Huawei to add panic button across all devices from next month

Chinese telecom firm Huawei will add panic button or SOS option in all its Honor brand smartphones in India from next month.
"Government wants all mobile phones to have panic button option or SOS feature. We are the first one to do it. The SOS feature will be available in all our phones selling in India from next month," Huawei India Research and Development Lead Architect Valluri Kumar said on first anniversary event of Honor in India.
The Ministry of Finance in December 2013 had approved a Nirbhaya Fund, following gangrape of a student in Delhi, under which integration of the police administration with mobile phone network to trace and respond to distress calls with minimum response time was to be done.

Under this project, government decided to instruct all mobile phone manufacturers to introduce, mandatorily, an SOS alert button in all the handsets as well as launch SOS alert system in the existing handsets through free downloading of suitable software.
"The SOS feature will be an application which can be configured by the user as per her or his convenience. It can be activated by pressing power button and shaking the phone as well as other combination of buttons," Kumar said.
Once the SOS function is activated, it will immediately send out the message to three people whose number has been configured in the application by the user along with GPS location.

"The person in distress will not need to switch on GPS. Our system will do it on its own and send out location detail," Kumar added.

The SOS feature also has an option to make loud sound to attract attention of people nearby.
"It will be helpful in case of elderly people or patients who may need help from people around and don't need to send out emergency messages," Kumar further said.
This feature will be made available by the second week of October in 2-3 Honor phones including Honor 4C and Honor 6. The feature will be available on other models by the end of October.

Huawei is simultaneously working on upgraded version of panic feature under which it plans to connect the application with emergency numbers, send out long ring on phones instead of just text messages and more sensor option to activate the panic button.