What's not clear to me is, who's listening? Like if I install this app and I get buried under a crumbled building and send out the SOS signal... Are there any receivers???
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First responders have awesome tools. But in tough situations, even common folks need to help.
After what happened in Myanmar, we need something like this that works properly.
It has only been tested in controlled environments. It can also be improved; I know BLE is not _that_ effective under rubble.
If you have any feedback or can contribute, don't hold back.
Ideally, there would be an option to have your phone "listen" in the background and notify you if anyone needs help. I haven't added that yet.
For now: let's say I'm in a neighborhood. An earthquake happens, a building collapses. I have the app installed and I'm fine. So, I open it and I get close to each building and check if there are any survivors under it.
You'll keep broadcasting, until your battery runs out. It's not heavy on the battery, so it can broadcast for a while.
I'll clarify that in the readme.
Something like that could be useful if anyone with an iphone going nearby the signal was enough to pick it up, without them requiring to have the app installed.
TLDR; Apple devices scanning in the background require a lot of workarounds [1].
Another comment suggested proposing this to Apple [2]. If this were built by Apple internally, it would be game-changing. A little delusion never hurt anyone :seenoevil:
[1]: http://www.davidgyoungtech.com/2020/05/07/hacking-the-overfl...