Google Pixel Watch can connect you to emergency services if you need help. If you've unlocked your watch at least once since startup, you can call an emergency contact without unlocking it.1 With Google Pixel Watch 2 and Pixel Watch 3, every safety features, including the Safety Check7 are available to use with or without your phone nearby.
Google Pixel Watch Wi-Fi needs to be in range of your phone and connected with Bluetooth for your phone to call emergency services. You will not be able to talk to emergency services from your watch if your it isn't connected to a phone through Bluetooth.
Google Pixel Watch LTE needs an active LTE connection on your watch to call emergency services. Safety Signal is available on Google Pixel Watch 2 LTE with Fitbit Premium.
If you don't have an LTE carrier on your watch, Safety Signal5 allows you to use safety features without your phone nearby. An active Fitbit Premium Subscription enables phone-free connectivity through Safety Signal. For more information, visit Use Safety Signal on Google Pixel Watch.
Certain regions require an active LTE carrier or Safety Signal to support emergency calls placed from a Pixel Watch.
Turn on and use safety features on Pixel Watch
Learn how to turn on and use these different safety features:
|
Safety Feature |
On Pixel Watch |
On Pixel Watch 2 |
On Pixel Watch 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Car Crash Detection | — | ✓ | ✓ |
|
✓ |
✓ |
✓ | |
|
✓ |
✓ |
✓ | |
|
Emergency contact dialing |
— |
✓ |
✓ |
|
— |
✓ |
✓ | |
|
✓ (Wear OS 4 or newer) |
✓ |
✓ | |
|
✓ (Wear OS 4 or newer) |
✓ |
✓ | |
|
✓ (Wear OS 4 or newer) |
✓ |
✓ |
Car Crash Detection
Car Crash Detection can track if you’ve been in a severe car crash. Call emergency services automatically, like 911 in the US, notify emergency contacts, and share your location.
How Car Crash Detection works
Your Pixel Watch can use info like your phone’s location and motion sensors. Car Crash Detection requires location to work. If your phone detects a car crash, it can call emergency services for you. This call uses Android’s Emergency Location Service and may send info about where you are and what happened.
You can also use Emergency Sharing with Car Crash Detection, which will share your real-time location with your emergency contacts in situations where a crash is detected and there isn’t any response from you.
Important:
- Both Car Crash Detection and Emergency Location Service can be used independently.
- If turned on, Emergency Location Service will work for every emergency call (if available in an area) and sends your location information to emergency services.
- When turned on, Car Crash Detection uses Emergency Location Service whenever it places a call automatically during emergency situations.
- Car Crash Detection will continue to function even if Emergency Location Service is turned off.
When a crash is detected, Safety on your watch will check in and a full-screen 60-second countdown will take over. Your watch will vibrate and an alarm will sound. This alarm will also bypass Do Not Disturb and Bedtime mode. To cancel the countdown, tap I’m OK.
To immediately start a call to emergency services tap Call 911 (or any other default number for emergency services depending on the country). The call automatically defaults to the official government emergency services area in the country or region.
Notes:
- In the event that a potential crash is detected and there's no response from you, your watch will attempt to place a call to emergency services on your behalf. During the call, it will play an audio message to inform emergency responders that your device detected a potential crash, you were unresponsive, and provide your location information.
- Depending on the situation, if you wish to talk to emergency services personally and stop the automated message, tap Call 911 (or any other default number for emergency services of the country or region you're located).
- Your watch may not be able to detect every crash.
- High-impact activities could also trigger Car Crash Detection.
- In some cases, your Pixel Watch might not be able to call emergency services. For example, your phone might be connected to a weak mobile network.
- Car Crash Detection won't work in airplane mode, or when Battery Saver is on.
Set up Car Crash Detection
Car Crash Detection settings are tied to the Google Account you used to sign in to the Safety app. Turning Car Crash Detection on or off on any surface will sync the settings across every supported devices linked to your Google Account.
On Google Pixel Watch
- On Google Pixel Watch, press the crown.
- Tap Safety.
- Tap Car Crash Detection.
Through the Safety app on paired phone
- On your phone, open Safety
.
- Tap Features.
- Tap Car Crash Detection.
Through the Google Pixel Watch app
- On your phone, open Google Pixel Watch
.
- Tap Safety & emergency.
- Tap Car Crash Detection.
