The At a Glance widget on Pixel phones recently started showing the battery and connection info for your Bluetooth devices. It is now getting a couple more capabilities: Earthquake alert and Safety check. Google had announced these features as part of the March 2022 Pixel Feature Drop early last month.
At a Glance will now show Earthquake alerts
First spotted by 9to5Google, the At a Glance widget has gained an “Earthquake alert” toggle. The accompanying description says the widget will display an alert when the device detects an earthquake larger than magnitude 4.5 in your area. The alert should appear both on the home screen and lock screen. This feature is enabled by default.
As the new report notes, Android OS already has a built-in Earthquake alert feature, which also triggers alerts at the same threshold (magnitude 4.5). If available in your region, you can find it in the Safety & emergency section of the Settings app. This feature uses your phone’s accelerometer to detect the initial waves and verifies it with Google’s earthquake detection servers before sending loud notification alerts. Android also offers a crowdsourced system for detecting earthquakes.
In addition to the Earthquake alert, the At a Glance widget on Pixel phones will also show the Safety check countdown from the Personal Safety app. If you have enabled the countdown, a timer on the home screen and lock screen will let you quickly check it without having to open the Personal Safety app frequently.
These two features, as well as battery info for connected Bluetooth devices, started rolling out on At a Glance over the past few days. It could still take some time before all Pixel users globally can see the new toggles. You can check for yourself by long-pressing on the home screen and then selecting “Home settings” from the pop-up menu. Now tap on the gear icon to see if any or all of the three new toggles are available to you.
There are more to come
As said earlier, Google had announced these new features for the At a Glance widget early last month. At that time, the company had also promised a few more features including a reminder to turn off alarms if the next day is a holiday. Although announced as part of the March Feature Drop, the rollout has just begun. The remaining features should also now start appearing soon. We will keep you updated.
