GeoShake

Open firmware, open enclosure designs and open data for a home seismic station. The GeoShake T1 detects P-waves on the device and publishes into a registered FDSN seismic network, GW. When three or more stations near each other confirm an earthquake, the network sends early warnings to the GeoShake app and to smart homes, often seconds before the strong shaking arrives.

Live map · Get the app · Data & APIs · Discord · Get a T1

How it works

1. Measure. Four 6-axis sensors read the ground 104 to 110 times a second.
2. Detect. An STA/LTA trigger fires on the device within milliseconds.
3. Send. Encrypted MQTT carries the trigger and the waveform.
4. Confirm. Three or more nearby stations must agree. One device never alarms alone.
5. Warn and share. Phones and smart homes get an early warning, and the data goes out over FDSN and SeedLink.

Note

Early warning is a helpful extra layer, not a guarantee. Depending on your distance from the epicenter it can mean about 5 to 30 seconds; close to the epicenter a warning can arrive after the shaking has started. GeoShake complements official warning systems, it does not replace them.

The GeoShake app

Free on iOS and Android, and the companion app for your T1.

• Early warnings for confirmed earthquakes, tuned to your address and alert radius.
• A live map of every station and every event. Open any point for its full seismogram.
• Your own station: live telemetry from your T1.
• Community reports: tell the network what you felt.

Rated 4.9 on the US App Store (332 ratings, November 2026).

Your smart home reacts

When the network confirms an earthquake within 300 km of your station, your home can react: lights turn on, a speaker announces it, or a scene of your choice runs.

Platform	How it works
Google Home	Certified Works with Google Home. Link your GeoShake account and an Earthquake sensor appears for your routines. No hub.
Amazon Alexa	Enable the GeoShake skill (United States and Canada, in English) and a confirmed earthquake starts your routine.
Home Assistant	Native integration from the Marketplace or HACS: GeoShake/geoshake-homeassistant.
Smart Life & Tuya	In Central Europe: scan one code and the T1 appears, ready for Tap-to-Run scenes.

Setup guides: geoshake.org/integrations. Smart-home automations are an extra notification layer, not a life-safety system.

Why you can check it

• The network is registered, not self-declared. FDSN network code GW, its DOI and the GEOSHAKE data centre entry are issued by others, not by us: fdsn.org/networks/detail/GW · 10.7914/ft1b-4x43 · data centre GEOSHAKE
• The stations are real, and you can list them now. Our FDSN service returns the roster as plain text, with no key and no registration: station list. The stations badge above counts them live from the same service, and the same stations appear on map.geoshake.org.
• The detector checks itself at every boot. The C firmware recomputes golden vectors and compares them with the TypeScript reference in this repository. The literals 0.00003883608158025049 and 57.60172630506509 appear both in golden_stalta_check in firmware/t1-revc/main/main.c and in firmware/shared/test/stalta.test.ts, and the feature vectors in golden_check line up the same way with features.test.ts. A mismatch logs golden ... FAIL and switches the status light to the fast flicker that docs/led-states.md documents as a failed self-check.

What's open, and what isn't

Part	Status	License
Firmware (ESP-IDF, ESP32-S3)	Open	GPL-3.0-or-later
DSP reference (shared)	Open	GPL-3.0-or-later
Enclosure designs (STL + Fusion source)	Open	CC BY-SA 4.0
Documentation	Open	CC BY-SA 4.0
Seismic data	Open	CC BY 4.0
PCB design and schematics	Proprietary	not published
Cloud backend and network services	Proprietary	operated by us

Because the PCB is proprietary, the device as a whole is not open source hardware, and we don't describe it that way. What is open is open for real: the sources are in this repository, not just claimed in a badge.

The T1

Most cheap "earthquake sensors" answer one question: is it shaking or not. The T1 measures the ground motion itself, and separates the fast P-wave that arrives first from the slower S-wave that does the damage.

Plug it into USB power and set it up from the GeoShake app over Bluetooth (or, as a fallback, join its GeoShake-XXXX Wi-Fi from your phone); most people are live in about two minutes. It needs a power outlet and 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi (5 GHz-only networks are not supported). Mount it on a fixed, rigid surface; a load-bearing column or beam is ideal.

Sensing	4 × 6-axis IMUs (ST LSM6DSO) on SPI, 104 to 110 Hz on all axes, 16-bit, ±2 g. Noise floor about 35 µg/√Hz across the four-sensor array (datasheet-derived).
Compute	ESP32-S3, dual-core 240 MHz, 8 MB PSRAM, 16 MB flash
Detection	On-device STA/LTA (0.5 s / 30 s windows) and per-second RMS/PGA features
Waveforms	About 6 s before the trigger plus an adaptive 6 to 24 s after it. Science Mode records the full raw waveform, three axes at about 110 Hz.
Connectivity	Wi-Fi 2.4 GHz (802.11 b/g/n), Bluetooth LE 5, MQTT over TLS, SNTP time sync (about 10 ms)
Updates	Signed OTA (RSA-3072) with automatic rollback, and reflashable over USB-C
Power	USB-C, 0.7 to 1 W typical. Adapter 5 V / 1 A minimum, not included.
Body	64 × 54 × 34 mm, 45 g, operating -40 °C to +60 °C
Privacy	Only acceleration data leaves the device. No camera, no microphone.
In the box	T1 (assembled, tested, flashed), 1 m USB-C cable (power only), Station Passport, mounting kit (clamp plate, 2 plugs, 2 screws)

