When I had a Pixel4, I witnessed a car accident in which someone got hurt quite substantially.
Hard as a tried, the process of dialing 911 failed multiple times; the phone app simply crashed and left me with a blank screen or the home screen. I put a complaint in with my carrier but nothing was ever done. And of course Google could give 0 fucks with their customer support.
A few months later, I needed to call 911 for an emergency and it did work, but yeah... we got "Eventual Consistency" for an emergency.
Someone could put all of these reports together along with the paper trail of unresolved complaints to Google through discovery and likely end up with a great class action case or even a criminal negligence case.
911 is one of those things that absolutely must work and most phones will allow you through using any available network if you are out of range of your primary carrier.
The fact that this is unreliable on any mobile phone is completely unacceptable.
911 obviously doesn't have to work given the blatant disregard Google has had for 911 performance over multiple phone generations. I consistently had 911 calls fail on my Pixel 6, which led me to get rid of that device.
Some Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) also give zero shits about call answer time, NG911, 911 via text, or even consistently working E911.
E911 provides a static address to the public safety answering point when a 911 call comes in. NG911 enriches this with more accurate latitude longitude and height above ground level data, or for phones that are in a fixed location a room number or extension number can be provided to make it much easier for a routing emergency services.
We need a national system for 911, not this mishmash of 10 to 30-year-old proprietary systems serving the 5700 PSAPs put together for each department on a township, city or county basis, with minimal coordination across regions and states.
Well, how many times in your life do you call 911? I am in my forties and I maybe used my local equivalent 3 times and in every occurence someone else could have made the call.
And I've only used my mobile phone since my late 20's, it is not like I buy smartphones for emergency purposes.
My colleague once told me that the reason telecom providers took so long with Android software updates was because they had to verify that the phone meets regulatory requirements after the update. One of these requirements was being able to dial 112 (Europe's 911) very thoroughly. There was a legally prescribed process (by BNetzA, IIRC) for doing that in Germany. After a quick Google search, it seems like there is something like that mandated by the FCC in the US.
I wonder how the Pixel 4 passed it. Not just in the US, but in many countries.
The Pixel 4 probably reliably called 911 on the simplest network config, like GSM or CDMA, but when encountering WCDMA, VoLTE and all the fun ways you can configure these technologies, you ended up with situations where the phone would perhaps have data service, but no ability to dial 911.
T-Mobile has had manufacturers brick band 12 on phones like the Moto E because you would get rural data coverage with this band, but T-Mobile did not sell any Moto phones and did not want to write a software config for VoLTE for Motorola phones. Without band 12 enabled the phone will happily roam onto AT&T or Verizon in areas where T-Mobile doesn't offer GSM service instead of hanging out on a cellular network that can never provide calling or texting at that location.
You're down-voted because you kinda stopped short, but I think it's worth discussing: Many engineering disciplines deal with safety-critical stuff and often have robust process around validation of design and implementation as a result. There's heaps of non-safety-critical software written, and if the same processes, attitudes, and even personell, are applied to a safety-critical component of a generally non-safety-critical system (like mobile 911) then we get bugs like this that canget people killed. How does our field improve on this?
It will get mature like any other industry, however I cannot see how that happens before another century or two. The field's unfulfilled potential is just too big.
This article is about an incident from just last month, but the fact that there are 20+ failure reports over just Feb 2022-Jan 2023 (https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/y039zn/i_compi...), across multiple Pixel models, is insane. There’s something seriously wrong here.
Is there any data on how often this occurs with other brands, or what the failure rate was (i.e. how many attempts to call 911 succeeded in that time?) Otherwise 20+ reports certainly sounds bad but I don't really have a perspective on how bad it is. It could very well be that 20 failures across a year is within the expected failure rate due to unavoidable transient network issues.
Funny, because I have the opposite problem. My Pixel dials 911 out of random and I always have to race to disconnect the call.
Just last night my Pixel Watch started ringing out of random while I was eating dinner and it said it was dialing 911. I saw a phone call pop up on my Pixel 6 phone but fortunately canceled it before it connected. My watch didn't even tell me why it dialed 911, and once I disconnected the call it just disappeared from my watch. Totally useless!
There should really be a hard-to-accidentally-accept confirmation dialog for any kind of automated emergency dial feature. This is ridiculous because this is probably the 3rd time this has happened to me.
I don't understand why these devices can't even do the most core feature of a phone properly.
This will sound crass but the development teams (right up to CEO's) should be dragged out to the gallows and flogged.
If it was my product I would have made damn sure the 911 experience was perfect before shipping, and not rested for a minute until any bugs were solidly quashed - up to and including recalling all sold units and overhauling the flakey architecture if needed.
This is life safety we're talking about, not only for their users but also everyone else impacted by their blatent abuse of the emergency services system. Would we tolerate bridges that collapsed with equally ambivalent consequences for those who engineered them?
In any other field, engineers would be held responsible and after so many "mistakes" they would lose their license.
Software engineers will fight tooth and nails to keep their privilege is being called engineers whilst having none of the responsibility when it comes to the harm they're causing.
If it was my product I would have made damn sure the 911 experience was perfect before shipping
For what it's worth, every telco switch upgrade I performed ages ago, early days of GSM the first number I tested was 911. I made sure the dispatcher could hear me. I don't know whats going on with the phone development side of things. That seems like a QA and customer feedback review problem. It probably also does not help that wireless vendors are slow/hesitant to update phones. There is a fear of bricking phones and customer support nightmares their words, not mine. I could flash update a phone over the air but this was in the 90's. No idea what that process looks like now. I assume they stage an update on a CDN after hopefully testing it extensively. Do all cell phones have two boot partitions in the event the upgrade process is sub-optimal(c)?
I can hallucinate couple different explanations for that:
- Modern software is way too overcomplicated to take seriously.
- 911 is handled too specially, leading to oversights by implementers.
- Feature importance to you has nothing to do with implementation difficulties.
How are you doing this? Dialing an emergency has never happened to me by accident on Android or iOS.
It has happened to me many times on office phones where you need to use 9 to route your call. And you learn to just stay on the call if you dial me mistake because they will call back if you disconnect and telling them it was a mistake if much quicker. They must deal with it all the time
Happened to me twice with an iPhone. Both times I triggered it when the phone was lagging for some reason (eg it got too hot and throttled down). I guess iOS doesn't track the delay between button presses properly when it's overloaded. I was able to cancel the call in time, but it's a horrifying seeing the timer go down while mashing the non-responsive stop button.
After I retired my last smartphone, a Nokia something, the same thing happened. I used it purely as a mp3 player when walking the woods and it would randomly call the emergency line (not 911 in my country)
I barely could cancel the call before it went through as of course I was walking and had headphones in.
I figured it had something to do with a button... it got more annoying over time so what I did to fix it was: change the emergency number to my girlfriend`s
> How are you doing this? Dialing an emergency has never happened to me by accident on Android or iOS.
I wish I could tell you. As far as I can tell, there's no way, either on my watch or my phone, to figure out retroactively why it automatically dialed 911.
I know the Emergency SOS feature allows dialing 911 with some sequence of power button presses, but I don't think I was pressing the crown on my watch at the time.
I had this happen with my iPhone a few years ago. Basically there’s a setting where some combination of the side buttons pressed together calls 911. I was in a borrowed car and the cup holder was just the right width to do this when I hit a bump.
The very nice 911 operator told me it happened all the time. After the second time it happened I tracked down the setting to disable it.
Some 911 operator online once mentioned that most of the calls they get are “butt dials.”
And then when I called months back I got an answering machine and waited what felt like an eternity (was one minute) to be routed to someone who then routed me elsewhere after determining what my needs were.
This happened to me, it was the emergency shortcut on the phone. Press the power button four times and it calls the police. You can turn it off. It was the button that kept triggering rather than a software fault.
When you hold down the power button, there is a big red emergency button beside the restart button. I've gotten pretty close to accidentally pressing it.
I will say I have had plenty of similar issues across my iPhone devices. For a variety of reasons these phones fail to make calls. Drop calls or can’t dial 911. I suspect voice calling itself has become network deprioritized or still has trouble selecting between calling tech.
I worked on dialer for pixel and and am deeply familiar with these problems. Voice call tech is easily one of those mostly worthlessly convoluted spaces in mobile. That being said while I was there we put a huge priority on emergency calling — however the exec overseeing the space often complained about how hard dialer was and bemoaned all the required work because it never helped her promotions.
When did you have problems dialing 911 with an iPhone? It seems like something worth reporting - feedback to Apple, public posting, etc.
