Xiaomi is collaborating with the Institute of Care Life in China and the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) in Indonesia to test the Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) feature.
By activating this feature, Xiaomi mobile users in Indonesia will be notified when an earthquake occurs in the vicinity, making the earthquake early warning system an important role in giving users time to save themselves.
The earthquake early warning feature will warn users up to a dozen seconds in advance before the secondary waves arrive by utilizing the speed of electric waves faster than secondary waves.
Once the feature is activated on a Xiaomi phone, once the monitoring agency detects an earthquake, they will synchronize the early warning information to the Xiaomi server through a special channel, and Xiaomi will use the priority channel to push early warning information to users in the affected area.
Each notification in the EEW will display the magnitude of the related earthquake, estimated arrival, and intensity which will be alerted to the cellphone screen in the form of a countdown.
Warnings that will be received by users in Indonesia occur when the intensity of the earthquake reaches IV or more based on the MMI (Modified Mercalli Intensity) scale used by BMKG. This feature requires a data connection to function.
This EEW feature can be used on Xiaomi phones that use MIUI 12, MIUI 12.5, and MIUI 13. This feature requires permission from the user to be activated in consideration of user privacy. Later, the phone will sound an alert tone when an earthquake occurs.
The EEW technology was developed by the Institute of Care-life (ICL) in Chengdu, China, since 2008. The institute has succeeded in sending warnings of destructive earthquakes up to 65 times without any errors so far in its operations in China.
In 2019, ICL and BMKG from Indonesia collaborated to introduce this technology in Indonesia. This technology is presented with the hope of helping more Indonesian users to be able to receive early warnings and prevent loss of property and lives.
"We welcome the continued implementation of the trial of the earthquake early warning system for Xiaomi smartphones. Evaluations will continue to be carried out to measure the level of success in Indonesia. We hope this feature will be useful for Indonesian citizens," said Head of the BMKG Engineering Seismology Center Rahmat Triyono, in a statement received us, Friday (1/4/2022).
The Director of ICL, Wang Tun, explained that Indonesia is located in the belt of the most active volcanoes in the world - the circum-Pacific, which makes it very vulnerable to earthquakes.
"Through this initiative, we hope to be able to help Indonesian citizens through CSR activities as a company that has social responsibility," said Xiaomi Indonesia Country Director Alvin Tse, in the same statement.