Samsung's take on Android's earthquake alerts builds upon its foundation

What you need to know

• A tipster shared evidence of a One UI earthquake alert variant that Samsung is developing.
• While it retains the same core functions as Google's version on Android, Samsung lets users customize "seismic intensity threshold" levels and provides emergency options.
• Recently, Google brought its quake alerts to Wear OS devices in "high-risk" areas.

Samsung has its own version of an Android safety feature for seismic activity, but puts a spin on things for better user usability.

Evidence of Samsung's take on Android's earthquake alerts was spotted by Galaxy Techie on X in the works for One UI (via 9to5Google). A major talking point is what Samsung's version lets users do: customize the "seismic intensity threshold." Users can have one set intensity during the day and another for the night. The company's early development lets users customize its seismic intensity from 1.0 to 4.0, likely based on the Richter Scale for detecting quakes.

Samsung itself recommends certain numbers, like 2.0 during the day and 3.0 at night, as sudden emergencies during your sleep can pose a severe danger.

The tipster states that if an earthquake is detected below your set threshold, Samsung's alerts will still produce a notification; however, it won't interrupt what you're doing. When an earthquake is detected, evidence shows users will receive a red "full-screen notification" alongside a warning sound.

Hazardous Situations

Samsung is taking things a step further than Google's variant, offering a selection of emergency options. Users can discover emergency shelters, access stored medical information, or call their emergency contacts.

The tipster states this One UI variant is also working on "warning history."

On the other hand, the publication questions the purpose of Samsung developing its own version, considering Google provides this in its Android OS for all devices. It highlights areas like China, where Google's software isn't prevalent, which could be Samsung's intended audience. One user on X also mentioned trying to access Google's earthquake alerts before (being in a quake-prone region themselves), but they couldn't as it was a "region-locked" feature.

This feature seems in line for One UI 8's launch, but there's no clear indication for that, so just keep your eyes open.

Google's Android earthquake alerts were on our minds recently, as the company rolled them out for Wear OS devices. There was nothing inherently new with this update, other than its availability on your smartwatch. Users with these alerts active will see the earthquake's magnitude and their distance from its epicenter. Similar to what Google did for Android, it's bringing these Wear OS quake alerts to "high-risk" areas first.

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