The iPhone 14 series offers Emergency SOS via Satellite. This feature allows those facing an emergency situation in an area without any cellular signal, to connect to an orbiting satellite to report the situation with an Apple replay center. The latter then notifies an emergency services provider to get those in danger the help they need. Huawei also added satellite support for its flagships starting with last year’s Mate 50 and Mate 50 Pro. Both of those models and the P60 series allow users to send short texts by satellite in areas without cellular signals.
This past February, Samsung’s Dr. TM Roh, the head of the company’s mobile eXperience unit, explained why Samsung passed on offering satellite connectivity with the Galaxy S23 line. Roh said, “When there is the right timing, infrastructure, and the technology [is] ready, then of course for Samsung Galaxy, for our mobile division, we would also actively consider adopting this feature as well.” That day could be coming as soon as early next year with the release of the Galaxy S24 line.
Based on a tweet from the #TeamPixel Twitter account (via Wccftech), Android 14 is going to offer SMS via satellite as a native feature to handsets that will be able to support it. We need to make it clear that #TeamPixel is a Pixel fan club and is not affiliated with Google. With that in mind, surely Google wouldn’t be offering it on Android 14 without having the necessary hardware made available on the upcoming Pixel 8 series. The tweet from #TeamPixel says that Pixel and Galaxy phones will be among the first Android models to have the hardware to support SMS via satellite.
The #TeamPixel Twitter account reveals that Pixel and Galaxy phones will get Satellite support from Android 14
Since the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro should be unveiled this coming October, we are probably less than three months away from hearing all about how this feature will work on supported Pixel models. On the other hand, the final and stable version of Android 14 is just two to three weeks away from being released and it is possible that some word about satellite connectivity is mentioned at that time.
Apple’s satellite connectivity feature has already done its job with a man rescued after getting stranded in Alaska. In another incident, two women were rescued after getting stranded in British Columbia. It does appear that having the ability to access emergency help in areas without cellular service can be a huge life-saving feature that in many situations can be the difference between life and death; having this feature available on Android phones will also save many lives.
