A day before Apple unveiled its highly anticipated satellite-powered SOS feature for iPhone 14, Huawei announced its own equivalent.
The Chinese telecoms equipment and smartphone giant said its flagship Mate 50 series will support texting via satellite communication. The feature is made possible by Beidou, China’s own navigation alternative to the U.S. government-owned Global Positioning System.
Sending messages via satellite signal isn’t a particularly new technology. But it’s the first time this feature of Beidou’s has been implemented in consumer-facing smartphones, Huawei said. Users will be able to send messages and their geographic coordinates using a special app and generate a map of their path, all the while cellular connection is unavailable.
The SOS communication feature is perhaps more useful in the U.S. where it’s easy to go off-the-grid — either because people choos …
