[HN Gopher] Android's emergency call shortcut is flooding dispat...
___________________________________________________________________
Android's emergency call shortcut is flooding dispatchers with
false calls
Author : PaulHoule
Score : 100 points
Date : 2023-06-26 13:30 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| forky40 wrote:
| I have a Samsung S20 FE and the touchscreen will occasionally
| become unresponsive. The way I found out Android has a panic 911
| call function was by fiddling with the power button trying to
| reset my phone. Then the 911 countdown started and I couldn't
| cancel it because the touchscreen was still unresponsive :(
| adhesive_wombat wrote:
| Literally happened to me on Friday. Samsung A52 and the screen
| was on but the backlight wouldn't come on, so it looked black
| in sunlight. Fiddled with it in frustration and it started
| dialing the emerency number and couldn't see the screen to
| cancel it. Very stressful, and a huge waste of emergency
| service time as they had to call back and double check (and
| take details).
| ktosobcy wrote:
| I just got the prompt the other day and was WTF when it tried to
| call SOS... had to duck-duck-go how to disable this stupidity...
| topherPedersen wrote:
| I saw this happen to someone recently. Their phone was having
| other issues, so we were trying to reboot it, and Google changed
| which buttons you have to push to turn your phone off. You used
| to be able to just press the one button to turn the phone off,
| but now you have to press 2. So I think people might be pressing
| the power button a bunch of time now because they're trying to
| turn their phone off and don't realize you have to hold down 2
| buttons now instead of one.
| kramerger wrote:
| Wait, Google is A/B testing the emergency dial?
|
| What the hell is wrong with these people? We are humans, not a
| data science project.
| tekla wrote:
| Man, I hope the medical field doesn't adopt your viewpoint.
| meepmorp wrote:
| Medical experiments without the explicit informed consent
| of the human subjects involved are considered a big ol'
| human rights violation.
|
| Source: I've had human subjects training
| [deleted]
| friendzis wrote:
| Akshually, medical field is exactly like that, with
| experiments clearly indicated and closely monitored. And I
| really hope it does stay like that.
| phh wrote:
| <Emergency Calling app's team> "We've improved the usage of
| our app by 75% and average session time increased from 3s to
| 15s!"
| jsnell wrote:
| Neither the GP nor the article suggest there's an A/B test,
| you've made it up.
| MishaalRahman wrote:
| No, Google is not A/B testing the emergency dialer. What the
| previous commenter is referring to is a change in Android 12
| where, by default, long-pressing the power button no longer
| brings up the power menu but rather the default Assistant
| app.
|
| Not realizing that the way to bring up the power menu now is
| to either access it through Quick Settings or press the power
| + volume up buttons, the previous commenter's friend started
| pressing the power button multiple times. (Not blaming that
| friend, just summarizing what happened.)
| INTPenis wrote:
| My worst pet peeve is seeing someone put a phone in their pocket
| with the screen still on. So the first thing I do on any phone is
| make sure that when I turn it off, it remains off, until a call
| or until I turn it back on.
|
| This is common sense to me, but unfortunately most people use
| default settings.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I reflexively click the button to lock the phone before I put
| it in my pocket, but iOS has some impossible-to-disable
| shortcuts that work even when the screen is locked, such as
| activating the camera. Several times I've pulled my phone out
| to see that the camera is on. I've got no idea why this is
| possible with the phone "locked" but I've searched for a way to
| disable it and there doesn't seem to be one.
| Tyr42 wrote:
| Android has double tap power to turn on camera (at least
| pixel does) and it's super handy for us. My wife might be
| holding my phone and want to take a picture of the kid and
| me, and this works without needing to type in the passcode or
| borrow my finger.
| [deleted]
| the_only_law wrote:
| Heh, a while back my phone went and died on me and I needed to
| get a new phone immediately so I could 2fa into stuff for work.
|
| I went out and got the cheapest android phone I could find just
| temporarily. I can't remember exactly what it was, but it was
| clear that whatever crummy little SoC they put in there was
| hardly capable of running the OS version they struck on it.
|
| Often, the phone would lock up, but in a strange way. Only the
| rendering would freeze. There were several times an app would
| appear to completely lock up, and I would try to press the lock
| button of even restart it, but whatever app froze was still stuck
| on the screen, at least until it finally got going again and I
| realized that whatever frustrating tapping I was doing hit the
| emergency call button before the Lock Screen had even rendered. I
| had to explain to the operator about 5-6 times before I went and
| got a new phone.
