Nokia Adding “Lightning Detector” To Phones

Most of these replies of "Gee, didn't you notice the storm around you?" replies must not live in the midwest. Here, lightning can be caused by heat and not just by storms. Also, especially during tornado season, you can have two storm fronts converge and without warning have a lightning storm spring up.

One other note: Lightning usually gives a warning before it strikes. This warning is usually the hair on your body standing up. Once you see this you usually have a few seconds to move quickly away from that area. Transformers on electric poles will also start to build up a loud hum up to 30 seconds before lightning strikes them. This is due to the massive amounts of negative or positive electrons that are building up (never can remember which one is at the ground).
 
It is a great idea if they were to send all the data to a central server, they could get very accurate maps of where the activity is by triangulating between phones.

just for warning the users..meh
 
I can see it now. Sounds like Microsoft adding useless features <lol>. I long for the day they make a operating system that works flawlessly before adding new features. Sounds like Nokia is taking a page from Microsoft.
 
It'd be more worthwhile to implement software to use internet to get local weather conditions, or at the very least, to place a thermistor at a far end of the phone to get crude temperature sensing ability that would be least affected by the phone's heat.
 
This may be an old wives tale, but i was told that you count the seconds inbetween the lighting and the thunder, and that gives you a 1to1 approximation of how many miles away the lighting strikes are from you...

e.g. Zap.1..2..3..CRACK! = 3miles

My guess is there's doing something similiar with the 5-10ghz band to register a lighting strike and using a more accurate algorithm..
 
xaustinx said:
This may be an old wives tale, but i was told that you count the seconds inbetween the lighting and the thunder, and that gives you a 1to1 approximation of how many miles away the lighting strikes are from you...

e.g. Zap.1..2..3..CRACK! = 3miles

My guess is there's doing something similiar with the 5-10ghz band to register a lighting strike and using a more accurate algorithm..
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This may be wrongly assumed, but I have the feeling you didn't read much of the thread before replying.
 
Hmmph... Too much dependence on technology and not enough common sense I say. :(

I can see the lawsuits now that go after the phone makers because the detector didn't go off in time. :rolleyes:

Or maybe the mad panic at a soccer match because 63 phones go nuts about a storm 10 miles away. ;)
 
Gimme the gadget!

We'd have killed for such a device when I was working on the flightline. People have been injured or killed by lightning outside of three miles (weird, unbelievable, whatever, look up USAF injury stats), and if we could have had better warning of the conditions becoming unstable, it would have been a lifesaver.

Aviation has had such a device for years, but it was limited to actual flight. Check out the StormScope . Now, you have one on your belt.

Sure, there's a squall line moving across the horizon. Is it three miles, five miles, maybe seven because the visibility was CAVU before the weather started? Is there lightning on the other side of it we can't see because of cloud obscuration? Wind direction affects being able to hear far-off thunder.

Make fun of the Nokia device all you want. In the right situations, the thing's worth double it's weight in gold. And before you fire up the "shens" replies, look at my profile. I got 24 years of walking what you're just talking...
 
Strikemaster said:
Make fun of the Nokia device all you want. In the right situations, the thing's worth double it's weight in gold. And before you fire up the "shens" replies, look at my profile. I got 24 years of walking what you're just talking...
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Name some right situations or shens. :)
 
GJSNeptune said:
Name some right situations or shens. :)
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Second paragraph. Flightline. Storm cell passing roughly parallel to the base. We had an airman killed on the ramp, blue goddamned skies overhead, the localized lightning hit three miles off and the ground return chose to exit earth via the ground lead he was attaching to a jet. One of those freak weather conditions you see on occasions when things are moving fast.

The man died. Wife, no kids. We sat in the safety briefing, every one looking at each other and thinking the same thing, "No f******k way", and then came the pictures, testimony, tower observer logs. Took three months to figure out what had happened, USAF flightline procedures changed right after the accident report was published.

New Mexico, hiker up in the mountains, clear air, front moving through in a hurry. Lightning strike. She survived. Whole damned thing documented via National Geographic.

Call it shens, I don't give a shit. If that Nokia app can do what the patent says, it'll be well worth it.
 
Not to "yeah but", but... ;)

If there is blue sky above, I doubt people will listen to their phone alert. I mean, people are people and loads of them aren't the brightest.

Yes though, I'll agree with you. In the right situation, *WITH THE RIGHT PERSON*, this phone will serve a purpose.
 
Jeff Foley said:
Not to "yeah but", but... ;)

If there is blue sky above, I doubt people will listen to their phone alert. I mean, people are people and loads of them aren't the brightest.
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Maybe is they made the phone shock you when lighting was approaching it would get peoples attention.
 
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