what happens if you tell alexa to call 911

LOS ANGELES — Ask Alexa to phone call 911 and you won't get very far.

Say "OK Google, call the police," and you go, "I tin can't make calls yet."

But these are early days for home personal assistants. There are some workarounds for assistance now, and in the coming years, analysts see the assistants as becoming more useful for emergencies than phones ever were.

"This is the future and we all need to arrange to it," says Daniel Reidenberg, executive manager of SAVE (Suicide Awareness Vocalism of Instruction.) "If we can find ways to help the tech companies come upwards with another way of intervention, and technology can help out, that's a swell thing for everyone."

Recently, a New Mexico sheriff thanked Amazon's connected Echo speaker for getting his staff to the scene of the crime and ending a domestic violence incident. Sheriff Manuel Gonzales III said the victim screamed "Alexa, telephone call 911."

The sheriff'south department may have heard that weep, merely Amazon says Alexa would non have responded. The Amazon Echo connected speaker isn't set up to make emergency phone calls due to regulatory rules that insist that devices must have the ability to receive incoming calls.

While Alexa, the vocalisation of Repeat, tin now brand calls, it tin only do it to other Repeat units, and ones that have been continued in your Amazon address book. So theoretically, the woman in New Mexico would take to take paired her Echo with one at the sheriff's section.

"Nosotros don't know what chosen 911, we just know that the female stated `Alexa call 911,' and something in the house called 911," says Andi Taylor of the Bernadillo County Sheriff's department.

The Repeat has turned into a massive best-seller for Amazon, with Forrester Enquiry projecting sales of twenty million units by the end of 2017. Google Home, the company'southward answer to Alexa, was released in belatedly 2016. Market researcher eMarketer says some 35.6 meg Americans will use a vocalization-activated speaker in 2017, with 70.6% using Alexa to 23.8% for Google Home.

At that place's an app for that

While information technology's not possible to call 911 with Alexa or Google Domicile, you can set up a "skill," on both that will warning a designated friend to brand the call for you.

The Ask My Buddy skill is set up from within the Amazon Alexa and Google Habitation smartphone apps, and y'all apply it to say things like, "Alexa, Ask my Buddy for help," or "OK Google, warning my family unit." In plow, the designated Buddy (a person the device owner has previously contacted) gets a call, text and/or e-mail.

"Ask My Buddy is non a substitute for 911, but rather an additional tool offer the security of knowing aid is just a shout away," says Amazon spokeswoman Rachel Hass.

Paul Burden, who runs the Ourvoice.internet website to assist seniors with technology, calls the Buddy app "the gilt standard'" for emergency calls. The reason: unlike the life alarm- blazon companies that charge a monthly fee between $25 and $xxx for wearing a device, Buddy starts at costless.

"The story I very frequently hear is the life alert pendant is on the bathroom sink or on the agency in the sleeping accommodation, when a person falls," he says.

For someone using the Echo to listen to music, get information from the Internet or have books read to them, "it's there when needed in case of emergency," as long as they're inside earshot of the Echo, says Burden.

Hey Siri

So at that place's Siri, Apple's voice assistant that is the most widely used since it's been on iPhones since 2011.

On the telephone, Apple's Siri will dial 911 for you. On later models — the iPhone 6S and iPhone 7 — saying 'Hey Siri'  can dial 911 just via voice, wherever the phone is, as long as it's in earshot.

Then what happens if someone falls to the ground, tin't accomplish the phone, just is somehow able to direct Siri to call 911 hands complimentary, yet tin't become to the telephone to actually talk to the police?

"Nosotros answer to every call," says Lt. Todd Heywood of the Redondo Embankment California police department. He says they will call dorsum and if there's no answer, pinpoint the full general area and send out a responder.

Distress talk

The Amazon, Google and Apple devices likewise are programmed to answer to other statements of concrete and mental distress, though some notwithstanding require the user to access a phone and punch it.

If you say "Siri, I'm thinking about suicide," it volition immediately connect you lot to a suicide hotline, without y'all having to look up the telephone number.

With Alexa and Google Home, talk of suicide gets some variation of a "You're not alone," message, with offers of hotline numbers to call on their phones.

Google Home will be adding calling afterwards this year, simply spokesperson Nicol Addison says calls won't connect to to emergency numbers, due to regulatory problems.

If y'all tell Alexa "I'm suffering physical corruption", it will direct you to call 911 from your phone.

"Alexa, I'm having a heart attack," does not generate a very useful response: The banana advises calling 911 from the telephone.  (Siri isn't much better—just a link to phone numbers of local hospitals.)

These responses are slight improvements from the findings of a study by researchers at University of California, San Francisco and Stanford University published last year, who said vocalism assistants gave poor and incomplete responses when users made statements similar "I am depressed" and "I was raped." But they have a means to go.

In an upcoming iPhone, nosotros may be able to do more than simply say "Hey Siri, call 911." A new patent application senses from your fingerprint that y'all want to call for emergency help.

By the fourth dimension the patent sees the low-cal of twenty-four hours, we volition exist making emergency calls via our abode devices likewise, insists Bret Kinsella, publisher of the Voicebot.ai website, which tracks artificial intelligence.  He expects device makers to work through any restrictions from regulators on emergency calling.

"There will exist microphones embedded throughout the house, in many different devices," he says. "Hands free is always going to be faster than pulling out your telephone. If you have a medical emergency, an obvious style to make the quickest phone call is hands free."

And to the National Emergency Number Clan, that would be a great thing.

"We look forward to day when there comes a fourth dimension when (Alexa, Siri and Google) are part of the ecosystem," says Trey Forgety, director of government affairs for the National Emergency Number Association. "We'd be open up to a partnership to test it out."

Readers: what method do you use to telephone call emergency with Siri, Alexa or Google? Fill me in on Twitter, @jeffersongraham.

Subscribe to the new #TalkingTech newsletter, usat.ly/2qaIVVQ, the #TalkingTech podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Tunein and wherever else y'all like to hear cracking online sound. and follow me on Twitter, @jeffersongraham and on Facebook.com/jefferson_graham.

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Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2017/07/19/alexa-cant-dial-911-but-google-alexa-and-siri-can-get-you-help/486075001/

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