Found an error?
Report now
Things can get rough at the Download Festival.
Getty Images
At the British Download Festival, hundreds of emergency calls were recently triggered by smart watches. A real problem for the emergency services.
It was the kind of weekend rock fans love. Brutal riffs, booming bass, flowing manes and mosh pits. During the latter, visitors euphorically threw themselves into each other. But what means pure ecstasy for music fans recently caused a state of emergency for the police in Leicestershire. The emergency services received almost 700 more emergency calls than usual. And it quickly became clear that the partying crowd at the Download Festival was responsible.
The reason for the false alarms were the festival-goers' smart watches. More precisely, their automatic accident detection, which is integrated as standard in many models from Apple, Garmin and Google, for example. The function detects abrupt movements, falls or blows. In other words, exactly what happens in a wild mosh pit. It then makes an automatic emergency call if the user does not react within a very short time.
"The additional emergency calls were all taken seriously and checked", explained the police on Facebook. In some cases, calls were returned to ensure that there was no actual emergency. However, each of these callbacks ties up resources and delays real help in an emergency.
This content comes from external providers such as YouTube, TikTok, or Facebook. Please enable "Swisscom advertising on third-party platforms" to view this content.
What is a life-saving feature for tech manufacturers quickly backfires in the context of a festival. "There were no serious emergencies - people were just having a lot of fun," the officials continued. But the fun of some became a burden for many. Because while some people were letting off steam to the sounds of metal, the lines at the emergency call center were running hot. With potentially dangerous consequences for all those who actually needed help.
To prevent this incident from happening again, the police have issued clear recommendations: "Please set your smartwatch to flight mode or deactivate automatic accident detection before attending a festival or concert." And if an automatic emergency call is triggered anyway, it is advisable not to ignore calls from suppressed numbers. They could be from the police.
