How to Manage fall detection on Apple Watch?

Manage fall detection on Apple Watch (Apple Watch SE and Apple WatchSeries 4 and later only)

With fall detection enabled, if Apple Watch SE or Apple Watch Series 4 or later detects a hard fall, it can help connect you to emergency services and send a message to your emergency contacts. If Apple Watch detects a hard fall and that you have been immobile for about a minute, it will tap your wrist, sound an alarm, and then attempt to call emergency services.

If the birthdate you enter when setting up your Apple Watch (or adding it to the Health app on iPhone) indicates that you’re 55 or older, fall detection is turned on automatically. If you’re between age 18 and 55, you can turn on fall detection manually by doing the following:

1. Open the Settings app on your Apple Watch.
2. Go to SOS > Fall Detection, then turn on Fall Detection.

You can also open the Apple Watch app on your iPhone, tap My Watch, tap Emergency SOS, then turn on Fall Detection.

Note: If you turn off wrist detection, Apple Watch SE and Apple Watch Series 4 and later won’t automatically attempt to call emergency services even after it has detected a hard impact fall.

3. Choose “Always on” to have fall detection on at all times, or “Only on during workouts” to have fall detection on only when you’ve started a workout. If you’re between age 18 and 55, and setting up a new Apple Watch with watchOS 8.1 or later, fall detection during workouts is turned on automatically. If you upgrade your existing Apple Watch from an earlier version of watchOS, you must turn on the feature to detect hard falls only during workouts.

Note: Apple Watch cannot detect all falls. The more physically active you are, the more likely you are to trigger fall detection due to high-impact activity that can appear to be a fall.