Dropped calls etc. do happen for a variety of reasons, but there have been next to no reports of iPhones being unable to dial 911 (assuming a decent cell signal, etc.), and that would be a much more serious issue.
I’m going to be the one to say that you definitely didn’t have the same issue with an iPhone. As much as people love shitting on Google they love shitting on Apple 100x more and it would be front page news for days if what you are saying is true.
I like using a heavily scrutinized phone. When Apple throttled my iPhone 6, there was so much media backlash that they responded by adding an option to disable the throttling. Android issues like this would likely get swept under the rug, especially with a non-Pixel device where someone else makes the hardware and both sides avoid blame.
> I suspect voice calling itself has become network deprioritized or still has trouble selecting between calling tech.
Whilst this may be true for normal voice, almost universally emergency calling is the highest network priority[0], knocking other voice and data sessions off another carriers tower if required.
All cell phones with 911 functionality should have a way to periodically test that the 911 feature is fully functional. The reality is that I rarely even make a phone call anymore... but I don't even know whether being able to make a call implies 911 works? And I don't know if its still true but there used to be pretty significant fines for calling 911 so I'm not just going to dial 911 and say "making sure this still works!" The phone should just be doing various deadman switch type tests on the network/911 health-checks and report to me whether it is working or not working. It has a freaking GPS and can identify cell towers, so it should be pretty trivial to maintain test data and schedule. Relying on life-critical devices that can't be tested seems really sketchy.
This is true for many young people. Turns out phone calls are pretty much the only time the earpiece speaker gets used on a phone. Lots of people have killed their earpiece speaker by filling it with sand, salt, water, lint, etc. Speakers seem to die more easily when never used, presumably because use vibrates dirt out. End result: When they call 911 they can't hear anything.
My phone currently has a dead earpiece speaker, and I just know that if I need to call 911, it better be on speakerphone.
From that link:
Test calls confirm that your local 911 service can receive your 911 call and has the correct location information. Test calls can be scheduled by contacting your local 911 call center via its non-emergency phone number.
I used to have a Pixel 2 XL and then later a Pixel 5a. Went through them really fast as the hardware was pretty bad and the phone would just decide to stop turning on at some point. Same thing happened to a relative I gave a Pixel 5a. Phone didn't last a year.
Don't get me started on the Pixel buds. I got tired of contacting customer support for replacements.
That's when I decided not to buy hardware from Google again, and also stopped using Android. Experience in iPhone has been great so far. Phone's fast despite being several generations behind, don't have to worry about not getting security updates.
Nexus 4, Pixel 2 XL, Pixel 4 XL, Pixel 6 Pro – never had any issues whatsoever, all phones still alive and kicking at my grandparents' places. Yes, most of them tied to the wall now... but hey, they're fine for showing some photos and displaying current time or setting alarms.
Interestingly, I also used Samsung's Note 9 and 10+, iPhone 12, iPhone 14 Pro Max – daily, also with no issues... other than disliking Samsung's software.
(I was/am doing a lot of mobile work so I test a lot of phones)
After years of doing this kind of testing, it's hard for me to believe that the entire batches of phones are so fundamentally broken... I'd rather bet on software issues, but who knows.
I had two pixels suffer heat deaths on me (after random boot cycles) switching around iphone 8 time and haven't had a problem out of the 3 devices I've owned from them. Got tired of Android being weird plus relaying everything I did on the phone to google to share with 3rd parties.
Got gifted a pair of pixel buds gen 2. I liked them. Accidentally sent them through a wash cycle killing the left one. Eventually straight up lost the left one. Thought nothing of it until I changed phones and realized a hardware limitation meant you needed both to pair to a new device. Dumb but I needed a new one anyways so…
I contacted support after not seeing spares were being sold. They gave me an 25$ store credit… Ended up selling the case and working earbud and getting a different brand.
Recently changed phones and them pulling the headphone jack from the A series after the 5 was a non-starter for me. I still use wired headphones and plug my aux into my car and other places :/ kinda mind boggling
They are so lucky. My Samsung Phone already called 911 several times, while I had it in my pocket. And every time I have to explain why. I guess I'll get a Pixel next time.
Samsung makes some of the stupidest devices I've ever owned. Back when I had Samsung phones, they did all sorts of things while in my pocket. I experienced multiple butt-dials, music randomly playing, etc. Fortunately, mine never dialed 911. But I could have lived without those moments where death metal started blasting from my pocket because I leaned the wrong way. And let's not get me started on their TVs. Maybe it's not so bad now that their phones support fingerprint scanning, but I wouldn't put it past them to screw that up, too. I sincerely believe that most people who continue to own Samsung devices simply don't know better. Such flimsy bloated crap for products that are supposed to "compete" with Apple, Microsoft, and The Google.
Had this issue awhile ago, out of nowhere it just started dialing 911 while in my pocket. Turns out some setting was re-enabled after a recent update. Went to Settings > Advanced features > Motions and gestures > Double tap to turn on screen > Disable and I think that finally fixed it. This is on a Samsung A71 5G.
Yes, I ran into the same problem and this "fixed" it. The issue doesn't come from the feature itself but from the fact that the lower end model uses "Virtual proximity sensing" instead of a real proximity sensor which is often faulty. It sucks that Samsung chooses to cut costs in these places.
If it's possible the power button is getting bumped repeatedly in your pocket. You could search your Android settings, and make sure "Emergency SOS" is turned off.
It’s also possible that there’s a hardware failure that is making the power button erroneously report button presses, leading to the Emergency SOS. This happened to me on a Pixel 3, which resulted in repeated calls to 911 with no user input.
* Can’t power it off for the night, because the flaky power button turns it back on.
* Can’t pull the SIM card, because emergency calls don’t require a SIM card to connect.
* Can’t consistently use the “slide to cancel” option, as the phone was also trying to initialize the camera at the same time. (IIRC,
3 button presses for the camera, 5 button presses for SOS. The flaky power button managed to trigger SOS while the camera was still initializing the GUI, so the camera GUI took focus.)
* Can’t access the settings, because the flaky power button either turns the phone off, opens the camera, or sends an SOS faster than I could search the settings.
This all started at about 10 PM. So, instead of going to sleep, I needed to spend the next two hours baby-sitting my phone as it mostly was repeatedly rebooting, with occasional calls to 911, until the battery finally died.
As in my other comment, this likely comes from the fact that lower end phones use "virtual proximity sensing" instead of a real proximity sensor, and they have a lot of issues when the phone is in a pocket. You need to either disable the double tab feature or upgrade to a "real" flagship like S23.
Do explain why! Is there a shortcut on the lock screen that you can't turn off or how?
Two or my four smartphones have been Samsungs and, while I could call 112 on purpose, I don't know what might cause pocket dialing. Your comment about this being a feature rather than a bug on Pixels is funny though =)
Yes, it's possible to dial 911 from a locked phone. I assume that's a legal requirement; on its face it's pretty reasonable.
I never used to lock my phone at all, but starting with the Pixel 3a I've been forced to do it by the fact that the phone interprets rubbing against my leg through my pocket as a stream of commands. I wish manufacturers would go back to the non-crazy screens they used to make. Anyway, since locking the phone doesn't disable the ability to call 911, this is a constant risk, though I don't believe I've made an accidental call yet. (Or maybe I would have, if my phones weren't Pixels!)
I have mangled a text note I was keeping on my phone beyond recovery when I once put my phone in my pocket without manually locking it first.
No, I can't turn it off and it was always from a locked screen, I think it's a legal requirement in the EU. I now keep my phone always with the screen turned away from my leg in my pocket and that seems to prevent it well enough, even though I still often get to almost calling 911 when I take it out of my pocket with my hand.
Well I have to now, because the screen also stopped working 90% of the time, except when I put it in the freezer for 15 minutes. Just 2 months that the phone is conveniently out of warranty. I guess it's the last Samsung Phone I'll ever buy.
There should be some kind of test number twin of 911 that works exactly the same (without SIM, supplying E911 data), but just plays a pre-recorded message optionally with some "debug" info.
That is such an obviously good idea I'm surprised it doesn't exist. Apparently the official way to test it in the UK is to email them and schedule a test. They say they use the real 999 because that's the best way to guarantee that it works, and that's true - but there's definitely utility in having an almost-real number that you can test at any time guilt free.
They probably just can't be bothered to set it up tbh.
The article says to test by calling the non-emergency number, but that seems like a really unrealistic test. Even if they offered a test version of 911, I wouldn't trust that it works exactly the same as 911.