Interoperability between Pixel Watch and Pixel phones
Car Crash Detection works with Pixel Watches and Pixel Phones if paired via Bluetooth. When actively paired, both devices will check in with you and you can respond to either device once.
When your watch isn't connected with its paired phone via Bluetooth and nearby, then Car Crash Detection will run on each device independently, if both devices are powered on.
Supported regions and languages
| Language availability | Country or region availability |
|
|
Emergency SOS
Emergency SOS can quickly connect you with help in an emergency. By default, you can use Emergency SOS by quickly pressing the watch crown 5 times, then touching and holding the screen for 3 seconds to place a call to emergency services. If you release your hold on the screen before 3 seconds, it goes back to the first screen and the call won’t be placed.
You can set up Emergency SOS to automatically call emergency services after a 5-second countdown instead of having to touch and hold the screen in Change Emergency SOS Setting.
You can also set Emergency SOS to call a specified emergency contact instead of emergency services in Add Emergency contacts.
Important:
Google Pixel Watch Wi-Fi may not be able to call all emergency numbers in all countries and can only place a call if your phone is nearby and paired with your watch.
Google Pixel Watch LTE may not be able to call emergency numbers in all countries without an active LTE connection or Safety Signal.
If your phone has Emergency Location Service turned on and the emergency responder in your region is set up with ELS, they may also receive your location. For Google Pixel Watch LTE, Emergency Location Service is on by default. To check that your ELS is turned on for your watch, press the crown and tap Safety 
Set up Emergency SOS
On Google Pixel Watch
- On Google Pixel Watch, swipe down.
- Tap Settings
- Choose how you want to start Emergency SOS:
- Touch & hold to call: Calls emergency services after you quickly press the watch crown 5 consecutive times, then touching and holding the screen for 3 seconds.
- Automatically call: Calls emergency services after a 5-second countdown when you quickly press the watch crown 5 consecutive times.
In the Google Pixel Watch app
- On your phone, open Google Pixel Watch
- Tap Settings
- Turn on Emergency SOS.
Change Emergency SOS setting
- On your phone, open Google Pixel Watch
- Tap Settings
- Select Touch & hold or Automatically call based on your preference.
Turn off Emergency SOS
On Google Pixel Watch
- On Google Pixel Watch, press the crown.
- Scroll down and tap Personal Safety
- Turn off Emergency SOS.
In the Google Pixel Watch app
- On your phone, open Google Pixel Watch
- Tap Settings
- Turn off Emergency SOS.
Add emergency contacts
Add multiple emergency contacts and choose one primary emergency contact.
- On Google Pixel Watch, swipe down.
- Tap Settings
- Tap Manage contacts. Choose to allow or deny access to the contacts saved in your phone.
- Tap the contact's name and then their number.
- To choose a primary emergency contact, tap Emergency Services or a contact in the list of added emergency contacts. Their name card will now be highlighted.
You can also add emergency contacts in the safety app on your Pixel phone.
Remove emergency contacts
- On Google Pixel Watch, swipe down.
- Tap Settings
- Next to the contact you want to remove, tap Delete
.
Accidental calls
Fall Detection
Fall Detection is available in Pixel-supported countries. If you have Fall Detection turned on and travel to an unsupported region, Fall Detection will be temporarily unavailable.
When a hard fall is detected, your Pixel Watch will wait about 30 seconds and then will vibrate, ring loudly, and ask if you want to call emergency services for help.2 If you don't move, respond to, or dismiss the alert, your watch will vibrate, sound an alarm, and wait 60 seconds before it places a call to emergency services with an automated voice message that lets them know your Pixel Watch detected a fall. If you have granted permission to share your location, your Pixel Watch will share your location with emergency services.
Set up Fall detection
On Google Pixel Watch
- On Google Pixel Watch, press the crown.
- Tap Safety
- Turn on Fall detection.
In the Google Pixel Watch app
- On your phone, open Google Pixel Watch
- Tap Settings
- Turn on Fall detection.
How Fall Detection helps emergency services get to you
When a hard fall is detected and you don't respond to the alert after 60 seconds, Pixel Watch can share your location in the automated voice message played to emergency services during the call.
For users who enabled Fall Detection and didn't grant Personal Safety "while in use" location permission, you will need to update Fall Detection so that it can share your location with emergency services in the automated voice message.
Update Fall Detection
- On Google Pixel Watch, press the crown.
- Tap Play Store
- Update Personal Safety.