| lynx23 wrote:
| Our local news has featured this already a week ago. It seems to
| be everywhere. Android Pandemic.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| Phones have and send IMEIs. These include a TAC [1] mapping
| directly to a phone model. The obvious solution would be to track
| false (accidental/misdial) calls, and if a phone model exceeds
| some metric (e.g. 5x the median), start fining/charging the
| manufacturer.
|
| This would quickly cut down on these issues and if not, could at
| least provide funding to staff it.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_Allocation_Code
| hypercube33 wrote:
| I mean aren't there a majority who have Samsung and Apple
| phones so those would be biased to be the top two no matter
| what?
| lmm wrote:
| Presumably you'd track the rate of misdialed calls compared
| to real emergency calls, not the absolute number.
| c0balt wrote:
| Well, if the majority of accidental calls originate from the
| top n (n>0) manufactures it would be the most effective to
| address them. That's kinda how regulation works in many
| cases, see, e.g., privacy and safety enforcement in general.
| eugenekolo wrote:
| I had this happen to me about a year ago when this first rolled
| out in the US on Pixel Devices. My phone's power button was
| broken and kept toggling (still is). So, one day after this
| update, it ended up calling 911 on me and I had to explain no
| there's no problem, just my phone is garbage and called
| automatically. Did it a few times after that as well where I
| would have to scramble to cancel it.
|
| I managed to make it to the menu described to turn off this
| feature. And gave up on fixing that device.
|
| Really don't know what went on in the product owners minds to
| release this... There's plenty of people with finicky power
| buttons, children pressing things, general people pressing things
| hoping to make something work, accidental button presses, and so
| on...
| Stratoscope wrote:
| This happened to me last month after I landed at Chicago O'Hare!
|
| > Texting with 22911 (SMS/MMS)
|
| > Chicago 911, we received a call from you, do you have a Police,
| Fire or medical emergency?
|
| > 9-1-1 has ended this conversation. 9-1-1 will not receive
| additional replies to this message. Call 9-1-1 to report an
| emergency.
|
| I didn't see any of this until I took the phone out of my pocket.
|
| I don't _think_ it was from pressing the power button five times.
| With the case I have on my S22 Ultra, it takes a fairly hard
| press. And with where I keep the phone in my pocket, it doesn 't
| seem that it would have gotten pressed at all, much less five
| times. But maybe that was it after all.
|
| Is there another way an Android phone can do an unexpected 911
| call?
| Popeyes wrote:
| My aging pixel had the four pushes of the power button to call
| 999. But the power button is faulty now so I had to turn off the
| emergency call and the press twice to activate the camera.
| 1234letshaveatw wrote:
| alexa likes to reach out to my emergency contact when i tell her
| to turn down the volume. it can be infuriating
| bragr wrote:
| I recently got to speak with my friendly (ok no actually kinda
| annoyed with me) 911 operator because my power button got weirdly
| wedged which triggered the 5 tap panic mode and started up a 911
| call faster than I could get my phone out of my pocket and swipe
| to cancel.
| LanceH wrote:
| This puts them in the difficult position of changing up how
| emergency calls are made -- so anyone who might see this as a
| necessary feature will have to relearn their emergency button.
| taeric wrote:
| I'm somewhat curious what the data is on how many people use
| the "emergency call from locked screen" feature. Devices that
| detect crashes and such are a god send for safety. Being able
| to use the phone from locked state feels not nearly as useful.
|
| Granted, this all became way worse with touch. I wouldn't be
| surprised if larger phones make it worse, too. I have loved my
| flip's ability to "close" and render this a non-issue. Wallet
| style cases also helped, back when I had a non foldable phone.
| throwaway744678 wrote:
| Looking through the settings, I reckon one can set a message
| to be sent automatically to your "emergency contacts", along
| with your location when you use the mentioned feature. A
| possible use case: coming home late at night, you get
| followed by a sinister looking guy; you can discreetly ask
| for help without pulling your phone.
| michaelt wrote:
| _> I 'm somewhat curious what the data is on how many people
| use the "emergency call from locked screen" feature._
|
| Way back when cell phones were rare, the intention was that
| in an emergency you could make a call on someone else's
| phone, even if they were incapacitated. For example, a
| vehicle accident that left the phone owner unconscious while
| other passengers were OK.
