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Will Galaxy Watch/WearOS get proper support for contacting emergency services?

(Topic created: 10-08-2022 07:55 PM)
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DieHardBattery
Cosmic Ray
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Galaxy Watch
Coming from Apple, I was disappointed to learn that the current Galaxy Watches do not support contacting emergency services automatically during either an SOS or Hard Fall event. Seems that WearOS devices (Pixel Watch, perhaps others) do support it as of WearOS3.

I am aware of the workaround to create a 911 contact on your phone. While its better than nothing, I see potential flaws with this. I tested this out on a second line, the call goes through but there is nothing on the other end. I'm not sure about WearOS, but on WatchOS, when it calls 911, it plays a prerecorded message stating the emergency and the location. It would seem that if you create a 911 contact on a Galaxy Watch, you're at least expected to be able to talk to the dispatcher which is not always ideal.

If instead, you choose the 911 contact to communicate via SMS instead, it is just a generic statement that help is needed. It will provide the GPS coordinates, but at least in my experience, when I've had to call 911 in the past the first thing that is asked if I need fire, police or medical. The SMS does not specify.

Maybe there is a reason for this?

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Samsung_Moderator
Community Manager
Community Manager
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Galaxy Watch

Thank you for your interest in sharing your idea with Samsung. We appreciate your feedback and will tag it on the forum so that it will appear with other feedback, ideas, and requests. This will allow your post to be more easily found in the event that Samsung product groups are seeking outside feedback/requests/ideas regarding our products.

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LongHiker
Galactic Samsung Care Ambassador
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Galaxy Watch

@DieHardBattery The Galaxy watch 4 and 5 have fall detection. 

  1. Open the Galaxy Wearable app. 
  2. Click on Safety and emergency
  3. Here you will find the options 
    1. Hard fall detection
    2. SOS with Home Key and the ability to set up who to send the messages to.

You can also make the settings directly on the Watch in the settings.  

user_ams007
Planetary Samsung Care Ambassador
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Galaxy Watch
Thank you for posting that information on the Safety and Emergency features of the Galaxy watch !
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DieHardBattery
Cosmic Ray
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Galaxy Watch
@LongHiker Yes I understand that. The post was more toward how WatchOS (Apple Watch) will automatically contact emergency services (911 in the US) without the need for additional configuration. IIRC, it either does this without the need to set addional contacts or in addition to.

You can sort of work around this as I described in OP, but Apple's (and possibly non Samsung WearOS) implementation seems superior to me.
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Samsung_Moderator
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Community Manager
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Galaxy Watch

Thank you for your interest in sharing your idea with Samsung. We appreciate your feedback and will tag it on the forum so that it will appear with other feedback, ideas, and requests. This will allow your post to be more easily found in the event that Samsung product groups are seeking outside feedback/requests/ideas regarding our products.