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ZDNET’s key takeaways
- Android Wi-fi Emergency Alerts now embody a map.
- The map exhibits the affected space and your location.
- Not all alerts override quantity settings except you select to take action.
Android customers simply received a doubtlessly life-saving replace that makes their telephone’s Wi-fi Emergency Alerts considerably extra helpful.
If you happen to’ve ever been jolted by a shrill alert a few harmful storm or a lacking baby, you realize what these alerts are. However you have most likely had your share of alerts a few extreme storm or twister watch, solely to look outdoors and see blue sky.
Additionally: Tips on how to arrange and and use your telephone’s lifesaving emergency options
The current replace ought to make it a lot simpler to see if an alert impacts you.
Google hasn’t made an official announcement, however a changelog for the current March 2026 system replace revealed that Wi-fi Emergency Alerts will now embody a map view, so you possibly can see what space the alert is for and your location relative to that space.
As a substitute of seeing if the warning for “your space” is your neighborhood or the opposite facet of the county, 30 miles away, now you can see how shut you’re to the impacted space.
Tips on how to be sure you get life-saving climate alerts
By default, not all WEA notifications interrupt Do Not Disturb or different quantity settings. Google says that the “most crucial alerts” could sound at full quantity, however it would not clarify what essentially the most crucial alerts are and even then which alerts could or could not sound.
If you happen to by no means use DND mode and simply go away your telephone on full quantity at night time, this would possibly not have an effect on you. However when you quiet your telephone when you’re sleeping or at different instances, you need to most likely change this setting — particularly as we head into storm season within the US.
Additionally: Your finest Google climate app options (and what I like to recommend as an alternative)
To prioritize alerts, head to Settings > Security & emergency > Wi-fi emergency alerts. Scroll all the way in which down till you see “At all times alert at full quantity.” You may flip off sure classes of alerts, like AMBER alerts, when you’d moderately not be woken up in the midst of the night time by these.