If you follow the link you'll see the procedure is you call the non-emergency number to ask for a time and location slot where you're allowed to call the real 911 number for test purposes. This let's them schedule you for a time where they predict lower demand. Seems sensible to me.
I remember from my days building SIP clients that a lot of carriers support 933, which is exactly what you're asking about. You can try googling a bit to see if your carrier supports it.
If Google employees actually used the phones they build we wouldn't have a lot of the issues we have them. I'm still annoyed that the little weather icon on the home screen has about a 2x2 pixel hitbox.
When it appears at all. What kind of UI designer thinks it's OK not to show the weather most of the time when the user explicitly configured the settings to show it?
It is possible to intercept a lot of Android system broadcasts. In the B2B world, we often had weird requests to take over the whole phone experience and do something different – made possible by the same core Android APIs that they ship both to business devices and personal devices.
I'm also not surprised to read that Teams was to blame, because Skype had the same functionality back in the days.
This was the final straw for me and why I switched from a Pixel to an iPhone. I refuse to die because my $800 smart device couldn't get me help that would have otherwise been available. Apple may be a scummy company just like all the other ones but the one thing they do seem to take very seriously is safety. I'm sure other people feel the same way but it doesn't seem like this message is getting to Google.
I did the exact same thing last year when I first heard of this (recurring) issue. Safety is not part of a promo packet, so who at Google cares to fix it?
I hate how Apple infantilizes the user, but at least they have vision of making a product. Not a collection of promotion producing ideas.
Safety is definitely one of Apple’s key marketing points—you might have seen their ads for fall detection/emergency SOS on the Apple Watch or car crash detection on the iPhone.
To be fair, Samsung produces much more reliable phones than Google, especially their S series phones, if you wanted to stay in the Android system. They are also quite good with system updates and security updates -- not the best but top tier by Android standards.
I tried to use my old pixel 3 recently as a hotspot. Blows my mind how it’s been broken for a while (according to online) and won’t ever be fixed since there’s no more software support. I ended up buying a used iPhone SE instead.
Had exactly the same thing in Australia when trying a 000 (Australia's emergency number) call with my Pixel 6 Pro after watching somebody run off the road and smash into a pole.
Fortunately I had the local police station number and was able to call that just fine, but not until a few failed attempts at the real emergency number.
That said, another good option is attempting to call 112. Which is an emergency number in many countries. (Works in the US too).
Disheartening to see this. I was planning on getting a pixel for my next phone and hoping this might be a 911 only issue but obviously it's related to emergency dialing all-round.
> 112. Which is an emergency number in many countries.
There's a lot of the planet where 112 will work, often as a redirect to the actual number.
I had a Bluetooth keyboard in a backpack turned On in the trunk of my car while driving .... random key presses while driving from bumps in the road managed to dial 911 ... or make the phone think it was an emergency and 911 was called. Not fun.
The keyboard was spamming gibberish, eg NN nZzz1457_+-5hhhsvb .... etc
It took me a while to figure out why the phone appeared possessed...
In my experience (which is about as relevant to this topic as one can imagine), regulatory-required features in software always get built in really shitty ways.
These are some of the reasons I've seen for why:
-the regulation isn't sufficiently flexible to allow the company to build it in a way that makes the most sense for their system
-for the same reason testing, user research and feedback largely don't matter
-the projects are led by legal or compliance teams who are generally terrible at building features
-the feature isn't requested by customers so the company has very limited dialogue with the user about it
-the feature will not make money so no one at the company is incentivized to build it well or spend time on it
I would like to see this lead to corporate manslaughter charges. I swear I've seen reports of this for years for multiple Pixel phones and the fact it's still ongoing is incredibly negligent.
Interesting. This might not be a bug in Google's dialer (or the OS, or hardware). Based on my past experience building B2B SIP clients, I remember that there are ways to intercept many of the Android system broadcasts. I'd bet on that being the root cause. Intercepting would look like the app is crashing, when instead it would be attempting to re-route requests to a different app; someone else mentioned they detected Microsoft Teams doing that. I remember Skype also had this feature, so it sounds plausible.
In the B2B world, we often had weird requests e.g. to take over the whole phone experience and do something different – this was made possible by the same core Android SDKs that they ship both to business devices and personal devices.
For example, we were required to move each 911 call to our app first, then check if we can route it quicker through the internal PBXs, and if not – send it back to the native/built-in dialer. This was possible a couple of years ago, we built it. I assume it's still possible because it's really rare that you need this kind of functionality... releasing such an app also requires a special review from Google. Maybe Google sees it as a low risk to the user experience and allows some apps to still do it, at least until something like this issue happes.
Surely it is a legal requirement that mobile phones be able to call the emergency services? If it doesn't do that then surely a crime has been committed?
When my OnePlus 8T lags, I sometimes press the power button a few times, because I'm impatient and I'm trying to get the screen to turn on.
Pressing the power button 5 times dials the emergency service number by default, so I've almost called emergency services a few times already. I usually manage to cancel it before it dials, but wow.
FWIW, you can disable that in settings (both the power button thing, as well as the auto-dial if you prefer to get to that page via buttons). At least, if the 8T is similar to other phones.
Sometimes people ask me, why do I use an iPhone when Android phones are so much better in this or that respect.
And the thing is, none of iPhones I had my hands on (since 4S maybe) have never failed me as phones. When I need to place or receive a call, the call is placed or received. No shenanigans with sound, microphone, connections. If there is a connection problem, I can be 100% sure it's the carrier. With Android, all bets are off. When Maemo was a thing, all bets were off, it could enter a 100% CPU-hogging busy loop during a call and you would be SOL, or you wouldn't be able to hang up, or some such shit.
The only other cellular thing that I could 100% rely on was my Nokia 1280 and a 1112 before it, but 2G networks are being wound down in my area, alas.
> And the thing is, none of iPhones I had my hands on (since 4S maybe) have never failed me as phones. When I need to place or receive a call, the call is placed or received. No shenanigans with sound, microphone, connections. If there is a connection problem, I can be 100% sure it's the carrier.
Just saying, I've used only Android phones since 2009 or so, and I've never once had a problem with the phone functionality. It's not like this is some problem with Android in general.
It's really absurd how such a problem still exists. Couldn't a separate method be used for emergency calling? For example drop to 3g, don't use the dialer app but a separate "emergency" app.
If talking about the US (though it’s not the only place that uses the number 911, and I would imagine that other countries’ numbers would be affected): all the major 3G networks have been shut down, so your current options for major networks are T-Mobile’s 2G network (which I successfully dialed 911 with a couple of months ago while in the US, but it’s only spottily available, and it’s being shut down next year), or 4G networks.
More generally, though, using different code paths for emergency dialing is the root of the problem in the first place—you want to minimise special handling of things like this, because less-tested paths are much more likely to be buggy. Consider also: error handling code is pretty much the buggiest out there, because it’s seldom tested.
At least 2 decades ago when I worked with phones the phone as a list of emergency numbers which could be updated to country-spefic values. Often 000, 112, and 911 were always present.
Once the software notices one of these numbers dialled call handling will go a completely different code path than normal calls.
I have no idea how things work in Android, where you obviously must have VoIP hooks?
The problem with 4G (and 5G) is that it supports only internet traffic. Phone traffic is passed trough VoLTE that is VOIP on the network. Is something that is fairly new, few years ago only a couple of operators in my country even supported that, and thus phones had to drop to 3G to handle calls. Also VOIP is not that reliable and presents problems especially with different networks.
The problem is when the internet connection is not so stable, and thus VoLTE doesn't work that well. The safer option would be to drop to 3G or even 2G if available to complete emergency calls.
It would be great if when 911 is dialed the phone dropped into a “black box” state where all unnecessary functionality is suspended to maximize battery and signal. It could alert emergency contacts w/ location pings, start recording voice and video, and go into a heightened security mode to avoid tampering.
I thought 3G networks have been shut down in the US? (Not living there but I remotely maintain some devices with cellular modems over there, so the topic has somewhat of professional interest.)
Having dedicated code path for 911 is literally the problem. It makes it legally almost impossible to test in many countries (since in many countries you're not allowed to dial 911 if you don't have an emergency)
Which countries? Where I live, in the US, if you want to make a callback to a police detective, you have to call 911 and ask to be transfered. It's clearly not an emergency, and the detective will tell you to do it. This police department doesn't have a phone system that allows the public to call a non-emergency number and have their calls routed.