|
| In the modern age, where the US has 1.16 cell connections per
| person [1] the chances of needing to use someone else's phone
| are of course much reduced.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number
| _of...
| HKH2 wrote:
| They can easily make it an option when you configure your phone
| for the first time.
| notmyuserlogin wrote:
| It isn't just a problem with Android. I volunteer for a small
| fire department. We respond to about 500 calls a year. Since
| January I can think of three times the automatic crash detection
| on iOS devices has called us out by mistake. 1) A person left
| their phone on their car and it fell off. Being a small town one
| of the volunteers was able to find the owner and bring them the
| phone. 2) A gps location in the middle of a lake. The best we
| figure is one of the people on a jet ski or wake boarding. 3)
| Some people jumping on a trampoline.
|
| Each of these means 2-6 volunteers responding from home to the
| station and then spending 30-60 minutes driving around in large
| trucks looking for non-existent emergencies. Each call also gets
| an ambulance staffed with career paramedics.
|
| On the other hand someone's Apple watch did call us and we found
| he had fallen and gotten stuck down in some bushes and did need
| our help.
|
| There is lots of promise, but also the tax payers are footing the
| bill for the false positives, not to mention the added risk to
| responders.
| jstarfish wrote:
| > A gps location in the middle of a lake. The best we figure is
| one of the people on a jet ski or wake boarding
|
| How do you rule out BUI/drowning? It would suck to be given up
| on. Is there ever any information indicating the call was
| placed by a device?
|
| A classmate of mine accidentally drove into a lake and drowned
| when GPS/E911 conflict dispatched responders to the wrong
| location. It's not a perfect system to begin with, and made
| worse by automatic dialers undermining responder trust.
| throwaway09223 wrote:
| For everyone blaming modern tech: The only time police have
| ever come to my house from a 911 call was back in the 90s. Some
| combination of a noisy phone line and a broken 900MHz cordless
| phone managed to call 911 and they followed up. They said not
| to worry, it happens all the time and was a notable portion of
| their calls.
|
| These types of false calls have been happening for a long, long
| time. We should get more data and fix the system for sure --
| but this isn't a new dynamic and the historic baseline before
| smartphones isn't zero.
| Stratoscope wrote:
| Back in 1996, I was living in Almaden Valley (South San Jose)
| and we had underground utilities. We also lived on top of an
| underground stream.
|
| After a rainstorm, water got in and intermittently shorted
| out the phone line. It was clicking like crazy!
|
| I was on my cool new Motorola StarTAC talking with Pacific
| Bell to report the problem. Then I heard a loud knock on the
| door: "San Jose Police. Open up!"
|
| I asked the officers what the problem was and they said "We
| got a 911 call with no one on the line. We tried to call you
| back, but no one answered. So we had to come out and
| investigate."
|
| I invited them in and said, "I think I know what happened."
| They followed me over to the landline speakerphone in the
| kitchen and listened to the clicking.
|
| Then I explained, "You remember the old rotary dial phones?
| They worked by making and breaking the circuit, just like
| this clicking. Even if we all have touch-tone phones these
| days, the phone lines are still compatible with the rotary
| dial. So somewhere in the midst of all this clicking, there
| were nine fast clicks in a row, and then one click, and one
| more. And that dialed 911. Sorry about that!"
| projektfu wrote:
| I have to register my building's alarm with the county and pay
| a fine after 3 false alarms, or not register and the police
| won't respond. I also pay an annual registration fee.
|
| I wonder if too many "smart" false alarms will lead to similar
| regulation.
| [deleted]
| Marsymars wrote:
| In my city, monitored alarms aren't worthwhile for non-
| commercial properties. For the police to respond, your alarm
| has to be registered, and registration requires authorized
| first responders with keys to confirm that an alarm is false
| or valid before police are called/dispatched.
| kthejoker2 wrote:
| Are these false positive data points logged in a database?
|
| Are your records shared or aggregated up to a central agency?
|
| Wondeing how we might calculate the cost/benefit analysis.
| mahathu wrote:
| I hate Apple as much as any other large tech company, but 1/4
| true emergency rate seems like a pretty good start in cases
| where a person's life may be at risk!
