Samsung Galaxy S24 series and the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 could get a car crash detection feature soon, as per a report. A new sensor was found by a developer in the Galaxy Z Fold 5 called ‘Car Crash Detect Wakeup’, which led to the speculation that the South Korean tech giant might be bringing this feature to its flagship phones. Notably, both Apple and Google have been shipping this feature on their smartphones; the former since the iPhone 14 and the latter since the Pixel 4 in the US (the feature was expanded to India and other markets in November 2023).
The hidden sensor was first detected by Android Police’s Mishaal Rahman. As per the report, the sensor showed up on the Tasker app, which allows users to automate tasks based on context to perform actions that the phone isn’t natively programmed to do. Rahman found a sensor named Car Crash Detect Wakeup in the list of all sensors the handset carries, with a ‘special trigger’ mode. This particular one is a composite virtual sensor, meaning it borrows data from multiple physical sensors and processes it to read if a car crash has occurred.
A similar sensor was also found by the developer in the Samsung Galaxy S24 series. Reportedly, in both cases, batching sensor events have been disallowed in the design, likely to eliminate any delays in reporting a car crash. As such, it can immediately flash the notification to the user and notify the emergency services, if needed.
Interestingly, the report also highlighted a hidden app in Samsung’s One UI 6.1 build called MoccaMobile, which contains codes to start and stop the car crash sensor. However, MoccaMobile was also present in older versions of the OS skin including One UI 5.1.1 build for Galaxy Z Fold 5 as well as One UI 6.0 build for the Galaxy S23 Ultra. This is strange considering the latter is not even equipped with the car crash detection sensor.
All of this points out to two possible scenarios. The first is that Samsung is indeed working on bringing the feature to the abovementioned smartphones, and while the code was ready for a while, the sensors were finally put in place with the Galaxy Z Fold 5. If this is true, delays could be attributed to final tweaks and testing, and it can be said that the Car Crash Detection feature could soon make a debut.
On the flip side, smartphone makers are known for shipping software with codes from unfinished or dropped features that never see the light of day. The MoccaMobile app could be one of those. At the moment, Samsung has shared no plans to bring a car crash detection feature to its phones.