But most places I've lived in the US had a non-emergency police number, and non-emergency 911 calls were very discouraged. If you have a good reason to make them for network or device testing, you'd just need to schedule a time to make a test call, stay on the line and tell the operator, etc.
Device development would be well served by using a tower simulator in a Faraday cage, as a sibling suggested. But a responsible developer would do a few tests on live networks during release acceptance testing.
Just call nearest Rohde & Schwarz office and get a signaling tester... If you're doing phone firmware, there should be couple extra briefcases of cash for that. No need to call actual 911 just to test a dev branch build.
Probably not exactly what you are looking for, but when one is in such a situation and they happen to have an app like Skype, people can use it for emergency calls (support in the US)
Realistically, if you care about software/hardware quality at all in your smartphone, there are only two options: Iphone or Galaxy S phones. Anything else and you have to be ready to face a bunch of problems.
It seems pretty odd that liability-lawsuit lawyers haven't managed to monetize this "feature" enough to push "removing" it further up the priority list. Anybody have some insight?
My Pixel journey from 1 to 6A ended a few months ago, I can't no longer trust Pixel phones. Even though they seem very fast and responsive at first, they're not reliable in many situations like calling 911, getting Wifi signal, receiving calls, ... All of Pixel phones I got since the 1st version have some kind of major issues. I trusted Google with the software and I thought I could continue, but I had to switch to iPhones.
If you would be isolated on a random place and given the chance to bring only one item, you would most probably pick the phone. On both ethical and user-experience cases, this is completely unacceptable. Google is just bringing the trust issues for such a silly bug.
They certainly have in the past. There are core issues with how Android deals with phone apps and prioritization. Quite a few threads on here about previous 911 issues.
Exactly. If the FCC (or someone) said "your certification of these devices is revoked and any further imports are banned" I GUARANTEE Google would instantly spin up a dedicated, capable, and prioritized 911 team.
Omnipresent use of 911 has been arguably the most impactful killer app since cell phones first emerged over 40 years ago. It has saved countless lives. In the days of not having a landline this is completely unacceptable.
To have issues utilizing 911 from a cellular device in 2023 is exactly the kind of thing regulators should make painful for device manufacturers who can’t even get this right.
What’s even more puzzling is the brand and reputational damage when stories emerge in the press of people dying because their $500 (or more) device couldn’t do something a free phone without a SIM card can do.
You’d think they’d take this seriously if for no other reason other than self interest.
I own one, and reading this I most definitely want a refund. It is utter bolox. Sure, every once in a while your car brakes fail, but that's not really the point of the car, is it? It's made to go forward! Anyways, we will get if fixed eventually. Do you like our newest, just released paint colors?
Being able to call 911 is an essential part of a phone. To the point that Apple (and I'm assuming Google) both allow calling emergency services while the phone is locked.
Disproportionate? Google must be worth what, a trillion dollars by now? And they can't get emergency service dialing working worldwide? There's clearly not enough legal liability to get them to do what society expects them to be doing. People are going to fucking die because of their negligence. Literally every minute is precious when someone is having a heart attack, we don't have time to fuck around with Google bullshit. Society should start calculating that damage and making Google pay all of it multiplied by 10.
Some people love so much they dismiss critical issues? Apple got fined for extending the life of old phones without notifying the users, where do you think this issue sits in relation?
That tends to happen when the party to be penalized shows how much it doesn't give a shit until it starts to hemorrhage money, because fines are just a cost of doing business. So let the blood flow.
My experience has been Pixel phones suck for calls in general. I know of 3 people with Pixel 3As that intermittently can’t receive calls. Often it takes 2-3 calls to these people in order to get 1 to go through. Setting the phones to prefer 4G has so far fixed the problem most reliably but the whole calling stack on pixel phones needs some work IMO.
This is one thing I miss about the old Windows Phones (Nokia/Metro interface sucked, but damn) because it was a phone first, computer second. Most phones these days are computers (or cameras) first, phones last.
For example, the WP would progressively disable things to keep the phone on for as long as possible. At 2am, after a night out, I'd usually be the only one who had a working phone to call a cab (pre-uber days) -- but that was the last feature to stop working before it died. IIRC, you could disable this functionality, but I don't know why you would want to.
I have a pixel 6 pro and this has been my experience since they day I got it. I even had it replaced and still have to reset the cellular modem several times per week because I get the no service `!`.
Starting to believe it is a T-Mobile service issue in my area. Previously had a pixel 2 on Verizon and never had a problem. Planning to leave T-Mobile in the near future.
Pixel 6 on AT&T, I don't think I've ever had this experience.
Phone calls sound much better than my previous carrier (some cheap mvno) and things generally Just Work.
Only complaint is that it's missing some things I hadn't realized were not stock Android, such as per-app volume control. I just might switch back to LG after this one dies, though the battery seems to be holding up much better so who knows.
Do you use wifi calling when you are at home? It has been my experience that T-Mobile WiFi calling is absolutely terrible, and I've oftentimes wondered if something in the software "locks" into WiFi instead of switching to cellular data, until the phone is rebooted.
Selling info to ambulance chasers and private first responders is probably a pretty good model. To fix everything all we really need to do is let Google sell the gravy.
When I had a Pixel4, I witnessed a car accident in which someone got hurt quite substantially.
Hard as a tried, the process of dialing 911 failed multiple times; the phone app simply crashed and left me with a blank screen or the home screen. I put a complaint in with my carrier but nothing was ever done. And of course Google could give 0 fucks with their customer support.
A few months later, I needed to call 911 for an emergency and it did work, but yeah... we got "Eventual Consistency" for an emergency.
Someone could put all of these reports together along with the paper trail of unresolved complaints to Google through discovery and likely end up with a great class action case or even a criminal negligence case.
911 is one of those things that absolutely must work and most phones will allow you through using any available network if you are out of range of your primary carrier.
The fact that this is unreliable on any mobile phone is completely unacceptable.
911 obviously doesn't have to work given the blatant disregard Google has had for 911 performance over multiple phone generations. I consistently had 911 calls fail on my Pixel 6, which led me to get rid of that device.
Some Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) also give zero shits about call answer time, NG911, 911 via text, or even consistently working E911.
E911 provides a static address to the public safety answering point when a 911 call comes in. NG911 enriches this with more accurate latitude longitude and height above ground level data, or for phones that are in a fixed location a room number or extension number can be provided to make it much easier for a routing emergency services.
We need a national system for 911, not this mishmash of 10 to 30-year-old proprietary systems serving the 5700 PSAPs put together for each department on a township, city or county basis, with minimal coordination across regions and states.
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> A few months later
I’m surprised you kept the phone. I would have gotten a new phone if I discovered my current one couldn’t dial 911 properly.
Well, how many times in your life do you call 911? I am in my forties and I maybe used my local equivalent 3 times and in every occurence someone else could have made the call.
And I've only used my mobile phone since my late 20's, it is not like I buy smartphones for emergency purposes.
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My colleague once told me that the reason telecom providers took so long with Android software updates was because they had to verify that the phone meets regulatory requirements after the update. One of these requirements was being able to dial 112 (Europe's 911) very thoroughly. There was a legally prescribed process (by BNetzA, IIRC) for doing that in Germany. After a quick Google search, it seems like there is something like that mandated by the FCC in the US.
I wonder how the Pixel 4 passed it. Not just in the US, but in many countries.
The Pixel 4 probably reliably called 911 on the simplest network config, like GSM or CDMA, but when encountering WCDMA, VoLTE and all the fun ways you can configure these technologies, you ended up with situations where the phone would perhaps have data service, but no ability to dial 911.
T-Mobile has had manufacturers brick band 12 on phones like the Moto E because you would get rural data coverage with this band, but T-Mobile did not sell any Moto phones and did not want to write a software config for VoLTE for Motorola phones. Without band 12 enabled the phone will happily roam onto AT&T or Verizon in areas where T-Mobile doesn't offer GSM service instead of hanging out on a cellular network that can never provide calling or texting at that location.
> 112 (Europe's 911)
Small point, but many (most?) countries support 112, and it's definitely worth knowing as "911" likely won't work outside of the US.
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Send a complaint to the FCC. The carrier will notice.
Software is a mess.
You're down-voted because you kinda stopped short, but I think it's worth discussing: Many engineering disciplines deal with safety-critical stuff and often have robust process around validation of design and implementation as a result. There's heaps of non-safety-critical software written, and if the same processes, attitudes, and even personell, are applied to a safety-critical component of a generally non-safety-critical system (like mobile 911) then we get bugs like this that canget people killed. How does our field improve on this?