|
| Emergency services in my city (the one you call via phone) have
| a "true emergency" rate of about 1 in 10 according to emergency
| personnel I talked to, so it is always a matter of balancing
| the false positive/false negative rate.
| Alupis wrote:
| Another way to look at it - 1/4 of the time people who needed
| emergency responders had to wait because they were busy
| looking into false alarms.
|
| Seconds literally matter for many emergencies.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Another way to look at it - 1 /4 of the time people who
| needed emergency responders had to wait because they were
| busy looking into false alarms._
|
| Your position makes the assumption that the rest of the
| emergency services infrastructure is at maximum use at all
| times.
|
| The OP was talking about a place where they use volunteers,
| so it's not likely that they're constantly in use.
|
| While you are correct that seconds _can sometimes_ matter,
| it 's not always true. Not every emergency call is life-or-
| death. Not every emergency call even requires a response.
|
| Imaging a hypothetical world where every call is a true
| emergency, and emergency services are at 100% utilization
| 100% of the time is arguing just for the sake of arguing.
|
| I live in a place where emergency services is over-taxed.
| But I'd rather have actual lives saved with a certain
| number of false alarms than have people die because someone
| decided that perfection is the only option.
| kevinventullo wrote:
| I don't think that follows from their example at all.
| mahathu wrote:
| "1/4 of the time people who needed emergency responders had
| to wait because they were busy looking into false alarms."
|
| That would be even better, as that would mean 3/4 of the
| alarms are hits/non false-positives. I argue that even a
| 1/4 hit rate, i.e. 3/4 false positive rate, is a good
| start.
| HappyPanacea wrote:
| This conclusion doesn't follow, it only makes sense if they
| are 100% busy all the time. I volunteered in an emergency
| ambulance a little bit and most of the time we waited in
| the waiting station.
| willcipriano wrote:
| The boy who cried wolf had a better rate 1/3.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| I've had my iPhone call 911 twice.
|
| Once I was tucking to pick up speed and I must have
| accidentally held the side button down in my pocket. I didn't
| notice anything had happened until I got a call back asking if
| I was okay. (I _did_ hear the countdown alarm that plays, but
| misattributed it to a snowmobile or other equipment at the ski
| resort.)
|
| The second time I was also skiing and did actually fall. I was
| unhurt but I guess going fast enough to trigger the call.
| Unfortunately I couldn't get myself situated enough (gloves,
| zippered pocket, super steep hill) to cancel before the call
| went through.
|
| The dispatchers were great in both cases. Asked me a few
| questions to make sure nobody in the area needed help and
| nothing else happened.
| HKH2 wrote:
| The Android settings search needs a lot of improvement. Nothing
| relevant matches 'power button'. 'emergency button' won't find
| anything either. You have to know to look in 'Emergency SOS' to
| know it exists without accidentally triggering it.
| toast0 wrote:
| My favorite is when you search for things you know are there
| and they don't show up.
|
| My second favorite is when you search for things, it shows up
| in search, you tap and it brings you to a page and the setting
| isn't there.
| LesZedCB wrote:
| I have unfortunately done it I think three times, every time
| because I'm trying to turn the volume up or down quickly.
|
| the first time I cancelled the call, they called back and I
| explained.
|
| second time, I stayed on the line to explain, which they
| appreciated. this time I turned the feature off.
|
| third time was on a new phone and hadn't disabled it...
|
| I don't remember if iphone switch the volume button side between
| generations, but on Android it's not consistent model to model..
|
| it's a great idea for sure, but it's easy to do accidentally if
| you confuse volume for power.
| d3450 wrote:
| As an android user for 10+ years, and an avid one at that, this
| feature still managed to surprise me when my phone screen died in
| the office one day. I knew the phone was still working as the
| touch layer was still giving me feedback, but I was trying all
| the old tricks in the book, unaware that this feature is
| automatically switched on when you upgrade the phone. This was on
| a 2+ year old Samsung phone that released on a version prior to
| android 12
|
| Android is usually pretty good at providing quick menu toggles
| for things like this, or indicating to you where/when a new
| feature has been added, but this was entirely hidden in sub-menus
| without me even realising. Unfortunate for the emergency
| dispatcher who had to listen to me frantically trying to
| understand what was happening with a broken phone screen.
