NEWS

How to set up crash detection on your Android phone

by | Feb 24, 2025

Hand holding an Android phone with a variety of small graphics in the background.

Your phone comes with a number of useful features that we hope you’ll never have to use — and crash detection falls into that category. Movement sensors detect when you’re driving — and when you come to a sudden and abrupt stop. Your phone or watch can then alert emergency services, along with family and friends, even if you’re incapacitated. 

The feature is available on Pixel phones starting with the Google Pixel 4A, which launched in 2020. (It has been rumored that crash detection is built into the Galaxy S25 series phones as well, but if it is, Samsung hasn’t enabled the feature yet.) It is also an option on the Pixel Watch 2 and 3.

When a crash is detected, your phone and watch both sound an alarm and ask if something has happened. If you’re using a phone and a wearable together, you’ll see an alert on both screens, and you can reply on either device.

The slider options you get are I’m OK (to cancel the alarm) or Call 911 & notify contacts (to go ahead and notify emergency services and your contacts). If you haven’t responded after 60 seconds, the alerts get sent out automatically, with an audio message to explain that an accident has happened and where you are.

Left: graphic showing blue car hitting gray car, above a toggle titled Car Crash Detection and a description of how it works.

Set …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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