Google is now sending earthquake alerts to Wear OS devices even when they’re not connected to a smartphone, according to the release notes for the latest version of Google Play Services.
Google first brought Android’s Earthquake Alerts System to Wear OS last year, but so far it was just basically mirroring the alert you received on your phone.
From now on, even if your phone is too far to remain connected to your watch, the latter will still notify you about earthquakes. Of course, it will probably need a standalone internet connection to do so – thus, this most likely only applies to watches that have mobile data connectivity built-in.
The Earthquake Alerts System uses aggregated sensor data from millions of phones to detect earthquakes. Basically, when your phone’s accelerometer detects a vibration that could indicate an earthquake, it sends that data along with a general location to Google’s servers. When they receive a ton of such communications from spots that are near each other, an alert is created.
It’s unclear right now if Google plans on starting to use sensor data from Wear OS watches for the system as well.