|
| I understand why this is an auto on feature for safety, but the
| lack of highlighting is really sub-par for the average user
| xethos wrote:
| > but this was entirely hidden in sub-menus without me even
| realising
|
| For context in case it was missed in TFA: While Samsung has a
| settings page for the feature, some users report the page
| doesn't actually have an "off" switch. Some builds for the
| Galaxy S23 and S22 let you control things, like if emergency
| SOS should play a warning sound, but you can't actually turn
| off the power button shortcut.
|
| I don't blame you for not realising, considering you were never
| notified, and likely not even given the option to turn it off.
| ewoodrich wrote:
| Just as a data point my unlocked Galaxy S23 Ultra has a
| working toggle and I just verified it actually was disabled
| after turning it off.
| peanut-walrus wrote:
| I dropped my Pixel in water and since it had previously cracked,
| it had lost the waterproofing. The water apparently shorted the
| power button and the screen. That was a fun night when the dead
| phone woke up and started dialling 112 repeatedly and there was
| nothing I could do short of smashing the damn thing with a hammer
| to stop it.
|
| Every electronic device needs to have a physical disconnect for
| the power supply. It should be considered a severe enough fault
| to warrant not getting market approval if this is missing.
| labster wrote:
| Just put it in a Faraday cage. Problem solved.
| piinbinary wrote:
| I wonder if a microwave is a sufficient Faraday cage to kill
| cell reception
| unsignedint wrote:
| I guess this is one of the major down sides of battery not
| being removeable...
| rwiggins wrote:
| Fortunately, it seems the EU will mandate removable batteries
| by 2027? Caveat: I haven't done any research into that
| besides the headline, so YMMV.
|
| https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/06/22/new-eu-law-to-
| forc...
| tl_donson wrote:
| so, 2 related questions for people with product experience on
| something with this sort of scale and potential downsides.
|
| - would this not be one of the best examples of when to use
| small, incremental canary releases with the emergency feature
| enabled?
|
| - if you did do a canary release, i would think that one of your
| first contacts be EMS in the area that you were planning on
| rolling out the feature to, so that you'd get good feedback
| directly rather than through news reports. do apple and google
| just not do this?
| maverick2007 wrote:
| Happened to me too, on a roller coaster funny enough.
|
| I was at Busch Gardens in VA, riding their new coaster (Pantheon
| [1] for those curious). It's a fast, launched coaster and I guess
| the way I was sitting with the restraints hit the power button of
| my pixel 5 times and toggled the emergency call feature. I felt
| my smart watch vibrating with the ongoing call as we went up the
| top hat spike of the ride. Thankfully I was able to stop the call
| from my wrist before it connected. But that was the last time I
| didn't turn my phone off or put it in a locker before I got on a
| ride.
|
| [1] https://rcdb.com/16812.htm
| sowbug wrote:
| Possibly related: I've noticed that when I'm in humid weather and
| I stick my phone into a damp pocket, it basically monkey-tests
| until I pull it back out again. Flashlight might be on, string of
| gibberish might be queued up on a text message, etc.
|
| I'm normally really good about locking the screen when I'm done,
| but something with fingerprint or face recognition or lock screen
| quick actions behaves poorly.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| I think this is a touchscreen thing. If I take my phone in the
| shower and put it in a place where water splashes on it during
| the shower, it does all sorts of random stuff. Have to remember
| to set it to locked or else I might text someone or delete an
| email.
| xatax wrote:
| > but something with fingerprint or face recognition or lock
| screen quick actions behaves poorly
|
| Maybe I'm not crazy. Twice in the past couple weeks, my phone
| has seemingly unlocked itself in my pocket and I suspected it
| was to do with moisture/sweat, but dismissed it as unlikely.
|
| In the first instance, it emergency dialed. I had just hung up
| the phone and put it away, so I thought I hadn't secured it.
|
| In the second instance, I hadn't touched my phone in several
| minutes when suddenly my podcadt was overlaid with a demo video
| from an executive at my company which had opened in Teams. I
| closed out of that and discovered an unsent text to my wife
| filled with gibberish and a dozen image attachments.
|
| I have a swipe and fingerprint enabled. My best guess is the
| mosture is registering my leg through the pocket and swiping it
| unlocked in an infinite monkeys scenario. I switched to
| password only for my walks now and haven't had an issue since.
