Automatic Fall Detection detects 95% of all hard falls. It is possible that you will have a fall that is detected when you have not experienced a fall. This article is to help you understand the arm movement patterns that could resemble a fall and thus result in a false positive.

When you have your arm raised and then drop it quickly and keep it still this can set off fall detection.

The key to fall detection is that if your hand is completely still after a movement, it can set off fall detection. Since we specialize in detecting all hard falls, you may notice that regular activities set off fall detection.

There is a built-in delay in the fall detection. We check for movement in an allotted amount of time before it'll start to go off. Sometimes it'll take a minute to recognize it's gone off. Most likely the activity that set it off is no longer on your mind and you may very well have not moved in the last 30-60 seconds. However, if prior to that you had an itchy forehead or had swatted a fly, this would be cause for the false positive.

The best thing to do with false positives is to get comfortable with the cancel button on the side of the Reach. The sooner you detect the false positive, the quicker you can cancel it and prevent it from going to your Care Team. You have 15 seconds to cancel an SOS on your Reach before it goes out to anyone. If your team had already received the SOS, that means you may not have felt it on your wrist.

We love hearing your feedback. If you have any concerns or questions about having false alarms, please reach out to us with the time of your incidents and what activities you were doing roughly 1 minute before you noticed the alarm. You can learn more about how Automatic Fall Detection will work better over time here.