ShakeAlertLA Reviews

As a LA resident, this could be a must-have app. Sadly, it seems designed by individuals with no experience in even basic app design, or they do not do even the most basic beta testing, rendering it worse than useless because it just doesn’t provide alerts. After the recent set of earthquakes (where no one received alerts on ShakeAlertLA ), they revised ShakeAlertLA . Still wont work:
* If you click “provide feedback” in the support section of ShakeAlertLA , it takes you to a USGS site that has interesting information but absolutely no place for feedback. This is a real gap in enabling feedback. ShakeAlertLA needs to provide proper contact information.
* If you travel, ShakeAlertLA follows your location and only provides earthquake information for where you are physically located at that moment. We want to know information about where we live in SoCal all the time. Instead, we receive information about San Francisco, Washington DC, Dallas, Chicago, London, or wherever we are traveling. This makes ShakeAlertLA useless. ShakeAlertLA needs to be able to have a “home” setting.

The solutions to both of these are very easy fixes, and would greatly improve ShakeAlertLA ’s utility.

The language announcing the current update (installed on July 6) says that the update is to show all recent earthquakes in the United States in the last 30 days. In fact, today, July 6, it no longer even shows the earthquake from July 4!

So they should change the description to say that it shows the last X number of earthquakes in the United States, but not all the quakes within a specified time period. OR just do what it actually says and show all the earthquakes within the last 30 days! Is that so impossible?

SECOND ISSUE: The time stamp for the earthquakes is not the timestamp for the Pacific Time zone. This is insane. Please change it so all the reported times for earthquakes are exclusively in the Pacific Time zone.

There hasn’t been an earthquake yet, so it might just be that ShakeAlertLA performs brilliantly for its intended purpose. Judging everything else, however, does not inspire confidence that it will. Lackluster design, confusing UX, and half the functionality seems broken. It’s as if the developers never once opened a contemporary, well-designed app for inspiration. To publish something so underdeveloped in 2019 is an embarrassment. ShakeAlertLA doesn’t seem rushed, it seems led by people that don’t have a clue about design. And to see the completely unnecessary “Eric Garcetti” logo awkwardly overlap ShakeAlertLA ’s title on the home screen (on my small iPhone SE) seems like a sad metaphor for a city-designed project.

I know this is free and all but we’ve had 2 strong earthquakes in 48 hrs that affected LA county and, according to cal tech, hundreds of 5+’s. I was in a restaurant in the city of LA when the 7.1 hit last night and got no warning! Chandeliers swaying, drinks sloshing and nothing! What’s more, the recent quake list is blank.
Not sure what this is supposed to be used for.

App just updated and now the recent quake list is populated. Now I know ShakeAlertLA is at least alive! Note to developer: need to be able to filter the display list on the phone. After a big event, there is too much noise to see recent quakes above 5. ALSO: NEED TO DISPLAY LOCAL TIME IN ADDITION TO UTC.

I fully support the idea of ShakeAlertLA. We need it. You should download it now. This post is to provide feedback to make it better.

The success of ShakeAlertLA requires users to be taught what to look for when an alert comes in. There is no demo. Is there a sound played, like Amber Alerts? Or, the national emergency tones played on Radio and TV? Is there a notification shown on the lock screen? Will that notification and alert sound be played even if the device’s do not disturb function is on? Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing. I even scoured the internet and couldn’t find any examples of this thing being tested.

Recommend that a demo video be added teaching uses what to look and listen for when the alert is triggered. I also recommend providing instructions about how to make sure the alerts are seen/heard...such as avoiding do not disturb and setting location services to “always on.”

Until then, I am praying any alerts that come are able to be seen and heard...and that I can figure out that it is a serious alert and not yet another annoying news app notification about Trump’s dumb tweets.

I have only just downloaded. BUT, as this is for LA only, why does ShakeAlertLA require Location Services be always on? A number of people, myself included, for battery life and privacy concerns, only turn location services on as needed (say map directions). ShakeAlertLA requires they always be on. Why?? ShakeAlertLA is for LA only. By design, it is for LA only and those of us who download it are, by obvious choice, interested in LA earthquake activity. APP DEVELOPER: please keep it simple, eliminate the need for Location Services on ShakeAlertLA ever. We’re all in LA (and even if we’re traveling elsewhere, presumably we want to know)!

I just got ShakeAlertLA hoping it works as advertised.

I’d like to request an update based on the other reviews and descriptions that I’ve read. Part of the requirement for ShakeAlertLA to work is that my phone must be located in LA county and location services must be Always On. Well I live in LA county with my family but my profession is a corporate pilot. I travel the world and I personally am not always in LA county but when there is a danger to my family, I want to know about it ASAP!!

