I own an Android, and I was not aware of this feature. I checked my settings, and it appears that the countdown was turned off by default. Does that mean the SOS feature was disabled, or that it would activate instantly with no countdown? Because the latter would definitely increase the risk of false alarms.
I accidentally activated this in the grocery store like 2 weeks ago and had no idea how I'd done it until just now seeing this thread. My phone started beeping loudly and counting down on the screen and it freaked me the hell out because I had no idea what was going on. People were looking at me like I was about to detonate a bomb or something! As soon as it finished and starred to dial 911 automatically I hung it up before a ring, but goddamn it was concerning to me and those around me. What the hell, Android?
I used to work 911, and butt dials have been a big problem for a long time. When you get a ton of them, it's easy to close the call and ignore it, but you have to take into consideration that sometimes it could be a real emergency and the caller is not able to safely speak. On the other hand, you realistically cannot try to investigate every single one and waste limited, valuable resources. It is a real problem.
As a supervisor on the EMS firld side, I have always had lots of respect for dispatchers' ability to tell what is a malicious false, an accidental false, and a person unable to talk due to threat or illness. Also, I will get called by dispatch and asked if I want EMS to standby while law enforcement investigates or have law enforcement on standby while we investigate in some cases.
Accidentally calls are not some new thing. Apple watches dial 911 all the time while people exercise.
I'd like to know who had the incredibly poor idea to enable this by default. You can't just do something like this without notifying the user!
Disabled it on my device. Samsung's mandatory software updates are already painful, and I have no idea how long this was silently enabled without my knowledge. Good thing I don't fidget with my phone...
There may be lots of problems with emergencies all over the world, but dialing the actual number isn’t one of them.
well, there's a couple benefits i can see to a quick-dial: in an emergency situation time is of the essence and you want as little hassle as possible in reaching emergency services. maybe for some reason you can't dial well, or at all--maybe you're panicking and a shortcut button gives you a less entropic way of calling emergency services.
In an emergency, unlocking a phone, accessing the dialing app, then dialing the correct number on a touchscreen all add considerable friction.
What if you’re wearing gloves? What if the screen is broken? What if it isn’t your phone? What if your hands are wet? What if the fine motor control of your fingers doesn’t work well because you’re injured/cold/burned/weak? What if you can’t see well because of an eye issue or smoke…
Being able to tap an actual hardware button a few times can prove invaluable during these kinds of emergency situations.
A dumbass cousin of mine shot himself while all alone. It took him about 10minutes to call 911 because the blood on his fingers made it hard to use a touch screen. Knowing about the shortcut would surely have helped.
Every android phone I've had had a one-press 'Emergency' underneath the 0 on the lock screen, is it not the same for others? (although I'd argue that is too easy to hit)
Got me thinking how awkward 911, 112 is to call on modern phones with one hand. 999 and 000 are much quicker to dial being only 1 number and at the bottom of the dial pad, 000 especially, being in the middle for left and right handers.
Fair, but that’s also on purpose, to reduce the chance of accidental calls. It’s why this 5-press system seems to have issues, there is no second validation. You should never be in a situation where you’re uncertain if you triggered an emergency call or not.
Yeah, pros and cons to it.
I have never heard of this being a problem until recently, the feature has been around a while. It should probably be disabled by default or have some other failsafe in place.
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