Google Satellite Connectivity feature accidentally appears on Pixel phones

Published On: March 4, 2024

Highlights

The Satellite Connectivity feature accidentally appears on Google Pixel phones.
The feature doesn’t do anything and tapping “Satellite SOS” on a Google Pixel device does not open any menu.
This is supposed to send a message to emergency services and shares your location when you can’t connect to a mobile or Wi-Fi network.

Satellite Connectivity has proven to be a functional feature on iPhones and is slowly finding its way to Android flagships. We have seen the new Xiaomi 14 Ultra getting it and OPPO will also introduce a new Find X7 Ultra Satellite edition this month. Now, the Satellite Connectivity feature has started appearing on Google Pixel devices and we get a glimpse of what this feature will be able to do.

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Satellite Connectivity on Pixel phones

The “Satellite Connectivity” is appearing in Settings > Safety & Emergency on Pixel phones. It can be seen between Emergency SOS and Car Crash Detection.
Google appears to have accidentally rolled out the setting widely to virtually all Pixel devices through the recent update to Adaptive Connectivity Services.
At the moment, the feature doesn’t do anything. Tapping “Satellite SOS” on a Google Pixel device does not open any menu.

Folks at 9to5Google gained access to the menu Google is working for the feature through a rooted Pixel phone. The Satellite SOS page explains: “With your Pixel, you can message emergency services and share your location when you can’t connect to a mobile or Wi-Fi network.” Calling or texting emergency services will be enabled using Google Maps and answer questions about the emergency.

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There’s no clarification on whether you can contact anyone outside of emergency services, but the company says it will share the name and phone number from your Google account, as well as contact details for up to three emergency contacts. The page links to a Google support page about what countries are supported but the link is not live yet. We also see demos for satellite connectivity, but neither “Try a demo” nor “Test real mode” are currently working.

There’s no info on when the feature will be live and working but considering the level of information and settings, Google should make it live very shortly.