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Some Pixel owners still can't dial 911 during an emergency

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Re: Some Pixel owners still can't dial 911 during an emergency

#151

Post by 4RealFreedom »

denysvitali wrote: post #109
philipov wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Again, a test lab should help towards these things, but I doubt Google has one accessible to the average engineer working on the dialer. And why not? It seems like the real real problem is #4: Management doesn't take seriously people's need to reach emergency services because it's not a profit center.

A test lab is a room that is completely isolated from the outside (and in a way that the RF doesn't leak outside of the premises) where you can do these kind of experiments. Considering the amount of teams working on the Google Dialer, and the fact that they might be distributed across multiple cities / countries - this sounds very expensive.

Arguing an expensive price tag for Google just doesn't resonate. They are building a phone - it should be able to do the one thing that it should, as others have said. Anything outside of contacting someone in an emergency should be secondary.

Re: Some Pixel owners still can't dial 911 during an emergency

#152

Post by sentientslug »

tsunamifury wrote: post #60

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 convolu…

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.

Re: Some Pixel owners still can't dial 911 during an emergency

#153

Post by LesZedCB »

lopkeny12ko wrote: post #65

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 cal…

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.

Re: Some Pixel owners still can't dial 911 during an emergency

#154

Post by fallingknife »

numpad0 wrote: post #85
rkagerer wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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. etc.

Also possible that bug is due to poor handling of mobile network error so no functionality is lost, just a UI issue. Or there is a bug, but the frequency is much lower than mobile network failure rate so low priority.

Re: Some Pixel owners still can't dial 911 during an emergency

#155

Post by mlyle »

zja wrote: post #150
snazz wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that only a service that Bandwidth.com offers or would it work on a regular cell network?

I think it depends on the carrier you use, but a lot of other carriers support it.

I'm guessing pretty much all are carriers that are using Bandwidth.com for 911 service.

Re: Some Pixel owners still can't dial 911 during an emergency

#156

Post by mlyle »

denysvitali wrote: post #109
philipov wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Again, a test lab should help towards these things, but I doubt Google has one accessible to the average engineer working on the dialer. And why not? It seems like the real real problem is #4: Management doesn't take seriously people's need to reach emergency services because it's not a profit center.

A test lab is a room that is completely isolated from the outside (and in a way that the RF doesn't leak outside of the premises) where you can do these kind of experiments. Considering the amount of teams working on the Google Dialer, and the fact that they might be distributed across multiple cities / countries - this sounds very expensive.

Society spends a few billion dollars a year on E911 and related infrastructure.

To have faith in it eroded because of a little bit of slipshod validation by phone vendors is a false economy.

Re: Some Pixel owners still can't dial 911 during an emergency

#157

Post by mlyle »

evilduck wrote: post #142
denysvitali wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A test lab is a room that is completely isolated from the outside (and in a way that the RF doesn't leak outside of the premises) where you can do these kind of experiments. Considering the amount of teams working on the Google Dialer, and the fact that they might be distributed across multiple cities / countries - this sounds very expensive.

Building a Faraday cage is an afternoon woodworking project. You can build them in your garage or bedroom with hand tools if you wanted. You don’t even need a huge room, a portable phone booth sized space could be mass produced and delivered on site. A Faraday Booth might take a few dozen square meters of copper mesh and some basic lumber, drywall and finishing efforts. If it took more than $10k per office I’d be sho…

It shouldn't be too expensive, but before you put in equipment and pretend to be the phone network, you need to make sure that you're hitting regulatory limits on the amount of RF leaking out. Doing a good enough job to hit that above a gigahertz--- including things like conducted RF, and validating with measurements-- is gonna cost a bit more than you describe.

Re: Some Pixel owners still can't dial 911 during an emergency

#158

Post by evilduck »

mlyle wrote: post #157
evilduck wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building a Faraday cage is an afternoon woodworking project. You can build them in your garage or bedroom with hand tools if you wanted. You don’t even need a huge room, a portable phone booth sized space could be mass produced and delivered on site. A Faraday Booth might take a few dozen square meters of copper mesh and some basic lumber, drywall and finishing efforts. If it took more than $10k per office I’d be sho…

It shouldn't be too expensive, but before you put in equipment and pretend to be the phone network, you need to make sure that you're hitting regulatory limits on the amount of RF leaking out. Doing a good enough job to hit that above a gigahertz--- including things like conducted RF, and validating with measurements-- is gonna cost a bit more than you describe.

Fine, for permitting and regulations and inspections, let’s 100x the cost and say it’s an annual expense too. This is still well within Google’s budgets to provide to their Android teams.

Re: Some Pixel owners still can't dial 911 during an emergency

#159

Post by mook »

zdragnar wrote: post #52
larntz wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Switching back to LG might be difficult; they are no longer making (Android) phones.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LG_Electronics#Mobile_devices

Re: Some Pixel owners still can't dial 911 during an emergency

#160

Post by ouid »

exabrial wrote: post #71

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…

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