What you need to know
- It's been discovered that the Galaxy S24 Ultra and Fold 5 feature a "Car Crash Detect Wakeup" sensor.
- The "composite" sensor is said to utilize data obtained from other physical sensors to operate properly.
- A "MoccaMobile" app was also discovered within One UI 6.1, which references the car crash sensor and "starting and stopping" it.
A dive into the inner workings of Samsung's latest flagship devices shows the company is working on a car crash detection feature. According to Mishaal Rahman writing for Android Police, leveraging the Tasker app on a Galaxy Z Fold 5 to fix a problem unearthed the existence of a "Car Crash Detect Wakeup" sensor.
Rahman discovered the sensor is "composite," meaning it combines data obtained from several of the device's physical sensors. There was also an app hidden away in One UI 6.1 called "MoccaMobile" that references code for "starting and stopping the car crash sensor."
No further details on the app's UI or anything else were discovered during the deep dive.
It was also discovered that the Galaxy S24 Ultra contains this "Car Crash Detect Wakeup" sensor. However, the MoccaMobile app was discovered on older versions of One UI, such as 5.1.1 (Fold 5) and 6.0 on the Galaxy S23 Ultra. The latter device was discovered not to have the detection sensor inside, meaning the feature is unlikely.
The sensor's appearance is a shock, considering Samsung hasn't promoted the device with such a capability, nor does any Galaxy device offer the safety feature.
Car crash detection capabilities on Samsung's top products would put it in more contention with Google's Pixel. The feature automatically dials emergency services if it detects you've been in a severe accident. Google supports this feature on the latest Pixel 8 series, Pixel Fold, and the Pixel 3. The company also rolled out support for the feature in Austria, Belgium, India, Portugal, and Switzerland last November.
It's worth noting that this discovery within Samsung's latest products could indicate that the feature will arrive on non-Pixel phones. In 2022, hidden code in the Google Personal Safety app showed that more Android phones may soon detect collisions and more life-threatening alerts.
Android Central has reached out to Samsung regarding this car crash sensor discovery and they did not get back to us in time for publication. We will update the article once we have more information.
Samsung's Galaxy S24 Ultra continues to push what the S series can do with a completely flat display and slightly curved edges. The device does even more this time with "Galaxy AI" powering the way with real-time transcriptions (audio and text) alongside even more on-device AI capabilities.
