California fires: smart speakers and emergency alerts

Thu Jul 26 17:53:21 UTC 2018

On Thu, 26 Jul 2018, Seth Mattinen wrote:
> On 7/26/18 9:51 AM, Aaron C. de Bruyn via NANOG wrote:
>> Capitalist solution: Build yet another IoT device that just does emergency
>> alerting.
>
> People in tornado areas seem to be the most aware that alert radios already 
> exist. No internet access required.

I remember 15 years ago, when the cellular carriers argued they shouldn't 
be required to build emergency notifications into cell phones (I know OEM 
make the phones). The carriers said it was unneccessary because of
alternative ways to notify the public about emergencies, i.e. radio, 
outdoor sirens, etc.

About 2% to 5% of households have weather alert radios. The 5% is in 
severe weather (tornado) areas, the rest of the country is less. But 
catastrophes aren't limited to particular severe weather areas. If we knew 
where fires would start, we would only put smoke detectors in those 
places.

About 18% (and growing) of households have smart speakers, and about
58% of households have a "connected" device of some kind.  The number of 
households with working am/fm radios is 71% (and declining). Younger 
generations (15 to 39-year olds) are even less likely to have working 
am/fm radios in the home (43%).

If you are listening to a local radio station streaming over a smart 
speaker, the streaming channel usually has different ads than the 
over-the-air radio broadcast and does not include emergency notifications.

Televisions households haven't declined as much.  However, about 11% of 
"smart" televisions now are only used for over-the-top internet 
programming. In other words, 11% of unconnected "smart" televisions do 
not have a cable coax or an over-the-air antenna connected, and would not 
get any emergency notifications.

If the product managers for smart speakers and smart TVs are successful, 
and replace am/fm radios and cable/over-the-air TVs in households, 
eventually there will be a catastrophe.  After the catstrophe, the public 
(and politicians) will likely ask why didn't they get a emergency warning 
from their smart speakers and smart TVs like they used to get from their 
old am/fm radios and old TVs?