It will get mature like any other industry, however I cannot see how that happens before another century or two. The field's unfulfilled potential is just too big.
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This article is about an incident from just last month, but the fact that there are 20+ failure reports over just Feb 2022-Jan 2023 (https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/y039zn/i_compi...), across multiple Pixel models, is insane. There’s something seriously wrong here.
Is there any data on how often this occurs with other brands, or what the failure rate was (i.e. how many attempts to call 911 succeeded in that time?) Otherwise 20+ reports certainly sounds bad but I don't really have a perspective on how bad it is. It could very well be that 20 failures across a year is within the expected failure rate due to unavoidable transient network issues.
The author of the linked Reddit post was unable to find anything for other Android brands, and only three cases across ten years for iPhones.
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My pixel 4a was unable to place a simple 800 call last week, even after rebooting twice.
I was manually entering the number on the dial pad, and the call would never initiate.
Finally, I created a dummy contact with the number and then it finally worked.
I now have a phone that isn't a phone.
Funny, because I have the opposite problem. My Pixel dials 911 out of random and I always have to race to disconnect the call.
Just last night my Pixel Watch started ringing out of random while I was eating dinner and it said it was dialing 911. I saw a phone call pop up on my Pixel 6 phone but fortunately canceled it before it connected. My watch didn't even tell me why it dialed 911, and once I disconnected the call it just disappeared from my watch. Totally useless!
There should really be a hard-to-accidentally-accept confirmation dialog for any kind of automated emergency dial feature. This is ridiculous because this is probably the 3rd time this has happened to me.
Jeez - can't dial 911, randomly dials 911.
I don't understand why these devices can't even do the most core feature of a phone properly.
This will sound crass but the development teams (right up to CEO's) should be dragged out to the gallows and flogged.
If it was my product I would have made damn sure the 911 experience was perfect before shipping, and not rested for a minute until any bugs were solidly quashed - up to and including recalling all sold units and overhauling the flakey architecture if needed.
This is life safety we're talking about, not only for their users but also everyone else impacted by their blatent abuse of the emergency services system. Would we tolerate bridges that collapsed with equally ambivalent consequences for those who engineered them?
In any other field, engineers would be held responsible and after so many "mistakes" they would lose their license.
Software engineers will fight tooth and nails to keep their privilege is being called engineers whilst having none of the responsibility when it comes to the harm they're causing.
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If it was my product I would have made damn sure the 911 experience was perfect before shipping
For what it's worth, every telco switch upgrade I performed ages ago, early days of GSM the first number I tested was 911. I made sure the dispatcher could hear me. I don't know whats going on with the phone development side of things. That seems like a QA and customer feedback review problem. It probably also does not help that wireless vendors are slow/hesitant to update phones. There is a fear of bricking phones and customer support nightmares their words, not mine. I could flash update a phone over the air but this was in the 90's. No idea what that process looks like now. I assume they stage an update on a CDN after hopefully testing it extensively. Do all cell phones have two boot partitions in the event the upgrade process is sub-optimal(c)?
I can hallucinate couple different explanations for that:
etc.
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My bet is on Google doesn't give a shit. The pixel 4a is a second tier device with constant ui crashes, glitches and design obviously not made for it.
> If it was my product I would have made damn sure the 911 experience was perfect before shipping
not absolving Google, but this is easier said than done
> Jeez - can't dial 911, randomly dials 911.
There's enough 911 calls for everyone, they're just not distributed equally.
How are you doing this? Dialing an emergency has never happened to me by accident on Android or iOS.
It has happened to me many times on office phones where you need to use 9 to route your call. And you learn to just stay on the call if you dial me mistake because they will call back if you disconnect and telling them it was a mistake if much quicker. They must deal with it all the time
Happened to me twice with an iPhone. Both times I triggered it when the phone was lagging for some reason (eg it got too hot and throttled down). I guess iOS doesn't track the delay between button presses properly when it's overloaded. I was able to cancel the call in time, but it's a horrifying seeing the timer go down while mashing the non-responsive stop button.
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After I retired my last smartphone, a Nokia something, the same thing happened. I used it purely as a mp3 player when walking the woods and it would randomly call the emergency line (not 911 in my country)
I barely could cancel the call before it went through as of course I was walking and had headphones in.
I figured it had something to do with a button... it got more annoying over time so what I did to fix it was: change the emergency number to my girlfriend`s
> How are you doing this? Dialing an emergency has never happened to me by accident on Android or iOS.
I wish I could tell you. As far as I can tell, there's no way, either on my watch or my phone, to figure out retroactively why it automatically dialed 911.
I know the Emergency SOS feature allows dialing 911 with some sequence of power button presses, but I don't think I was pressing the crown on my watch at the time.
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I had this happen with my iPhone a few years ago. Basically there’s a setting where some combination of the side buttons pressed together calls 911. I was in a borrowed car and the cup holder was just the right width to do this when I hit a bump.
The very nice 911 operator told me it happened all the time. After the second time it happened I tracked down the setting to disable it.
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on android, pressing power five times calls 911.
you can turn it off in settings. it's a good idea but sadly too easy to do if you're trying to turn the volume down instead for example.
also, even if it's awkward, stay on the line and explain. they usually appreciate it.
Some 911 operator online once mentioned that most of the calls they get are “butt dials.”
And then when I called months back I got an answering machine and waited what felt like an eternity (was one minute) to be routed to someone who then routed me elsewhere after determining what my needs were.
I think a confirmation dialog would defeat the purpose of an auto dial here — you need the auto dial because you have been incapacitated.
Apple's approach is to give you some fixed amount of time to cancel before it auto-dials an emergency number.
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This happened to me, it was the emergency shortcut on the phone. Press the power button four times and it calls the police. You can turn it off. It was the button that kept triggering rather than a software fault.
When you hold down the power button, there is a big red emergency button beside the restart button. I've gotten pretty close to accidentally pressing it.
Turn off Emergency SOS on your watch and phone.
My phone went from a hobby to a tool when I switched to iphone. Don't regret it at all.
Ah, 911 Georg
I will say I have had plenty of similar issues across my iPhone devices. For a variety of reasons these phones fail to make calls. Drop calls or can’t dial 911. I suspect voice calling itself has become network deprioritized or still has trouble selecting between calling tech.
I worked on dialer for pixel and and am deeply familiar with these problems. Voice call tech is easily one of those mostly worthlessly convoluted spaces in mobile. That being said while I was there we put a huge priority on emergency calling — however the exec overseeing the space often complained about how hard dialer was and bemoaned all the required work because it never helped her promotions.
When did you have problems dialing 911 with an iPhone? It seems like something worth reporting - feedback to Apple, public posting, etc.
Dropped calls etc. do happen for a variety of reasons, but there have been next to no reports of iPhones being unable to dial 911 (assuming a decent cell signal, etc.), and that would be a much more serious issue.
I’m going to be the one to say that you definitely didn’t have the same issue with an iPhone. As much as people love shitting on Google they love shitting on Apple 100x more and it would be front page news for days if what you are saying is true.
I like using a heavily scrutinized phone. When Apple throttled my iPhone 6, there was so much media backlash that they responded by adding an option to disable the throttling. Android issues like this would likely get swept under the rug, especially with a non-Pixel device where someone else makes the hardware and both sides avoid blame.
> I suspect voice calling itself has become network deprioritized or still has trouble selecting between calling tech.
Whilst this may be true for normal voice, almost universally emergency calling is the highest network priority[0], knocking other voice and data sessions off another carriers tower if required.
0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_telephone_number#Eme...
Emergency calls should have the highest priority on networks.
If that were true there would probably be news articles about it like this one. I do not believe you.
All cell phones with 911 functionality should have a way to periodically test that the 911 feature is fully functional. The reality is that I rarely even make a phone call anymore... but I don't even know whether being able to make a call implies 911 works? And I don't know if its still true but there used to be pretty significant fines for calling 911 so I'm not just going to dial 911 and say "making sure this still works!" The phone should just be doing various deadman switch type tests on the network/911 health-checks and report to me whether it is working or not working. It has a freaking GPS and can identify cell towers, so it should be pretty trivial to maintain test data and schedule. Relying on life-critical devices that can't be tested seems really sketchy.
> I rarely even make a phone call anymore
This is true for many young people. Turns out phone calls are pretty much the only time the earpiece speaker gets used on a phone. Lots of people have killed their earpiece speaker by filling it with sand, salt, water, lint, etc. Speakers seem to die more easily when never used, presumably because use vibrates dirt out. End result: When they call 911 they can't hear anything.
