Nobody wants to be in a car crash, but they happen. It's why vehicle manufacturers build heavily with safety in mind and why most modern cars can automatically dial emergency services for you in the event of serious collisions.
The thing is, not everyone's car supports those features, especially if you have an older or lower-priced model. You deserve to be safe regardless, and that's why car crash detection on your smartphone (much cheaper than a new car) could save your life. It looks like that feature might come to the S24 devices sometime soon.
Newer Samsung Devices May Be Able to Detect Car Crashes
Car crashes can cause serious damage. Not just to property, but to lives. And in severe cases, the quicker you get help, the better. Unfortunately, it's not very practical to expect someone who was just involved in a car wreck to be able to find their phone and dial 911.
Some cars have crash detection built-in, but for those that don't, car crash detection on smartphones has been a thing for some time — most notably with newer iPhones and every Pixel since the fourth generation.
For a company with as many phones in consumer hands as Samsung, they're tardy to the party, but that might change. An incidental discovery over at Android Police revealed that the Samsung S24 Ultra and Galaxy Z Fold 5 possess a virtual composite sensor described as “Car Crash Detect Wakeup”. By extension, it can be assumed the Z Flip 5 and other S24 phones have this. It was also confirmed that the S23 Ultra doesn't have the same.
As of now, while the sensor exists, there's no official crash detection feature on these devices, but it may eventually be launched later on. When though? No one can say, but hopefully soon.
Why Isn't This A Standard Feature Yet?
Car crash detection on smartphones isn't some cutting-edge technology, especially since it has been available on Google Pixel phones since 2019, and on the iPhone 14 series and newer. So why haven't other brands — especially Samsung — aimed to bring the feature to their smartphones?
Being able to analyze when a car crash has happened depends on information from many of the physical sensors present in your smartphone, such as the accelerometer, gyroscope, and even the microphones. However, being able to analyze this data accurately enough such that it is only activated when required, can be relatively complex.
However, I personally hope that with Google, Apple, and perhaps Samsung soon, toting this feature, it'll become a standard offering, especially since it can save lives.
Might Car Crash Detection Come to Samsung's Smartwatch Lineup?
There isn't any hint of car crash detection coming to the next Galaxy Watch lineup, but ever since 2022, it has been a feature available on Apple Watches, which means that the appropriate sensors can fit into the structure of a smartwatch.
And since it is very likely to be coming to Samsung's newer smartphones, it'd be nice if it could come with their smartwatches too. The sooner Samsung can set up such life-saving features, the better.
