• The Android Earthquake Alert system failed to detect recent tremors in north India, possibly due to its recent launch and gradual rollout to Android 5+ users in the country.
  • The system utilizes accelerometers in Android smartphones to function as mini-seismometers, identifying potential earthquakes when multiple phones detect simultaneous shaking.
  • Once an earthquake is detected, the system sends advance warnings to nearby Android handsets. The feature was recently made available in local languages in India.
  • However, the system has limitations including the inability to detect all earthquakes, and errors in estimating magnitude and shaking intensity.
  • Usage of this feature requires Wi-Fi and/or cellular data connectivity, with both Android Earthquake Alerts and location settings enabled.
    • @[email protected]
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      41 year ago

      This was the first thing I thought about after seeing this post. It was the majority of people in Turkey reported that they didn’t get it, a lot of the the ones that reported they may have in the surveys weren’t 100% certain either.

    • hypelightfly
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      21 year ago

      It works well in California. Just had one the other morning for a 4.2.

      Depending on how far away it is I’ll have a few seconds notice. This one was really close so the alert came in almost at the same time. Last year I had about 10-15 seconds notice for a 6.4.