• 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]M
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    171 year ago

    From the article, your device needs to be charging with location turned on. I don’t think that’s what the majority of the people do. That and probably a small sample size for the alert to be reliably sent to other devices.

    • ijeffOPM
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      71 year ago

      Do folks often manually disable their location services?

      • @[email protected]M
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        81 year ago

        I do for my own when not in use and have seen others do the same. The worst i have seen is people disable data.

      • Zoidsberg
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        71 year ago

        I disable my location / mic / camera when not in use.

      • @[email protected]
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        61 year ago

        I used to years ago, in the era of Galaxy S2 and such when battery life was a luxury.

        I can’t think of a time in recent years where I’ve seen anyone doing that TBH. I know certain people who turn off the wifi router during bedtime.

        • ijeffOPM
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          41 year ago

          Same here. I used to do it when location permissions weren’t as robust as well. I don’t bother anymore.

      • Anti Weeb Penguin
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        1 year ago

        I disable things i don’t use such as location, mobile data, wifi, bluetooth and rotation.

      • LCP
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        41 year ago

        I keep mine off except when driving or when I want GPS-tagged photos. Saves me a bit of battery life.

        My phone is always with me in my pocket so I don’t feel the need to track its location using “Find My”. And to be honest, no one is going to find stealing a Pixel 6a enticing…

    • Bebo
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      51 year ago

      This is weird. How can charging be a requirement? Phones obviously cannot be charging all the time. It won’t work if an earthquake happens when the phone’s not charging