| lm28469 wrote:
| Sometimes brushing against the fingerprint sensor (with the
| proper finger) is enough to unlock the phone. It might happen
| when you put your phone back in your pocket, then it's pure
| chaos
| no_butterscotch wrote:
| Wow this has happened to me more in the past few months than
| in the previous decade of iPhone ownership.
|
| I received a call with my Mom, my emergency contact, because
| somehow my phone had pinged her or dialed her as an
| emergency.
|
| Other times I pull out my phone and also see that it was
| doing something. Earlier today I was using google maps in a
| new city, I put my phone back in my pocket and when I pulled
| it out a few minutes later I was on an "add a new place to
| the map" or "mark a new place" flow.
| caditinpiscinam wrote:
| Maybe you have smart lock turned on?
| https://support.google.com/android/answer/9075927
| Semaphor wrote:
| Yeah, happens every summer to me.
| soco wrote:
| Don't believe it's only a phone thing. My Lenovo Thinkpad
| touchpad goes crazy as soon as my fingers are humid, be it from
| hand washing or sweating (hello, summertime). For some reason
| it will jump wildly around and also keep a mousedown event like
| forever then nothing will help: wiping it dry or crazy tapping
| or anything. Reboot it and it will work again - until the next
| wet touch.
| krzyk wrote:
| I have the same thing, I tried to disable all functions of my
| Pixel 4 that would do that.
|
| It amazes me that the simplest thing is not done here: if
| proximity sensor senses your screen is covered - do not enable
| the screen ever.
|
| When I'm jogging my phone sometimes sends texts, runs apps etc,
| same when I have phone in my pocket.
|
| Why don't they use proximity sensor?
| ixwt wrote:
| I remember having an issue with a Nexus that I had a while
| back. I had a hard time getting the screen to turn on and
| stay on. Turns out, I had misapplied the screen protector and
| the proximity sensor was thinking that it was in a situation
| which it shouldn't turn on.
|
| While it was my own doing, I can see many people having that
| problem to the point where Android turned off the
| functionality. Multiple support calls, requests to return
| "defective" phones, etc.
|
| But yeah, I currently have the same issue. If my current
| Pixel 3a is in my slightly damp pocket, it will have tried to
| "monkey touching" as the post above called it.
| virtue3 wrote:
| I ended up getting a wallet style case with a cover for
| this exact reason.
| fatnoah wrote:
| This was my frustration with the Pixel 4 as well. So many
| random things done on my phone, including Amazon 1 Click
| purchases or random emails about to be sent, etc. All because
| the stupid thing somehow decides that the screen should be
| enabled in my pocket. However, if I'm making a call with the
| phone up to my ear and move it to look at it..."no screen for
| you!"
| Terr_ wrote:
| > amazes me that the simplest thing is not done here: if
| proximity sensor senses your screen is covered - do not
| enable the screen ever.
|
| The sensor is prone to false positives, such as when you have
| the phone in a waterproof pouch while hiking or boating.
| com2kid wrote:
| > It amazes me that the simplest thing is not done here: if
| proximity sensor senses your screen is covered - do not
| enable the screen ever.
|
| This works well, until the prox sensor stops working (e.g. a
| piece of dust lands on it) and you can no longer get the
| phone screen to turn on.
|
| It cuts both ways. :(
| nokya wrote:
| In Xiaomi smartphones it's even worse. You have the option to
| disable the feature (settings -> password & security -> emergency
| sos) and once you disable it...then it turns on the feature.
|
| Great, isn't it?
| taeric wrote:
| This happened to me. Phone was in my pocket and just started
| making noise. I pull it out to see it had initiated an emergency
| call and I tried cancelling as fast as I could. Got a call back
| from dispatch to make sure I was ok. Kudos on them for their
| patience.
|
| This was actually a large part of why I decided to buy a "flip"
| phone. With the screen closed, far fewer ways for me to have it
| activate while in my pocket.
| [deleted]
| teen wrote:
| My phone does this all the time when I'm skateboarding. The cops
| get pissed.
| danpalmer wrote:
| iPhones have exactly the same feature, activated in almost the
| same way, except that it requires one fewer interactions with the
| device to trigger, and yet, there's no reporting about this
| happening too much with iPhones, nor was there any when the
| feature came out a few years ago.
|
| Additionally, this doesn't seem to have been a problem when it
| rolled out on Pixel devices a year and a half ago, Pixels are
| certainly common enough for that to become a known issue.
