in the app to get the first call, or, if you did not choose one, the first contact on the list. It calls them 3 times, one call every minute, even if they answered, and then moves on to the next contact after them on the list, and so on. After the last one on the list it goes back to the first, and keeps calling until someone stops the alert. On your phone the call switches to speakerphone.
• It reports to the server. The server immediately sends the alert to the contacts connected to Telegram. In the contacts' app, the alarm passes between them according to the alert chain. First it rings for the first contact on the list. If they do not tap "Got it, I'm handling it", it rings for the second contact too, and then for all the others. If still nobody has tapped, the alert chain goes back to the first contact and keeps going round, until someone taps that button or cancels the alert. A contact taps "Got it, I'm handling it" when they take on handling the situation themselves.

Your contacts do not know which profile you chose. After a fall, they get the same alert in every profile.

If you are OK after the alert has already been sent, tap "I'm OK, give me another hour" on the app's main screen. This button stops the calls from your phone, and if you got out of the car, it also gives you another hour. If no contact has tapped "Got it, I'm handling it" yet, the button also cancels the alert. Then the contacts connected to Telegram, and anyone who has already seen the alert in the app, get a message that the alert was cancelled. Anyone who gets only text messages and calls does not get this message, so it is a good idea to call them. If someone has already tapped "Got it, I'm handling it", call the person handling it yourself.

Cycling fast

To know whether you are driving, the app looks only at the speed, based on the phone's location. It does not know whether you are in a car or on a bicycle. When the phone moves at 25 km/h or more for two location readings in a row, it thinks you are driving. While you are driving, the phone does not detect falls.

The phone understands that the drive is over only after 4 minutes in a row in which the speed is below 6 km/h. So after a fast stretch, even slower cycling, at 6 km/h or more but under 25 km/h, still counts as driving, and the phone still does not detect falls. In other words, if you fall while cycling like this, the phone will not detect the fall.

If you fall while cycling like this and are lying without moving, after 4 minutes the phone thinks the drive is over and that you got out of the car, and starts counting 90 minutes. 85 minutes after it thinks you got out of the car, it plays a loud warning sound. If you do not tap "I'm OK", your contacts will get an alert 90 minutes after it thinks you got out of the car, that is, about an hour and a half after the fall.

Travel mode is a setting in the app in which the phone does not count 90 minutes from getting out of the car, and your contacts do not get an alert if you do not come back to it. People who drive to work or on errands turn it on, and it does not turn off on its own. When Travel mode is on and you fall while cycling fast, your contacts will not get any alert, unless you press the SOS button on the smartwatch, if you have one. The SOS button is a button in the watch app that starts an alert even without a fall. It works in every profile, and also while you are driving, as long as the watch is connected to the phone.

What the profile does not change

The alert for not coming back to the car works the same way in all profiles. 85 minutes after you got out of the car the phone plays a loud warning sound, and after 90 minutes your contacts get an alert.

The alert chain is the same in all profiles, and the SOS button on the smartwatch also works the same way in all profiles.

How to choose the profile

On the app's main screen there is a line that says "Profile:" followed by the name of the profile you chose. Tap it, and a window opens that says "Who does the phone protect?". Choose 'Hiking and outdoors', and the profile is saved immediately. Within 3 seconds the phone already detects falls according to the new profile. A countdown that has already started continues according to the previous profile.

In the same place there is also a line that says "What starts an alert and what happens next". It opens an explanation in the app about the profile you chose.

To hear the warning sound without sending anything, tap "Test the alarm" on the main screen. Despite the button's name, it only plays the warning sound on your phone for 15 seconds, and does not set off an alarm for your contacts. Nothing is sent. The test works only when the app is turned on.