My wife is so unhappy with the new watch IOS update 10.1.1 that she has asked me to post this for her. In the past, one could access the control panel by swiping up. Now the control panel and the SOS emergency feature are on the same button. This is a disaster. It is too easy to activate the SOS system. The watch, which was working perfectly fine before the update, now gets stuck in the SOS feature, and the only option is to power it down. Then it is extremely difficult to power back. I had to hold down the crown and the lower button for 15 seconds several times to get the watch back. I think this is the same destructive feature they did with the battery a few years ago. My wife contacted apple and they said there was nothing that could be done. Her best advice. DO NOT UPDATE the watch.
If your wife can’t differentiate between a press and a hold, that’s on her.
Something is wrong with your wife.
I didn’t even know that you’d access the SOS feature that way. That has never happened to me, not a single time. Not sure why it’s happening to your wife so easily. Taking a look at how the buttons are presently mapped, I actually see this as a logical improvement.
Does your wife have a disability or a lack of fine motor skills?