JACKSON, Wyo. — Collision detection technology which was unveiled in September with the release of Apple’s new iPhone 14 has been the source of many accidental calls to the Teton County Search and Rescue (TCSAR) dispatch center, costing the company significant time and resources. ‘team.
And here’s the kicker: he didn’t save anyone.
On the opening day of the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, TCSAR received half a dozen bogus calls. Not one of them required assistance, in fact the team never received a call triggered by the collision detection feature which led to a necessary rescue. Worse still, TCSAR has not been alerted when real accidents occur.
“This [technology] is problematic to say the least,” Teton County Sheriff Matt Carr said.
Carr says the technology isn’t just being triggered in the boundary, but also in the backcountry, and it’s expensive.
On Saturday, TCSAR received a call from Lincoln County in what they assumed was a snowmobile accident detected by Apple’s new technology. Dispatchers heard an individual “angry with pain” and, at the request of Lincoln County, TCSAR dispatched their helicopter.
But after locating the individual by helicopter, TCSAR found that the detection was just a false alarm and the individual did not need the team’s assistance at all.
“They told us yes, they crashed and the guy hurt his shoulder. But he assured us he now had ‘several beers’ in the day and was no longer in pain. “, said Carr.
This is the kind of thing that worries Carr.
“There is a risk every time you put the helicopter in the air.”
Faulty collision technology is not entirely new to TCSAR. Several years ago OnStar presented the same problem and more recently a tracking app called Life360 did too. Due to its inaccurate calls, TCSAR had to make the difficult decision to no longer answer calls from these sources.
“Whether [the Apple tech] Keeps becoming a problem, we’re going to have to do what we did with the Life360 app. We will just have to say that we cannot take these calls.
According to Carr, technology has placed a huge burden on dispatchers. He keeps asking the same question: how do they know exactly when to ring the bell?
The current approach for dispatchers is to simply listen to the call for signs of distress and first try to establish contact with the subject. They will also make an assumption based on whether the individual has moved or not, as a call gives SAR access to their location.
But ultimately, that’s not a fair position to place dispatchers in, Carr says.
“We’re not going to hit the Go button unless we have confirmation and that’s not what Apple is selling people either.”
But Carr isn’t against all of Apple’s new technologies. In fact, he’s a big fan of his new Emergency SOS Satellite feature. This summer, a group from Apple traveled to parts of Teton County without cell service and tested the new iPhone 14’s satellite functionality. It worked great.
When they were here, I was very focused on them. I said, listen, that’s great, you’re going to remove the ‘search’ from the rescue search, but I’m also very concerned about this crash detection thing,” Carr said.
At the time, Carr predicted this would cause a ton of headaches for his dispatch center, but Apple wouldn’t talk about it. Since then, Carr has contacted Apple several times and received no response.
So what’s the fix before there’s a fix?
“My message is if you can turn off the collision detection feature, please do so,” Carr said.
Search and rescue teams across North America also suggest users to update their devices. However, TCSAR still receives fake ads.
Apple users can manage and learn more about crash detection feature here.
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