From mildly annoying to destructively terrifying, that’s the range of earthquakes. However, to give you an advantage there are some mobile applications that you could use. There are two types of earthquake applications, the first one tracks them worldwide 24/7 where you will be available to see if an earthquake took place near your area and get alerts. And the second one is a vibration meter where they use phone sensors such as an accelerometer to measure vibrations in the area where you are and it will send you alerts if any movements are detected, or suspicious activity is happening. In the list, we will include applications from both types. Here is our list:
The American Red Cross Earthquake
Price: Free
Including earthquakes, The American Red Cross has a bunch of apps for a variety of natural disasters. To explain how it works, this application sends you Google alerts when earthquakes are happening in your area, and in addition to that, it provides a history of earthquakes that happened in your area, with additional informational resources for better preparation. It offers some tips for dealing with unexpected things that can happen along with recovery advice. This app is free, and it has no ads or in-app purchases. Occasionally the app has a few bugs.
Earthquake Network
Price: Free / $2.99
Earthquake Network is an all-in-one type of earthquake kind of app. If there are nearby earthquakes, it will alert you to using your phone to detect earthquakes. It does act as a network of sorts. When I was testing the app, there were 8.8k devices on the network and the alerts generated were a bunch of information collected by all of these phones in the network. This application uses your phone’s accelerometer as a seismograph. A history guide from 2000 and some other features are included in the free version. If you get a premium version, you will get additional options for emergencies.
Earthquake Pro
Price: Free / $3.49
EarthQuake Pro is one of the best earthquake applications. This app allows you to see earthquakes from all around the world, you can choose recent ones or past ones. Besides that, Earthquake Pro offers all the earthquake details for the events, and also it has a seismograph built-in function. The user-interface a Material Design. So this means that it is very easy to navigate through the app and is fairly easy to use app. The free version has ads, and if you want to remove all the ads you will have to use the premium version.
Earthquakes Tracker
Price: Free / $3.49
Earthquakes Trackers is one of the first earthquake applications. It offers what all the trackers offer in the industry. Some of its features include sending alerts, an interactive earthquake activity map, and offers the option to customize the alerts for your area and some other minor features. You can see how many earthquakes have happened and what their magnitude was. Moving to the premium version only removes the ads, but no other significant feature.
LastQuake
Price: Free
LastQuake is the official application of the Euro-Mediterranean Seismological Center (CSEM) and is developed by professional seismologists.
Crowdsourcing is the primary earthquake detection method and in the speed of light gives you the earthquake’s magnitude, It also gathers information from 86 institutes from 57 countries. It is a very simple app to use. You will get the basic features and it offers a feature where you can text your loved ones in case you are in an earthquake. It is completely free.
My Earthquake Alerts
Price: Free / $1.99
My Earthquake Alerts is a simple and solid app for earthquake detection.
It shows you earthquakes from all around the world and it allows you to create custom alerts just for your area, without any restrictions. It is a very easy app to use, you can navigate freely inside the app. After the 7.0 earthquake in Alaska back in December, more people started using this app and they seem quite happy about it. The premium version is $1.99. The only difference is the lack of ads.
Volcanoes and Earthquakes
Price: Free / $5.99
For people who want to keep track of both volcanoes and earthquakes then this app is it. It is a decent app and it shows information about both of the situations. You can see volcanoes that are expected to erupt soon or any other type of activity. There are also notifications for earthquakes from multiple locations and sources. The premium price is $5.99 which is quite expensive, however, going premium means no ads and more granular controls and information.
Vibration Meter by EXA Tools
Price: Free / $2.99
Vibration Meter by EXA works like basically all of the other ones. It will send you alerts on your phone by detecting vibrations in your phones. This app is decent for avalanches, volcanic activity, and earthquakes, the developers confirm.
The free version works well but if you pay $2.99 there will be no ads.
