Xiaomi Adds China’s Earthquake Alarm System to Smartphones • The Register

Xiaomi has added an earthquake alert system to some of its smartphones, starting with a trial in Indonesia, as a result of a collaboration between the smartphone maker and agencies backed by the Indonesian and Chinese government.

Available on phones running Xiaomi’s Android “MIUI” fork versions 12, 12.5 and 13, Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) alerts users in Indonesia of nearby tremors – if they have a data service and have authorized the service.

The Chinese phone maker claims that the system “gives people seconds to tens of seconds of warning time before secondary waves arrive, by taking advantage of the speed of electrical waves that are naturally much faster than the speed of secondary waves”.

Earthquake alert on Xiaomi phone. Click to enlarge

Users in affected areas receive on-screen and audible warnings – the first showing the earthquake’s magnitude, estimated time of arrival and intensity. The service operates only in the event of earthquakes rated four or more on the modified Mercalli intensity scale. If this sounds a bit light-hearted, know that Indonesia is the most volcanically active country on Earth and little noise is very common.

So do large corporations, thanks to the nation’s location on the Pacific seismic belt. The US Geological Survey records more than 150 earthquakes in Indonesia with a magnitude greater than seven between 1901 and 2019 – the equivalent of one earthquake approximately every nine months. Earthquakes of this magnitude are what you read about in the news, along with death tolls in the thousands and repair bills in the billions.

The EEW system is a collaboration between the Care-Life Institute (ICL) in Chengdu, China, and the Indonesian Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG).

With the support of China’s Ministry of Science and Technology, ICL began working on the technology back in 2008. The organization said it had successfully sent up to 65 warnings of devastating earthquakes in China without any false alarms. For more than a decade since development began, ICL has teamed up with BMKG to do the same in Indonesia.

In China, online notifications appear as soon as the user installs the appropriate technology – such as the subscription version of the emergency broadcast system in the US. ICL has expanded the earthquake warning system technology to 13 cities and counties in Sichuan.

The Indonesian version takes this update a step further by cooperating with Xiaomi. Although Indonesia is the second market in the world to receive EEW, it is the first country to use it with smartphones. So, China’s state-funded research organizations help Xiaomi distinguish itself as the world’s fourth most populous country and 16th largest economy (and rising fast on both metrics).

There have been efforts to alert people of earthquakes and other natural disasters before. In 2016, an app from UC Berkely and Deutsche Telekom used accelerometers built into modern smartphones to sense seismic activity and alert users.

This app, called MyShake, was met with mixed reactions — users reported that it used more power and issued frequent warnings, sometimes failing to issue warnings at all.

MyShake’s designers freely acknowledged that their technology could not replace traditional seismic networks, while EEW relies on these conventional systems.

As explained by Xiaomi:

Xiaomi stated: “This special function exists because Indonesia is one of the countries prone to natural disasters such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis.”

Xiaomi Indonesia Director Alvin Tse thanked the government of Indonesia for its support, adding: “Through this initiative, we hope we can help the Indonesian people and give back to the local community.” ®

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