The service was launched in the country on September 27.
  • 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]MEnglish
    17•1 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.

    • ijeffOPMEnglish
      7•1 year ago

      Do folks often manually disable their location services?

      • @[email protected]MEnglish
        8•1 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.

      • ZoidsbergEnglish
        7•1 year ago

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

      • @[email protected]English
        6•1 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.

        • ijeffOPMEnglish
          4•1 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 PenguinEnglish
        5•1 year ago

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

      • LCPEnglish
        4•1 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…

    • BeboEnglish
      5•1 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