Automated voice message example
Use the Pixel Watch app to read an example of the automated audio message that shares your device's location.
- On your phone, open Google Pixel Watch
- Tap Safety & emergency
Help improve Fall detection
On Google Pixel Watch
- On Google Pixel Watch, press the crown.
- Tap Safety
- Turn on Help Improve Fall Detection.
In the Google Pixel Watch app
- On your phone, open Google Pixel Watch
- Tap Settings
- Turn on Help Improve Fall Detection.
Emergency Sharing
Emergency Sharing sends your real-time location and updates to your emergency contacts.
- On Google Pixel Watch, press the crown.
- Tap Safety
- Select the contacts you want to share your location with and tap Share real-time location.
- To stop Emergency sharing, tap
on the Sharing real-time location screen
.
Emergency Sharing settings
Set up the information to be shared with your Emergency Contacts.
- On Google Pixel Watch, press the crown.
- Tap Safety & emergency
- Scroll to the bottom of the screen and tap Settings.
- Select the information you want to share with your Emergency Contacts during an Emergency Share.
- Turn on or off Multi-device location sharing.8
Safety Check
Allows your watch to set a check-in timer to ensure that you're safe. If you don't confirm that you're okay at the set time, Safety Check automatically shares your location with your emergency contacts.
- On Google Pixel Watch, press the crown.
- Tap Safety
- Select your activity.
- Set the timer duration.
- Select the contacts you want to share your location with and tap Start timer. You can decide to let your contacts know when you start or cancel a Safety Check or you can set Safety Check to notify contacts if you don't respond at the end of the timer. This automatically escalates to an Emergency Share.
- To stop Safety Check, tap
Medical information
- On your phone, open Safety
- Tap Your info
- Fill in your medical information. To help in an emergency, people can access this info even with a locked watch.
Share Emergency Info with emergency services
Use the Personal Safety app to send info to emergency services.
On your phone:
- Open Safety
- Tap Your info
On your watch:
- Open Safety
- Scroll to Emergency Info.
- Tap Emergency Info access
1 Google Pixel Watch operates using radio signals, which cannot guarantee connection in all conditions. Never rely solely on any wireless device for emergency communications.
2 Fall Detection works by using motion sensors on your Pixel Watch. Keep in mind, high-impact activities may trigger fall detection. Fall detection can’t detect all falls.
3 Emergency SOS: Emergency SOS requires location enabled and 4G LTE service or an internet connection. Emergency SOS is dependent upon network connectivity and other factors and may not be reliable for emergency communications or available in all countries or languages. Go to g.co/pixelwatch/personalsafety for more details.
4 Fall Detection: Fall Detection is not available in all countries and depends on network connectivity and other factors. Your watch may not be reliable for emergency communications. Fall Detection may not detect all falls. To call emergency services on a Google Pixel Watch without 4G LTE, your paired phone must be nearby. Users must grant location permission for Fall Detection to share location externally. Data rates may apply. Go to g.co/pixelwatch/personalsafety for more details.
5 Safety Signal: Not available on Pixel Watch 2 or 3 (Wi-Fi) or in all countries. Safety Signal requires location enabled and, in cases of emergency, provides Fitbit Premium subscribers without a 4G LTE watch line with access to a 4G LTE network for use of safety features only. When your watch is not connected to your phone, Safety Signal does not support Wi-Fi calling.
6 Emergency Sharing: Data rates may apply. Emergency Sharing requires location enabled and 4G LTE service or an internet connection. Emergency Sharing is dependent upon network connectivity and other factors and may not be reliable for emergency communications or available in all countries or languages. Go to g.co/pixelwatch/personalsafety for more details.
7 Safety Check: Data rates may apply. Safety Check requires location enabled and 4G LTE service or an internet connection. Safety Check is dependent upon network connectivity and other factors and may not be reliable for emergency communications or available in all countries or languages. Go to g.co/pixelwatch/personalsafety for more details.
8 When multi-device location sharing is turned on for your device, we will use that device’s location as a backup in the case you start an Emergency Share on another device, but that device can no longer share its location.
Emergency SOS requires location enabled and 4G LTE service or an internet connection. Fall detection and Emergency SOS are dependent upon network connectivity and other factors and may not be reliable for emergency communications and available in all areas or languages. Fall detection may not detect all falls. Auto-dialling to emergency services is not available in all countries. Go to g.co/pixelwatch/personalsafety for more details.