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Smart watches — and especially the Apple Watch — have certainly changed how we receive and interact with notifications, as well as opened up a lot of opportunities to contact the outside world even without a smartphone in hand. The Apple Watch itself often comes in two flavors — one that doesn’t have autonomous cellular capabilities and one that does, allowing you to leave the iPhone behind when going for a jog.
Apple has also put a lot of development time in implementing ways to send out a ping to emergency contacts or services, which definitely makes sense to have on a smart device that’s always strapped to your wrist. And so far, it has proved useful many times — we’ve already heard stories of the Apple Watch helping save people from drowning, lurking medical emergencies, terrible falls, and others.
Here, we have the story of a foiled burglary
The victim, a 20-year-old female, came home to find one Andrew Canning (31) already rummaging through her stuff. She was immediately threatened with a gun (now reported to be an airsoft gun, but hey — how is the victim to know in this stressful scenario?) and the burglar had her strip her clothes before handcuffing her and leaving her on the floor, while he proceeded to look for valuables to steal.
The victim managed to convince the burglar to move her, by complaining she was cold on the floor. As a result, Canning handcuffed her to her bed, leaving one hand free. It is then that the victim used her Apple Watch for it’s Emergency SOS feature — a feature that calls your local emergency services and also notifies your emergency contacts. It just so happens that the victim’s mother was also in the same building, but on an upper floor. When she went down to check on her daughter, she quickly came face to face with the burglar. Thankfully, he didn’t harm either of the women, but instead took what he could (adding $11 from the mother) and fled.
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Unfortunately for him, the police was already on the way to respond to the emergency call and officers caught him as he was leaving the building. Canning was charged with armed robbery, burglary, kidnapping, aggravated assault, possession of handcuffs and burglar's tools, false imprisonment and weapons charges.
Couldn’t hurt: set up your Emergency SOS
Most smartwatches and smartphones now have some sort of Emergency SOS system in place, which lets you contact authorities with a simple hold or multi-tap of a hardware button. In the case of the Apple Watch — you just hold down on the pill-shaped button on the side for something like 10 seconds. Some regions will require you to actually manually enter your national hotline, as these differ from region to region, so it’s a good idea to check if everything is set-up beforehand than to just assume it would work if you need it (we hope you don’t).
In order to prevent accidental calls, the Apple Watch will make really loud noises before dialing. In the context of this story, we assume the burglar was out of the bedroom when the victim made the call.
The Apple Watch itself has another option in its Emergency SOS submenu — fall detection. Now, this is said to be for older people, who are at a higher risk of falling, but it could also prove useful for sportier types and extreme skaters. When the Apple Watch detects a fall, it will give you a 45 second countdown (with strong haptics to get your attention). If you don’t dismiss the notification by then, emergency contacts are called.
Preslav, a member of the PhoneArena team since 2014, is a mobile technology enthusiast with a penchant for integrating tech into his hobbies and work. Whether it's writing articles on an iPad Pro, recording band rehearsals with multiple phones, or exploring the potential of mobile gaming through services like GeForce Now and Steam Link, Preslav's approach is hands-on and innovative. His balanced perspective allows him to appreciate both Android and iOS ecosystems, focusing on performance, camera quality, and user experience over brand loyalty.
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