|
| Why is Android different? Why are third party Android devices
| seemingly so different?
| at_a_remove wrote:
| Not that different. In 2018, there _were_ a lot of fake 911
| calls from iPhones, if you look around for it.
|
| Now the iPhone's fake 911 call issue comes from its "auto car
| crash detection," which gets set off when people ski and, well,
| fall.
| danpalmer wrote:
| I've seen that but I consider it to be a separate issue. Same
| result but completely different cause, and arguably a harder
| one to get right.
| martin8412 wrote:
| I've had my Apple Watch detected me playing volley ball as
| having a serious fall, but it doesn't call until after a
| minute, and it makes quite a loud sound to notify the wearer
| that it's about to call.
| microtherion wrote:
| It happens on iPhones and Watches as well, occasionally.
|
| But if I remember correctly, the emergency call feature is
| something that is explicitly explained during the iOS/watchOS
| initial setup and/or upgrade procedure, at which point you can
| also elect to opt out, so at the very least, it's less of a
| surprise.
| moojd wrote:
| There have been a few articles about iPhone 911 calls at
| bonaroo this week:
|
| https://gizmodo.com/iphones-false-911-calls-bonnaroo-android...
| MBCook wrote:
| That's the crash detection feature, not hitting a button
| repeatedly.
| MishaalRahman wrote:
| Google made including the "emergency SOS" gesture a GMS
| requirement for Android 12 but left it up to OEMs to decide
| whether or not to enable it by default. I suspect this spike in
| emergency calls stems from a few factors:
|
| 1) Due to the general lag between Google pushing a new release
| out to AOSP and OEMs pushing out updates, many devices have
| only recently been updated to Android 12. OEMs with outsize
| market share pushing out updates will result in many more
| people - who probably don't know this gesture was added or how
| it's activated - accidentally triggering it.
|
| 2) Some OEMs may have flipped the switch in an OTA to turn the
| gesture from off by default to on by default.
| Izkata wrote:
| Seems obvious to me: Power is opposite Volume on Samsung
| Android phones, but not on Pixel. Easy to hit both buttons at
| once, and iPhone may do something special to detect that.
|
| My Blackberry Android phone is the same, I remember having to
| train myself not to hit power when I first got it because my
| previous phone wasn't like this.
| danpalmer wrote:
| Ah! Good point. Yes on my iPhone if I press one or both
| volume buttons while pressing power 5 times it doesn't
| trigger, and yes on my Pixel the power button is above the
| volume button.
|
| It seems strange that Samsung wouldn't do something to tackle
| this. Part of the point of Samsung and other OEMs taking ages
| to roll out new Android versions is that they're testing and
| ensuring compatibility.
| derefr wrote:
| > iPhone may do something special to detect that
|
| Apple seem to have lockscreen "keyboard mash detection" for
| macOS (where, if you are cleaning your keyboard and therefore
| mashing down keys as you swipe across them with a cloth, the
| OS will wake up and process the random inputs a while --
| _until_ it detects that you 've mashed 4+ function-row keys
| at once, at which point it'll just go back to sleep) so I
| wouldn't put it past them to have similar logic for iOS.
| hypercube33 wrote:
| Personally from my Samsung phone - it had enabled gestures by
| default. This allowed you to tap the screen a few times and it
| would present you with the lock screen which has the emergency
| call button. From personal experience - the phone will wake up
| and go into this menu if you sweat and have the phone in your
| pocket.
| [deleted]
| Semaphor wrote:
| The iPhone had its articles about it half a year ago:
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=tru...
| MBCook wrote:
| No, that's crash detection. Not pressing a button multiple
| times accidentally.
| xethos wrote:
| From TFA:
|
| > The funny thing is, Android 12 -- and this easy emergency
| call feature -- came out a year and a half ago. [...] the
| feature is only now hitting enough people to become a national
| problem. Google's Pixel devices get new Android updates
| immediately, but everyone else can take months or years to get
| new versions of Android [...]. When this landed on Pixel
| devices in 2021, it was immediately flagged as a problem by
| some people, with one Reddit post calling it "dangerous." Since
| then, there has been a steady stream of posts warning people
| about it.
|
| It objectively has been a problem, and was a known issue, with
| Reddit posts warning others. There just weren't enough Pixels
| to cause this latest tsunami. That year-and-a-half delay from
| Samsung rolling out Android 12 was meant to be for testing -
| which apparently didn't catch everything.