Case in point, this recent Searles Vally Quake. I’m currently in the UK and did not find out it was going on till 3.5 hrs later. It’s tough being away from home and I want to know about any potential danger at home as soon as possible. I don’t see why MY phone has to be in LA county for me to get the warnings. I’m sure there are many others that are in s similar situation.

I want to know about all earthquakes in LA county weather I’m there or not! From the news feed I’ve seen, I also think the trigger threshold should be lowered. I you can feel it in LA County, I think I should get an alert as well.

Thank you for your consideration!

I previously gave this one star because I did not get warnings for the July 4th and 5th earthquakes, but I later read an article that said it was because warnings are only sent to areas that are expected to exceed a minimum threshold of shaking and I was outside that area. I also was not able to see recent earthquakes in ShakeAlertLA , but after deleting and reinstalling ShakeAlertLA I am now able to see recent earthquakes. The shaking at my apartment was significant in the recent quakes, and although it wasn’t damaging, I would have liked a warning since the system would have been able to alert me about 1 minute before the shaking started.

The first release is a beta version. Not bad.
The only way to fully debug a real-time distributed system is to deploy it, and see how it works at large scale. There are millions of phones in LA County - there are bound to be snags, but they can’t be found until it’s tried.

I’ve read other reviewers’ complaints:

- it only works in LA County
That’s where the sensors are, kids.
Other local governments need to get with the program.

- it tracks your location, and reports locally
Makes sense. I want to know if *I* am going to feel an earthquake, where I am, right now. If I’m in Portland, and there’s an earthquake in LA, I’ll get the news, soon enough.
LA sending notifications around the world is an unreasonable demand.

My questions:
- does it have anti-spoofing safeguards?
If an alarm goes out, people are going to go completely ape. If it’s a false alarm, injuries may happen for no good reason.
- will it override the audio on/off switch, just in case?
I bump my switch all the time.
- will it sound the alarm at max volume, no matter the present setting?
A good warning system should wake the dead.

ShakeAlertLA is a great idea and I am glad to see it finally get released. I haven’t experienced any problems or crashing and it’s brand new so nobody can say much about its efficacy yet but I hope it succeeds one day to do what it was created to do; save lives.

Los Angeles is the first city to have an earthquake early warning tool like this one. We all know there will be earthquakes in this city, maybe not today, but it will happen. There’s no good reason not to be as prepared as you can and ShakeAlertLA is a good place to start. ShakeAlertLA includes a few simple tools for earthquake preparation like checklists and helpful instructions about what to do during and after an earthquake.

Los Angeles felt the effects of two large quakes that happened 100 miles outside of L.A. July 4-5. There was no cause to be notified in L.A. County because the potential damage caused by these quakes were only expected to happen outside of the County. ShakeAlertLA was designed to only alert folks living within L.A. County IF damage or potential injury was imminent here. The fewer alerts we get, the better, because when those few alerts DO come thru you know it’s gonna be Northridge all over again, in which case those precious seconds to remediate come into play, which was and is the point to ShakeAlertLA. Disclaimer: I’m just some random L.A. citizen.

I think the negative reviews are because people don’t understand that 1] ShakeAlertLA reports ONLY on quakes in LOS ANGELES COUNTY. If you’re even on the cusp of LA County, ShakeAlertLA won’t notify you, and 2] you must set notifications to ALWAYS.

I use another app on my iPhone called EARTHQUAKES that reports on quakes worldwide. And while California has quakes nearly every day, Los Angeles County does not. So if you’re expecting ShakeAlertLA to notify you daily, it won’t happen because LA COUNTY isn’t hit by quakes every day. I suggest people download the EARTHQUAKE also app so they can see where quakes strike and how often. But that app does NOT notify you early!

There are so many people on her who are whining just because they can. It will alert you for a quake 5 or greater, not those 3’s ppl keep complaining about. You must have your location always on “on” and be in the LA area. I appreciate ShakeAlertLA because it gets us actively thinking if we are prepared for a quake. Most of us are not, and if you’ve never lived through an earthquake you’re not likely to give it the importance you should. How can I say that you ask? Go. Ask your friends and coworkers if they’re prepared. Most people brush it off.

As a person who experienced a big earthquake in Turkey in 1999, this sounds like a great idea. There was a recent earthquake in Istanbul and cell phone networks were down for couple hours because everybody was trying to call their loved once at the same time. Do you think if the same thing would happen here? I experinced the difficulties calling or using my phone last year during the LA’s wildfires. If this occurs during an earthquake, ShakeAlertLA would not be functioning as it is planned no matter how great the idea is.

I don’t understand why reviewers are being so critical - what other app could literally save your life? This is the first app ever in the US that warns or earthquakes before they happen, so there may still be some quirks, but I am more than happy to have ShakeAlertLA now and get a warning than wait until every issue with ShakeAlertLA is worked out and possibly not be warned about an earthquake. Let’s be patient and grateful for an app that makes us even a little bit safer!!