My phone currently has a dead earpiece speaker, and I just know that if I need to call 911, it better be on speakerphone.
1) Facetime 2) People listening to any audio will use the earpiece speaker
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https://www.911.gov/calling-911/frequently-asked-questions/
From that link: Test calls confirm that your local 911 service can receive your 911 call and has the correct location information. Test calls can be scheduled by contacting your local 911 call center via its non-emergency phone number.
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No, this is entirely untrue.
I used to have a Pixel 2 XL and then later a Pixel 5a. Went through them really fast as the hardware was pretty bad and the phone would just decide to stop turning on at some point. Same thing happened to a relative I gave a Pixel 5a. Phone didn't last a year.
Don't get me started on the Pixel buds. I got tired of contacting customer support for replacements.
That's when I decided not to buy hardware from Google again, and also stopped using Android. Experience in iPhone has been great so far. Phone's fast despite being several generations behind, don't have to worry about not getting security updates.
Another anecdotal example here:
Nexus 4, Pixel 2 XL, Pixel 4 XL, Pixel 6 Pro – never had any issues whatsoever, all phones still alive and kicking at my grandparents' places. Yes, most of them tied to the wall now... but hey, they're fine for showing some photos and displaying current time or setting alarms.
Interestingly, I also used Samsung's Note 9 and 10+, iPhone 12, iPhone 14 Pro Max – daily, also with no issues... other than disliking Samsung's software.
(I was/am doing a lot of mobile work so I test a lot of phones)
After years of doing this kind of testing, it's hard for me to believe that the entire batches of phones are so fundamentally broken... I'd rather bet on software issues, but who knows.
I had two pixels suffer heat deaths on me (after random boot cycles) switching around iphone 8 time and haven't had a problem out of the 3 devices I've owned from them. Got tired of Android being weird plus relaying everything I did on the phone to google to share with 3rd parties.
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Got gifted a pair of pixel buds gen 2. I liked them. Accidentally sent them through a wash cycle killing the left one. Eventually straight up lost the left one. Thought nothing of it until I changed phones and realized a hardware limitation meant you needed both to pair to a new device. Dumb but I needed a new one anyways so…
I contacted support after not seeing spares were being sold. They gave me an 25$ store credit… Ended up selling the case and working earbud and getting a different brand.
Recently changed phones and them pulling the headphone jack from the A series after the 5 was a non-starter for me. I still use wired headphones and plug my aux into my car and other places :/ kinda mind boggling
They are so lucky. My Samsung Phone already called 911 several times, while I had it in my pocket. And every time I have to explain why. I guess I'll get a Pixel next time.
Samsung makes some of the stupidest devices I've ever owned. Back when I had Samsung phones, they did all sorts of things while in my pocket. I experienced multiple butt-dials, music randomly playing, etc. Fortunately, mine never dialed 911. But I could have lived without those moments where death metal started blasting from my pocket because I leaned the wrong way. And let's not get me started on their TVs. Maybe it's not so bad now that their phones support fingerprint scanning, but I wouldn't put it past them to screw that up, too. I sincerely believe that most people who continue to own Samsung devices simply don't know better. Such flimsy bloated crap for products that are supposed to "compete" with Apple, Microsoft, and The Google.
Had this issue awhile ago, out of nowhere it just started dialing 911 while in my pocket. Turns out some setting was re-enabled after a recent update. Went to Settings > Advanced features > Motions and gestures > Double tap to turn on screen > Disable and I think that finally fixed it. This is on a Samsung A71 5G.
Yes, I ran into the same problem and this "fixed" it. The issue doesn't come from the feature itself but from the fact that the lower end model uses "Virtual proximity sensing" instead of a real proximity sensor which is often faulty. It sucks that Samsung chooses to cut costs in these places.
Thanks, I disabled it! I'm on the A52. I use the double tap feature often enough, but I guess I can live with the lack of convenience, thanks ;)
If it's possible the power button is getting bumped repeatedly in your pocket. You could search your Android settings, and make sure "Emergency SOS" is turned off.
It’s also possible that there’s a hardware failure that is making the power button erroneously report button presses, leading to the Emergency SOS. This happened to me on a Pixel 3, which resulted in repeated calls to 911 with no user input.
* Can’t power it off for the night, because the flaky power button turns it back on.
* Can’t pull the SIM card, because emergency calls don’t require a SIM card to connect.
* Can’t consistently use the “slide to cancel” option, as the phone was also trying to initialize the camera at the same time. (IIRC, 3 button presses for the camera, 5 button presses for SOS. The flaky power button managed to trigger SOS while the camera was still initializing the GUI, so the camera GUI took focus.)
* Can’t access the settings, because the flaky power button either turns the phone off, opens the camera, or sends an SOS faster than I could search the settings.
This all started at about 10 PM. So, instead of going to sleep, I needed to spend the next two hours baby-sitting my phone as it mostly was repeatedly rebooting, with occasional calls to 911, until the battery finally died.
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I don't see a way to turn that off. I could sort of do it using the option to change the emergency number.
As in my other comment, this likely comes from the fact that lower end phones use "virtual proximity sensing" instead of a real proximity sensor, and they have a lot of issues when the phone is in a pocket. You need to either disable the double tab feature or upgrade to a "real" flagship like S23.
Do explain why! Is there a shortcut on the lock screen that you can't turn off or how?
Two or my four smartphones have been Samsungs and, while I could call 112 on purpose, I don't know what might cause pocket dialing. Your comment about this being a feature rather than a bug on Pixels is funny though =)
Yes, it's possible to dial 911 from a locked phone. I assume that's a legal requirement; on its face it's pretty reasonable.
I never used to lock my phone at all, but starting with the Pixel 3a I've been forced to do it by the fact that the phone interprets rubbing against my leg through my pocket as a stream of commands. I wish manufacturers would go back to the non-crazy screens they used to make. Anyway, since locking the phone doesn't disable the ability to call 911, this is a constant risk, though I don't believe I've made an accidental call yet. (Or maybe I would have, if my phones weren't Pixels!)
I have mangled a text note I was keeping on my phone beyond recovery when I once put my phone in my pocket without manually locking it first.
No, I can't turn it off and it was always from a locked screen, I think it's a legal requirement in the EU. I now keep my phone always with the screen turned away from my leg in my pocket and that seems to prevent it well enough, even though I still often get to almost calling 911 when I take it out of my pocket with my hand.
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It seems absolutely insane to me not to immediately get a new phone the first time that happens.
It is "absolutely insane" that people don't spend $500-$1K on a new phone the "first time that happens?"
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Well I have to now, because the screen also stopped working 90% of the time, except when I put it in the freezer for 15 minutes. Just 2 months that the phone is conveniently out of warranty. I guess it's the last Samsung Phone I'll ever buy.
There should be some kind of test number twin of 911 that works exactly the same (without SIM, supplying E911 data), but just plays a pre-recorded message optionally with some "debug" info.
That is such an obviously good idea I'm surprised it doesn't exist. Apparently the official way to test it in the UK is to email them and schedule a test. They say they use the real 999 because that's the best way to guarantee that it works, and that's true - but there's definitely utility in having an almost-real number that you can test at any time guilt free.
They probably just can't be bothered to set it up tbh.
For maximum lore, that testing number should be set to +44 118 999 88199 9119 725 3.
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Maybe, but you would still need to test that 911 itself works.
The article says to test by calling the non-emergency number, but that seems like a really unrealistic test. Even if they offered a test version of 911, I wouldn't trust that it works exactly the same as 911.
If you follow the link you'll see the procedure is you call the non-emergency number to ask for a time and location slot where you're allowed to call the real 911 number for test purposes. This let's them schedule you for a time where they predict lower demand. Seems sensible to me.
I remember from my days building SIP clients that a lot of carriers support 933, which is exactly what you're asking about. You can try googling a bit to see if your carrier supports it.
If Google employees actually used the phones they build we wouldn't have a lot of the issues we have them. I'm still annoyed that the little weather icon on the home screen has about a 2x2 pixel hitbox.
Edit: hitbox not hotbox...
When it appears at all. What kind of UI designer thinks it's OK not to show the weather most of the time when the user explicitly configured the settings to show it?
Why would they design the system in a way that enables an app (Microsoft Teams) to interfere with emergency calls?
I know this part is supposed to be fixed, but it's insane that this was part of the problem.
It is possible to intercept a lot of Android system broadcasts. In the B2B world, we often had weird requests to take over the whole phone experience and do something different – made possible by the same core Android APIs that they ship both to business devices and personal devices.