| danpalmer wrote:
| I did read this but it doesn't feel convincing. People
| complain on Reddit about anything, and have complained about
| triggering this on iOS, and yet we don't get ArsTechnica (or
| the BBC, or other major news organisations) covering it as a
| widespread problem. There are plenty of Pixels, I'd expect
| enough to cause coverage if this was a substantial issue.
|
| Increasing the accessibility of emergency calls is always
| going to be a tradeoff, so I'm not surprised there are
| accidental calls. However it strikes me as being
| significantly exacerbated by _something_ about the phones it
| 's rolling out to.
| nitwit005 wrote:
| There's about 3 android phones for every iOS device. Seeing
| Android highlighted as a problem isn't surprising.
| [deleted]
| predictabl3 wrote:
| Funny, I've never mistriggered this, but I constantly find my
| phone accidentally in airplane mode, with data turned off, with
| the torch on, etc.
|
| _Because Google doesn 't understand the word "lock" in
| "lockscreen"_
|
| There's like a decade-old issue marked "won't fix", despite
| constant user complaints and non-Google manufacturers having a
| clear option for _locking_ Quick Settings _on the lock screen_.
|
| Just another papercut making me consider dropping the Pixel line
| and just buying something even cheaper than can run LineageOS.
| It's amazing the lengths Google goes to enact death by a million
| papercuts on their flagship OS.
| [deleted]
| omgmajk wrote:
| This happened in my pocket the other day, first time it happened.
| Samsung Galaxy S21+ that I have as a work phone. Suddenly a loud
| noise started blaring in the car and I had no idea where it came
| from until I noticed it had already started dialing 112.
| bombcar wrote:
| I had to disable the shortcuts on my iPhone because the toddler
| had discovered hold to dial 911 and talk to the nice lady.
|
| Luckily I caught it before it became like the other case I heard
| of, where a kid learned he could get a fire truck to visit
| anytime he was bored and had a phone.
| corywatilo wrote:
| Same has happened here with our 2-year old, except we didn't
| get to it in time and have had the fire department show up on
| more than one occasion before we figured out what was
| happening.
|
| There were also a handful of times we could hear a voice coming
| through the wife's phone where we narrowly avoided a few more
| visits.
|
| This was all before we discovered how she actually calling 911.
| It's shocking to me Google didn't make more of a deal about
| this new "feature" when they rolled it out.
|
| This definitely should have been opt-IN, not opt-out. Sure
| smells like a classic example of tech PMs making idealistic
| decisions that affect people in the real world without thinking
| through all of the consequences.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > Luckily I caught it before it became like the other case I
| heard of, where a kid learned he could get a fire truck to
| visit anytime he was bored and had a phone.
|
| Reminds me of the kid's book where a young girl (kindergarten
| age) really has to use the bathroom but can't find it so she
| calls 911 because she was taught "call 911 if and only if there
| is an emergency".
| methodical wrote:
| This is anecdotal but the same exact thing (albeit with an Apple
| Watch vs. Android) happened to me a few days ago- I had forgotten
| to turn on the watch's water mode before going in the water.
| After about like 5 minutes in the pool it started calling 911 for
| a medical emergency. My watch ended up calling 911 about 3 times
| (it probably tried to call them about 5 more times but I ended up
| taking it off in time to prevent those calls- since it wasn't
| responding to my inputs at all). I also got a call from the
| Sheriff's office a little bit later and had to sheepishly explain
| that my watch was spam calling 911.
|
| Still unsure what happened with it exactly, but whatever was
| triggering it to do this seemed to not simply be due to water on
| the screen since it tried to call 911 again even when I put the
| watch back on hours later after it had dried. I have since power
| cycled it a few times and let it run out of battery and it hasn't
| tried getting me arrested for spoof calling 911 again, so that's
| promising.
| tazjin wrote:
| I have a nice, handmade mechanical watch and it's never tried
| to spam-call any emergency services. Also shows the time fairly
| reliably.
| throwaway742 wrote:
| Yes, but can it collect large amounts of personal data about
| you?
| DanHulton wrote:
| These are not the same category of product in the same way
| that a smartphone and a rotary phone are not the same
| category of product, despite have words in their name in
| common.
| [deleted]
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