A seismic network
made of phones.
Phones lying still feel the ground move. NE-PULSE joins hundreds of them and decides, with every step shown, whether it was an earthquake.
How the network decides
Each step below runs the same arithmetic as the server.
Earthquake — or just people?
Phones move all day. A phone only listens while it lies still, and it judges the shape of the motion: tilting, steps and knocks are rejected; a long rolling shake with the phone still flat becomes a vote. Watch it decide — the signal is computed from the real physics of each motion.
See it in motion→One building is one vote
Phones in the same 1 km square vote together: a third of them must trigger within 2 s. A hundred phones in one block moving furniture are one vote, and the network needs at least four.
See it in motion→Arrival times find the source
The wave reaches areas one after another, so each arrival time says how far away the source is. Draw those distances as circles and they meet at the source. Click the ground to move the quake.
See it in motion→How much warning is possible?
An alert can only beat the shaking to people far enough away. Strong shaking travels about 3.4 km per second; the network needs about 22 seconds to be sure.
Get alerts in Telegram
Works with the site closed and the phone locked. The bot tells you how many seconds of warning there are for your area, or that the shaking has already arrived.
Only your 10 km area goes to the bot; your exact position stays on this phone. Alerts for confirmed events within 250 km. /stop in the bot deletes everything.
What the network can say
A few areas moved together. Usually noise; never announced.
Separate areas moved in the order seismic waves from one point would reach them.
Every confirmation check held: many long-running phones, tiny chance of coincidence, real wave travel.
What your phone sends
- + Accelerometer readings, only while the NE-PULSE page is open.
- + Which 1 km square you are in, calculated on the phone.
- + A random ID. No account, name, number or email.
- − Never your exact position. Public maps use 10 km squares and hide any square with fewer than three phones.
Leave any time and delete everything from your phone page. Privacy details
Browsers only share motion while the page is open and the screen is on, so phones help as desk or bedside sensors. Phones can feel roughly light shaking and stronger (intensity IV+). This is a research experiment, not an official warning service. How it works, in detail