Apple’s watch makes headlines quite often for detecting falls or telling people about dangerous heart arrhythmias. It happens so much these days that Apple even released a Watch Series 7 video in January of this year, using real 911 calls to showcase harrowing Watch-assisted survival stories.

Smartphones also help achieve some pretty incredible rescues, like helping a man survive 65 hours buried in rubble after an earthquake or stopping bullets, with thousands of less dramatic – but still incredible – cases saving lives. between the two.

There’s no doubt that the latest gadgets can save your life in so many ways – if you enable the right features – and know how to use them when it matters most.

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Activate fall detection

In late January this year, Southern California police found a man lying unconscious on the side of the road “bleeding profusely” from a head injury after crashing his electric bicycle. Rescuers said it was not a Good Samaritan or even the man himself who contacted emergency services, but rather the Apple Watch that fitted snugly around his wrist at the time of the accident. The “sudden drop” triggered the watch’s automatic crash detection feature, which kicked into action and called local 911 dispatchers.

But the fall detection feature that requested help for that particular California rider is off by default unless you’re 55 or older. To turn it on:

• Go to your Apple Watch app on iOS.

• Tap “Emergency SOS”, then turn on fall detection.

• After activating it, you can decide whether you want it permanently or only during workouts.

Recently, Samsung also added a fall detection feature to its Galaxy Watch line of wearables. If you have Galaxy Watch 4, Watch 3, or Watch Active 2, you can enable “Hard Fall Detection” in your Android settings menu:

• Open the Samsung Wearable app on the phone synced with your Galaxy Watch.

• Tap SOS, then toggle on Detect falls.

• From there, follow the prompts to select an emergency contact who will receive an SOS message in the event of a potential fall.

The story continues

With iOS and Android versions of the feature, emergency contacts are called if the device detects a fall or sudden accident and the wearer does not respond to alerts.

Apple is rumored to be working on a similar crash detection feature for its smartphones, while some Android handsets – like Google’s Pixel 3, 4 and later – already have it as an option to turn it on immediately.

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Act before you fall and you can’t get up

Your smartphone can now even tell when you’re headed for a drop. While most trips, stumbles, falls, or falls often look like random, self-contained accidents that happen out of nowhere, that’s not always the case. The iPhone can now detect the type of unsteady gait that could lead to a fall for weeks or even months, and warn of a higher risk.

I first found these measurements after running an ultramarathon a few weeks ago. When I opened the Health app on my iPhone to see the total number of steps I took during that 50k run, I also discovered a myriad of other useful information, including “Double Support Time” , “Step Length”, “Walking Speed”. and “Gait asymmetry”. To find yours:

• Open the Health app on iOS. It looks like a small red heart in a white square.

• Then tap on “Show all health data” and scroll down.

Each of these data points can alert you to changes in balance or point out other signs of instability on your feet that could lead to a fall.

But you’re not done yet. Although your device can detect poor stability in your stride, it’s still up to you to do something – especially as you get older – to mitigate the risk of a dangerous fall:

• Return to the Health app on iOS. Then tap “Summary” at the bottom left.

• Scroll down the page until you see “Gait stability notifications” in bold. Press the button that says “Configure”.

After approving notifications and reading how they work, you’ll start receiving reports about your walking stability in the Health app. If your device begins to detect that your gait is less steady than normal, it will alert you.

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If you only take one piece of advice from this story, do it.

In order to get potentially lifesaving help when you need it most, be sure to set up your Medical ID. There are different ways to do this depending on whether you are using an Android device or an iPhone.

For iPhones, the Health app on iOS supports all important information including medical conditions, allergies, current medications, blood type, and emergency contacts are all included in the medical ID sheet securely stored on your iPhone.

To make this vital feature available to emergency responders, return to your Health app, tap the profile picture, then tap Medical ID:

From there, tap “Edit” to make changes to how the Medical ID is shared with others. You can choose to display it on your phone’s lock screen, so it can be viewed in an emergency or even shared directly with 911 when an emergency call is made from your device.

For Android phones, adding Medical ID information to your devices varies depending on whether it’s a Samsung or Pixel handset or even what version of Android you have installed.

For Android 11 and earlier, open the Settings app and select “Users & Accounts”.

Then tap “Emergency Information” and edit the fields to add your vital information. You can also add an emergency contact with personal information.

To access this information from the lock screen, swipe up and select Emergency, then Emergency Information.

If you’re using a device with Android 12 or later, you’ll need to select About phone from the Settings menu, rather than Users & accounts. The rest of the steps remain the same.

If you want another way to view medical ID information on your Android phone, you can try easy-to-use free apps like this Medical ID page.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Apple Watch, Samsung Galaxy Watch: How to activate life-saving features