Android phones’ built-in earthquake detection functionality appears to have passed with flying colours during a 5.1-magnitude earthquake near California’s San Jose on Tuesday, and it also outperformed iPhones in terms of alerting users.
According to Android Authority, Dave Burke, Google’s vice president of engineering for Android, tweeted a cool visual of a quake being detected by a slew of Android phones before the shock waves hit.
“Earthquake in SF Bay Area today. Yellow/red represents shaking Android phones acting as seismometers. Circles are our inferred estimate of P and S waves. Earthquake alerts sent instantaneously to surrounding phones before the waves hit,” he tweeted.
Several social media users reported receiving earthquake notifications on their Android phones five to ten seconds before they felt the shock waves.
According to the report, Twitter users also noted that Android users received an early warning, while iPhone users received it later.
This is not the first time Android’s earthquake detection network has issued an early warning. According to the report, the system provided early warnings during a quake in the Philippines last year.
You can enable earthquake detection on your Android phone by going to Settings > Safety & emergency > Earthquake alerts.
However, this feature is not available in all countries; for more information, visit Google’s support page.
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Author Brendan Byrne
