Emergency Location accuracy

[oeagleo]

I watched that ad on TV about the Apple Watch's Emergency call. It seems fine, but it doesn't make sense to me. The ad specifically states that "Bob" is located at Latitude 47.7, Longitude -117.5. With a search radius of 40 meters. However, when these numbers are translated into Degrees, Minutes and Seconds, it comes out to 47°42'00.0"N 117°30'00.0"W. So, where (according to USGS) One degree of latitude equals approximately 364,000 feet (69 miles), one minute equals 6,068 feet (1.15 miles), and one-second equals 101 feet. One-degree of longitude equals 288,200 feet (54.6 miles), one minute equals 4,800 feet (0.91 mile), and one second equals 80 feet, these coordinates are apparently at the minute of accuracy. This equates to a position within 1.15 MILES by .91 MILES, not the 40 meters that the ad states.

So, here's my question, is that an actual recording? Is that the coordinates that emergency services would receive? How many decimal places, or how many seconds, etc will the watch ACTUALLY send to emergency services? If it's the "accuracy" shown above, it's pretty much useless, unless the emergency people will initially use a helicopter in open area to guide the ambulance in?

Some of the postulation is tongue in cheek, but the query about the precision of the location is very real.
Anyone actually SEEN an emergency message from the Apple Watch?

 

[ApfelKuchen]

I'd imagine that the message is simplified by not quoting a longer number - time is precious in a radio/TV ad, so dropping a few digits can be a big thing.

However, you are also assuming that the incident happened somewhere other than exactly Latitude 47.7, Longitude -117.5. You're assuming that the actual message would round-off the actual coordinates to the nearest 10th.

If those are the actual (fake) coordinates, then indeed they can be accurate within 40 meters. That is the typical accuracy of geolocation with a Watch or iPhone. It's far more often used for location placement in Maps or Find My, but that's what the system does.

 

[mk313]

I think Apfel's comments make sense. I have fortunately not had to ever use the emergency feature, but since my watch can easily track my location to well within 40 feet, I would assume that they would pass that same info over to emergency services in case of a real emergency.

 

[oeagleo]

Umm BINGO, ApfelKuchen, I never thought that those may actually BE the coordinates... I guess too much time Geocaching has spoiled me for decimal places to around 30 points.. . thanks for opening my eyes.
I was wondering about it, because I've read so many reports of people that had emergency services at their exact location within minutes, and not having them have to look over a mile square area..

 

[mk313]

O eagle o,

You mentioned geocaching. Do you do that with your phone? I used to do it a long time ago with a garmin gps but haven’t done it since we moved. I don’t think I even have that gps any longer and even if I did, I’d m sure it’s well out of date. Not sure I’d want to pick up a new one but geocaching with my phone could be fun. I’d be curious to hear your take.

 

[oeagleo]

I got into Geocaching when there were few in the game. Used GPS's from an old Garmin III on through the GPSMap 64ST that I have now. I've also used the phone on occasion, and they're both fine, Accuracy seems about the same, I found for me, the dedicated GPS was easier to pinpoint, due to the "pointer" that will tell the direction and distance to the cache. I got out of the game mainly due to a couple of reasons. When I was most active, the caches were fun, actually meant something, like "this is a place to be seen, and here's why", or a good puzzle cache. Before I left, the city I live in became saturated with tiny "Buffalo Tubes" tossed into a hedge, and called a cache. That coupled with the listings of geocoins and travel bugs on the internet (FB, here's pointing to you) so people could log a couple hundred geocoins in several countries in an hour. Just wasn't fun anymore. Hope that helps, I haven't been "caching" for probably a couple of years now.

 

[mk313]

Thanks! I joined geocaching.com back in 2001, but haven't gone since before we moved, so at least 12 years. Seems like things have changed (not surprising) and it may not be as fun any longer. I may still give it a try again, but sounds like it's quite different from when I last went. Thanks for letting me know about the phone vs dedicated GPS device. I looked up google images & the on I used back then looks like a Garmin GPS Plus 3 (I don't remember the middle button having the text on it, so it could have been a different model, but close nonetheless).

 

[iHelper37]

Actually, The person that called Bob.B got the message, let’s call her Lucia. Lucia called Bob, Bob’s Watch detected a fall. Then Bob obviously can’t answer quickly, so Siri answered the call and said that info to Lucia. The location may be said like Donalds street, but it’s said latitude longitude cuz it’s worth saving some time in a TV AD to make it shorter just to demonstrate the feature. Then the Watch called 911 and repeated the message that it said to Lucia.