I'm also not surprised to read that Teams was to blame, because Skype had the same functionality back in the days.
Teams is a telephony app, so perhaps Google's dialer tried to route the call through it and reacted incorrectly to failures.
This was the final straw for me and why I switched from a Pixel to an iPhone. I refuse to die because my $800 smart device couldn't get me help that would have otherwise been available. Apple may be a scummy company just like all the other ones but the one thing they do seem to take very seriously is safety. I'm sure other people feel the same way but it doesn't seem like this message is getting to Google.
I did the exact same thing last year when I first heard of this (recurring) issue. Safety is not part of a promo packet, so who at Google cares to fix it?
I hate how Apple infantilizes the user, but at least they have vision of making a product. Not a collection of promotion producing ideas.
Safety is definitely one of Apple’s key marketing points—you might have seen their ads for fall detection/emergency SOS on the Apple Watch or car crash detection on the iPhone.
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To be fair, Samsung produces much more reliable phones than Google, especially their S series phones, if you wanted to stay in the Android system. They are also quite good with system updates and security updates -- not the best but top tier by Android standards.
I tried to use my old pixel 3 recently as a hotspot. Blows my mind how it’s been broken for a while (according to online) and won’t ever be fixed since there’s no more software support. I ended up buying a used iPhone SE instead.
I use a Pixel 3a with GrapheneOS as my daily driver.
How is it? Was debating rooting it and loading it but it was easier to get a cheap used iPhone SE.
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Had exactly the same thing in Australia when trying a 000 (Australia's emergency number) call with my Pixel 6 Pro after watching somebody run off the road and smash into a pole.
Fortunately I had the local police station number and was able to call that just fine, but not until a few failed attempts at the real emergency number.
That said, another good option is attempting to call 112. Which is an emergency number in many countries. (Works in the US too).
But yeah, it's not good.
Disheartening to see this. I was planning on getting a pixel for my next phone and hoping this might be a 911 only issue but obviously it's related to emergency dialing all-round.
> 112. Which is an emergency number in many countries.
There's a lot of the planet where 112 will work, often as a redirect to the actual number.
I had a Bluetooth keyboard in a backpack turned On in the trunk of my car while driving .... random key presses while driving from bumps in the road managed to dial 911 ... or make the phone think it was an emergency and 911 was called. Not fun.
The keyboard was spamming gibberish, eg NN nZzz1457_+-5hhhsvb .... etc
It took me a while to figure out why the phone appeared possessed...
In my experience (which is about as relevant to this topic as one can imagine), regulatory-required features in software always get built in really shitty ways.
These are some of the reasons I've seen for why:
-the regulation isn't sufficiently flexible to allow the company to build it in a way that makes the most sense for their system
-for the same reason testing, user research and feedback largely don't matter
-the projects are led by legal or compliance teams who are generally terrible at building features
-the feature isn't requested by customers so the company has very limited dialogue with the user about it
-the feature will not make money so no one at the company is incentivized to build it well or spend time on it
If what you said was true, we'd see the same poor quality in Samsung or Apple phones. Yet we don't.
Those companies are a little more like traditional hardware companies than Google who is more of a software company.
We do see poor e911 implementation at other software companies (twilio, five9, etc)
I would like to see this lead to corporate manslaughter charges. I swear I've seen reports of this for years for multiple Pixel phones and the fact it's still ongoing is incredibly negligent.
This is unacceptable. They should loose certification for the device.
Interesting. This might not be a bug in Google's dialer (or the OS, or hardware). Based on my past experience building B2B SIP clients, I remember that there are ways to intercept many of the Android system broadcasts. I'd bet on that being the root cause. Intercepting would look like the app is crashing, when instead it would be attempting to re-route requests to a different app; someone else mentioned they detected Microsoft Teams doing that. I remember Skype also had this feature, so it sounds plausible.
In the B2B world, we often had weird requests e.g. to take over the whole phone experience and do something different – this was made possible by the same core Android SDKs that they ship both to business devices and personal devices.
For example, we were required to move each 911 call to our app first, then check if we can route it quicker through the internal PBXs, and if not – send it back to the native/built-in dialer. This was possible a couple of years ago, we built it. I assume it's still possible because it's really rare that you need this kind of functionality... releasing such an app also requires a special review from Google. Maybe Google sees it as a low risk to the user experience and allows some apps to still do it, at least until something like this issue happes.
Surely it is a legal requirement that mobile phones be able to call the emergency services? If it doesn't do that then surely a crime has been committed?
A crime? Not sure I agree in a isolated incident.
But I feel like it should be a crime to ignore a known issue like this.
When my OnePlus 8T lags, I sometimes press the power button a few times, because I'm impatient and I'm trying to get the screen to turn on.
Pressing the power button 5 times dials the emergency service number by default, so I've almost called emergency services a few times already. I usually manage to cancel it before it dials, but wow.
Just tested on pixel 7a.
When I click the power button 5x, a screen appears with:
- A large circle in the middle of the screen, which I have to press and hold for 3 seconds to initiate the call.
- A slider to cancel the screen entirely
So just hitting the powerbutton 5x does not actually make the call on Pixel 7a, just makes it easier.
FWIW, you can disable that in settings (both the power button thing, as well as the auto-dial if you prefer to get to that page via buttons). At least, if the 8T is similar to other phones.
Sometimes people ask me, why do I use an iPhone when Android phones are so much better in this or that respect.
And the thing is, none of iPhones I had my hands on (since 4S maybe) have never failed me as phones. When I need to place or receive a call, the call is placed or received. No shenanigans with sound, microphone, connections. If there is a connection problem, I can be 100% sure it's the carrier. With Android, all bets are off. When Maemo was a thing, all bets were off, it could enter a 100% CPU-hogging busy loop during a call and you would be SOL, or you wouldn't be able to hang up, or some such shit.
The only other cellular thing that I could 100% rely on was my Nokia 1280 and a 1112 before it, but 2G networks are being wound down in my area, alas.
> And the thing is, none of iPhones I had my hands on (since 4S maybe) have never failed me as phones. When I need to place or receive a call, the call is placed or received. No shenanigans with sound, microphone, connections. If there is a connection problem, I can be 100% sure it's the carrier.
Just saying, I've used only Android phones since 2009 or so, and I've never once had a problem with the phone functionality. It's not like this is some problem with Android in general.
A bit OT: but TIL you can schedule a test 911 call.
It's really absurd how such a problem still exists. Couldn't a separate method be used for emergency calling? For example drop to 3g, don't use the dialer app but a separate "emergency" app.
If talking about the US (though it’s not the only place that uses the number 911, and I would imagine that other countries’ numbers would be affected): all the major 3G networks have been shut down, so your current options for major networks are T-Mobile’s 2G network (which I successfully dialed 911 with a couple of months ago while in the US, but it’s only spottily available, and it’s being shut down next year), or 4G networks.
More generally, though, using different code paths for emergency dialing is the root of the problem in the first place—you want to minimise special handling of things like this, because less-tested paths are much more likely to be buggy. Consider also: error handling code is pretty much the buggiest out there, because it’s seldom tested.
At least 2 decades ago when I worked with phones the phone as a list of emergency numbers which could be updated to country-spefic values. Often 000, 112, and 911 were always present.
Once the software notices one of these numbers dialled call handling will go a completely different code path than normal calls.
I have no idea how things work in Android, where you obviously must have VoIP hooks?
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The problem with 4G (and 5G) is that it supports only internet traffic. Phone traffic is passed trough VoLTE that is VOIP on the network. Is something that is fairly new, few years ago only a couple of operators in my country even supported that, and thus phones had to drop to 3G to handle calls. Also VOIP is not that reliable and presents problems especially with different networks.
The problem is when the internet connection is not so stable, and thus VoLTE doesn't work that well. The safer option would be to drop to 3G or even 2G if available to complete emergency calls.
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It would be great if when 911 is dialed the phone dropped into a “black box” state where all unnecessary functionality is suspended to maximize battery and signal. It could alert emergency contacts w/ location pings, start recording voice and video, and go into a heightened security mode to avoid tampering.
No you definitely don't want the phone doing confusing and weird things during an emergency. You want it to behave in the way the user is accustomed.
I thought 3G networks have been shut down in the US? (Not living there but I remotely maintain some devices with cellular modems over there, so the topic has somewhat of professional interest.)
They have not. 2G networks have been shut down, however.
