IoT + geolocation · Mining & industry
Geolocated alerts for critical operations: warnings that arrive with the phone locked
In a mining or hydrocarbons operation, a risk event — a lightning storm, an incident — affects one zone, not the whole operation. The question that saves lives is individual: is it me who needs to seek shelter? We built an alert system that answers that question and gets through even when the phone is locked.
Problem
Personnel in critical operations cannot tell whether a risk event — lightning storm, incident — actually affects them.
Result
Zone-based alerts that ring with the app closed and the phone locked. Designed for privacy.
The context
The usual channels — group chat, email, radio — have two failures in an emergency: they cannot tell who it applies to (everyone receives everything, and excess warnings train people to ignore them), and they do not break through a silenced phone inside a pocket.
Moreover, the obvious solution — tracking every worker’s location — collides with something legitimate: nobody wants to be surveilled. The system had to resolve the tension between alerting by location and becoming a surveillance tool.
How it works
The platform receives events from professional weather sources and IoT sensors in the field, decides which zones are at risk, and fires critical notifications — the kind that ring with the app closed and the phone locked or silenced — only to the people whose zone is affected.
Privacy is by design, not by policy: location is used solely to decide whether the alert applies to you, and no movement histories are built. The system knows who to alert without becoming a tracker.
Engineering decisions
Decision 01
Critical alerts, not just more notifications
We use the phone operating system’s critical alert channels — the same ones used by emergency alerts — so the warning rings with the device locked or silenced. A safety alert that depends on the user having the app open is not an alert.
Decision 02
Privacy as an engineering requirement
Location decides the alert and nothing else: no histories, no surveillance. That decision is not just ethical — it is what makes workers willing to carry the system, and without adoption there is no safety.
Decision 03
Failover in everything that can fail
Redundant data sources, automatic fallback between AI models, and infrastructure built to run 24/7. A safety system has a different contract from any other application: it cannot have a bad day.
What changes for the business
For an operation with field personnel, this turns reactive safety into anticipation: the right person gets the right warning with minutes of advantage — and those not at risk receive no noise training them to ignore the next alert.
- The warning arrives even with the phone locked, silenced, or the app closed.
- Only people in the affected zone are alerted: zero alarm fatigue.
- Privacy by design: location-based alerts without surveilling people.
- Continuous 24/7 operation with redundancy in data, models and infrastructure.
Where else it applies
Mining
Lightning storms, heavy equipment traffic, zone evacuations.
Oil & Gas
Incidents at facilities with distributed personnel.
Construction
Weather risks across large sites.
Agroindustry
Field personnel facing severe weather events.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about this case
Does the alert really ring with the phone on silent?
Yes — it uses the operating system’s critical notification channels, the same as emergency alerts. That was a design requirement from day one: a closed app and a locked phone are the normal case, not the exception.
Does the system track workers?
No. Location is used only to decide whether an alert applies, and no movement histories are stored. The design separates "knowing who to alert" from "knowing where everyone has been" — it only does the former.
What if the data source or the AI provider fails?
There is redundancy at all three layers: alternative data sources, automatic model failover, and infrastructure monitored 24/7. A safety system is designed assuming its parts will fail.
Does it work in operations without full cellular coverage?
The system combines channels: where there is data coverage it reaches the phone, and it can integrate with the operation’s local means (sirens, radio) for uncovered zones. The zone architecture is the same.
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