Earthquake detection is one of Android’s best safety features. It uses crowdsourced accelerometer data from millions of Android phones to detect earthquakes and alert users a few seconds in advance. The feature has been around for years, and other Android manufacturers have left it largely untouched. With its upcoming Android 16-based One UI 8 skin, Samsung plans to roll out its own version of Earthquake warnings with several improvements.

Leaker @GalaxyTechie posted some screenshots of One UI 8’s “Earthquake warnings” feature on X and detailed the changes (via SamMobile). Samsung will seemingly integrate the feature directly into its skin, ensuring its UI matches that of One UI. This is not the case currently, where Google’s earthquake alert interface retains the Pixel-style UI even on non-Pixel phones.

Google sends out alerts for earthquakes with a magnitude of 4.5 or greater. Samsung will allow users to customize the earthquake warnings based on the tremor strength. During the day, you can set a seismic intensity threshold of 1 to 4. And during nighttime, you can have another threshold, just in case your area is prone to mild tremors, and you don’t want them to interrupt your sleep.

Close

Screenshots: @GalaxyTechie

For tremors below the set threshold, your Galaxy phone will only show a notification. But when an earthquake equal to or higher than the set threshold hits, a full-screen warning will appear. Samsung will also show information related to nearby emergency shelters and emergency contacts, which can be useful when a major earthquake hits. You can preview these notifications to understand how disruptive they might be.

Unlike Google, Samsung will allow you to view a history of all the previous earthquake warnings you might have received.

Earthquake warnings may debut on Samsung’s new foldables

While Samsung has already released two One UI 8 beta builds for the Galaxy S25 series, this feature is not part of the test firmware. The company could release Earthquake warnings with One UI 8 on the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Flip 7 in early July and then bring it to its older devices.

The leaker has provided the APK for sideloading, but since it’s a system app, you’ll need root on your phone to install it.