Watch manufacturer Fossil and connected safety platform Noonlight on Monday announced a product partnership that will see the latter’s technology integrated into a number of the former’s smartwatches. The collaboration is focused on the fourth generation of Fossil’s Wear OS gadgets. The platform will provide owners of Fossil’s fourth-generation smartwatches with an automatic emergency response system that will contact 911 when it determines doing so is needed based on a number of parameters.
In practice, the solution comes in the form of a Noonlight app that will be pre-installed on all new Wear OS smartwatches from Fossil, whereas existing fourth-generation models will be updated with the tool shortly. To set it up, users need to provide the tool with their name, a four-digit PIN, and any optional information about their health that they would want to relay to medical professionals treating them, including data on existing medical conditions, allergies, and the like. The automatic response system can kick in if the solution is set up to call 911 after a user hasn’t entered their PIN through the watch for a set period of time. In that scenario, the watch will contact 911 and provide first responders with its location. Alternatively, the system can also be triggered manually with a one-tap alarm that’s part of Noonlight’s “Panic Mode.” Once help is on the way, Fossil’s fourth-generation Wear OS wearables will subtly vibrate to let the user know that it successfully contacted 911.
Fossil and Noonlight claim the newly announced technology is the only automatic emergency response system in the country that doesn’t rely on phone calls and works on a national level. The functionality has been in development and testing for almost a year now, Noonlight co-founder and CEO Zach Winkler revealed. The partnership is limited to the United States and there’s currently no information on whether the two companies will attempt extending the solution to more markets at any point in the future. Fossil is presently also working on a new product line with German automaker BMW and is expected to have a major presence at this year’s IFA trade show which is starting in Berlin on Friday.