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Having dedicated code path for 911 is literally the problem. It makes it legally almost impossible to test in many countries (since in many countries you're not allowed to dial 911 if you don't have an emergency)
Which countries? Where I live, in the US, if you want to make a callback to a police detective, you have to call 911 and ask to be transfered. It's clearly not an emergency, and the detective will tell you to do it. This police department doesn't have a phone system that allows the public to call a non-emergency number and have their calls routed.
But most places I've lived in the US had a non-emergency police number, and non-emergency 911 calls were very discouraged. If you have a good reason to make them for network or device testing, you'd just need to schedule a time to make a test call, stay on the line and tell the operator, etc.
Device development would be well served by using a tower simulator in a Faraday cage, as a sibling suggested. But a responsible developer would do a few tests on live networks during release acceptance testing.
Just call nearest Rohde & Schwarz office and get a signaling tester... If you're doing phone firmware, there should be couple extra briefcases of cash for that. No need to call actual 911 just to test a dev branch build.
The article explains how to schedule a test call to 911.
Test in a Faraday cage with an isolated base station.
Probably not exactly what you are looking for, but when one is in such a situation and they happen to have an app like Skype, people can use it for emergency calls (support in the US)
Realistically, if you care about software/hardware quality at all in your smartphone, there are only two options: Iphone or Galaxy S phones. Anything else and you have to be ready to face a bunch of problems.
It seems pretty odd that liability-lawsuit lawyers haven't managed to monetize this "feature" enough to push "removing" it further up the priority list. Anybody have some insight?
Please write a complaint to the FCC about this folks. These complaints are taken very seriously and they do follow up on them.
Issue type is equipment and send the comaint about it to your carrier. The carrier will then put pressure on Google directly.
https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us/articles/1150022...
My Pixel journey from 1 to 6A ended a few months ago, I can't no longer trust Pixel phones. Even though they seem very fast and responsive at first, they're not reliable in many situations like calling 911, getting Wifi signal, receiving calls, ... All of Pixel phones I got since the 1st version have some kind of major issues. I trusted Google with the software and I thought I could continue, but I had to switch to iPhones.
Possibly related issue that LOS patched not too long ago: https://review.lineageos.org/c/LineageOS/android_packages_ap...
If you would be isolated on a random place and given the chance to bring only one item, you would most probably pick the phone. On both ethical and user-experience cases, this is completely unacceptable. Google is just bringing the trust issues for such a silly bug.
"BEEEERRRRREEEERRREEEEEP! This is a test of the emergency broadcast system. This is only a test. BEEEERRRRREEEERRREEEEEP!"
Certainly this could be implemented with a feedback system, in order to guarantee access to emergency services?
Android is such a mess - this should have criminal penalties. Anyone working in the Android SDK knows how poorly designed it is.
What does this have to do with Android? Other Android mobiles do not have any difficulty making emergency calls.
They certainly have in the past. There are core issues with how Android deals with phone apps and prioritization. Quite a few threads on here about previous 911 issues.
Guess I'll pray-to-dial 911 now!
Incredible. My phone does everything except the make calls part.
Again? I feel like I've heard of this bug before.
It shouldn't be allowed to be sold and Google should be facing fines for each day the functionality is missing, assuming it is a software problem.
Radio certifications should be suspended if there are protocol conformance issues, I think there are precedents to it.
Exactly. If the FCC (or someone) said "your certification of these devices is revoked and any further imports are banned" I GUARANTEE Google would instantly spin up a dedicated, capable, and prioritized 911 team.
We need to introduce a stochastic manslaughter charge.
I have trouble believing this hasn’t caused a death. And someone at google knows about it. They should be held responsible.
Why the caveat? Isn't the Pixel hardware designed and sold by Google as well?
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Omnipresent use of 911 has been arguably the most impactful killer app since cell phones first emerged over 40 years ago. It has saved countless lives. In the days of not having a landline this is completely unacceptable.
To have issues utilizing 911 from a cellular device in 2023 is exactly the kind of thing regulators should make painful for device manufacturers who can’t even get this right.
What’s even more puzzling is the brand and reputational damage when stories emerge in the press of people dying because their $500 (or more) device couldn’t do something a free phone without a SIM card can do.
You’d think they’d take this seriously if for no other reason other than self interest.
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How's that boot taste?
Contacting emergency services is the one thing a phone must not fail at.
We mandated legacy telecos to maintain switching offices with a weeks worth of battery power so landlines could work in a natural disaster.
Google is a trillion dollar company if you want to get their attention you have to effect them on the order of millions of dollars.
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I own one, and reading this I most definitely want a refund. It is utter bolox. Sure, every once in a while your car brakes fail, but that's not really the point of the car, is it? It's made to go forward! Anyways, we will get if fixed eventually. Do you like our newest, just released paint colors?
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We recall baby products after they kill just a few babies. Why not phones that can’t call 911? It’s just as likely to kill people.
Being able to call 911 is an essential part of a phone. To the point that Apple (and I'm assuming Google) both allow calling emergency services while the phone is locked.
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For a mild inconvenience that would be disproportionate, but this could be a matter of life or death here.
Disproportionate? Google must be worth what, a trillion dollars by now? And they can't get emergency service dialing working worldwide? There's clearly not enough legal liability to get them to do what society expects them to be doing. People are going to fucking die because of their negligence. Literally every minute is precious when someone is having a heart attack, we don't have time to fuck around with Google bullshit. Society should start calculating that damage and making Google pay all of it multiplied by 10.
What kind of response would be appropriate then for getting them to take this issue seriously?
Some people love so much they dismiss critical issues? Apple got fined for extending the life of old phones without notifying the users, where do you think this issue sits in relation?
This is a life or death matter and should be treated as such.
These are penalties carriers face if 911 doesn’t work.
That tends to happen when the party to be penalized shows how much it doesn't give a shit until it starts to hemorrhage money, because fines are just a cost of doing business. So let the blood flow.
This isn't disproportionate. This should be a baseline requirement for selling a phone.
My experience has been Pixel phones suck for calls in general. I know of 3 people with Pixel 3As that intermittently can’t receive calls. Often it takes 2-3 calls to these people in order to get 1 to go through. Setting the phones to prefer 4G has so far fixed the problem most reliably but the whole calling stack on pixel phones needs some work IMO.
This is one thing I miss about the old Windows Phones (Nokia/Metro interface sucked, but damn) because it was a phone first, computer second. Most phones these days are computers (or cameras) first, phones last.
For example, the WP would progressively disable things to keep the phone on for as long as possible. At 2am, after a night out, I'd usually be the only one who had a working phone to call a cab (pre-uber days) -- but that was the last feature to stop working before it died. IIRC, you could disable this functionality, but I don't know why you would want to.
BlackBerry had this too. May it rest in peace.
I have a pixel 6 pro and this has been my experience since they day I got it. I even had it replaced and still have to reset the cellular modem several times per week because I get the no service `!`.
Starting to believe it is a T-Mobile service issue in my area. Previously had a pixel 2 on Verizon and never had a problem. Planning to leave T-Mobile in the near future.
Pixel 6 on AT&T, I don't think I've ever had this experience.
Phone calls sound much better than my previous carrier (some cheap mvno) and things generally Just Work.
Only complaint is that it's missing some things I hadn't realized were not stock Android, such as per-app volume control. I just might switch back to LG after this one dies, though the battery seems to be holding up much better so who knows.
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I have a 6A on T-Mobile. Exact same issue for me.
Do you use wifi calling when you are at home? It has been my experience that T-Mobile WiFi calling is absolutely terrible, and I've oftentimes wondered if something in the software "locks" into WiFi instead of switching to cellular data, until the phone is rebooted.
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Same issue for me! After my previous Pixel bricked due to a flash chip wearing out (wtf?) I'm swearing off the Pixel line.
I'm in the Northeast USA on T-Mobile. You?
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I'm being snarky, because I'm nto in a 911 emergency right now, but using my cellphone to call people is usually the least used feature :p
To be fair, from experience the issue is not with Pixel phones per se, but with Samsung modems. They're really bad.
I have a Samsung Note10+ and I also have to try often 2 times to make a call. The first time there is mostly no Sound.
I'm just wondering when Google will sunset the 911 dialing feature. /s
Analytics indicate that only a small percentage of people still use it and the engagement was low
Plus, the users occasionally have a tendency not to remain as users of Google services for very long after.
We'll bring it back as an RCS-reliant chat app and then waste half our time mocking Apple for it.
New meaning for Killed by Google.
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Selling info to ambulance chasers and private first responders is probably a pretty good model. To fix everything all we really need to do is let Google sell the gravy.
Who is downvoting this? It’s objectively true