Which firmware this is. This repository carries blep-0.9.27, with the sdkconfig.defaults it is built with. The fleet runs newer builds and we sync this mirror by hand rather than from CI, so it can lag behind. If you need a specific build, ask at info@geoshake.org.

Audit the science

firmware/shared is the reference implementation of the feature maths and the STA/LTA detector, in TypeScript, with its test vectors. The C firmware is bit-locked to it: same inputs, same numbers, checked on every boot. Both sides are published, so you can audit the detector without owning a device, and a disagreement shows up as a failing number rather than as a difference of opinion.

Use the data

Station metadata (StationXML), the event catalogue (QuakeML) and live waveforms (SeedLink) are open, with no registration and no API key. Archived waveform windows are not served over FDSN: live traces come from SeedLink, and individual triggers download as SAC from each station page.

from obspy.clients.fdsn import Client

client = Client(base_url="https://api.geoshake.org")
inv = client.get_stations(network="GW", level="station")
print(inv)

docs/fdsn.md covers the rest: endpoints, what each of the four channels contains, the counts-to-m/s² constant, worked ObsPy examples and how to cite the network. The sensors are uncalibrated MEMS accelerometers and two of the channels have no known azimuth, so read it before processing anything. Network data is CC BY 4.0.

GeoShake Scope is a free desktop app for deep analysis of the earthquakes the network captures: waveforms, spectrograms and P/S phase picking, on Windows, macOS and Linux. Download · GeoShake/scope

Waveforms	Spectrogram	P/S picking

Join the network

GeoShake T1	Maker Edition	Sponsor a region
Assembled, tested and flashed. Plug it in and you are contributing in about two minutes. geoshake.org/geoshake-t1	The same electronics as the T1, assembled, tested, firmware already on it. You print the enclosure. geoshake.org/board	Donate a batch of 12 or more stations to a school, a municipality or a high-risk region selected by local scientists. geoshake.org/sponsor-a-region

How many stations does an area need? The network publishes an earthquake only when at least three stations near each other agree; below three, the shaking is recorded but no event is located. See where coverage is missing with the coverage planner.

Build your own

On a breadboard, about $25	On the T1 firmware
An ESP32-S3 dev board and one or two LSM6 breakouts, one evening, no soldering. It runs the real STA/LTA with warm-up, LTA freeze and hysteresis, and ships the same golden vectors, so you can prove your build agrees with the network's maths. Start at diy/README.md.	1. Print the v2.1 enclosure from hardware/enclosure (ASA recommended, no supports) and follow its assembly guide. 2. Build and flash firmware/t1-revc with ESP-IDF. 3. Point it at your own MQTT broker (main/config.h), or request credentials for the official network at geoshake.org/join-network.

The PCB is not published, so a full DIY build of the T1 itself means designing your own carrier board; the firmware README documents the pinout and sensor configuration it expects. The breadboard route exists because that is a lot to ask.

Related repositories

• GeoShake/scope: desktop app for deep analysis of earthquakes captured by the network
• GeoShake/geoshake-homeassistant: earthquake early warning for Home Assistant

Repository layout

firmware/
  t1-revc/    ESP-IDF firmware of the shipping T1 (4x LSM6DSO)
  shared/     TypeScript DSP reference, the C firmware is bit-locked to it
  legacy/     Original DIY Arduino variants (LSM6DS3, unmaintained)
diy/          Breadboard seismometer: sketches, tests, wiring, web dashboard
hardware/
  enclosure/  STL meshes, Fusion 360 source, print and assembly guide
docs/         FDSN data access, status-light reference
data/         Seismic data licence (the data is served from the network)
assets/       Images (GeoShake and third-party marks are excluded from the licences,
              see assets/TRADEMARK-NOTICE.md)
LICENSING.md  Which licence covers which part, authoritative

Contribute

Questions first? Join the Discord: #setup-help for a station that won't come online (the status-light table is pinned there), #build-and-print for the enclosure and the breadboard build, #data-and-network for FDSN and ObsPy.

Bug fixes, firmware improvements and enclosure remixes are welcome. Every commit needs a DCO sign-off (git commit -s), see CONTRIBUTING.md. Security issues: read SECURITY.md first and don't open a public issue.

License

GeoShake is multi-licensed: different parts of this repository carry different licenses. The root LICENSE file holds the GPL-3.0 text because that is the one file GitHub reads; it does not cover everything here. LICENSING.md is the authoritative overview.

Part	License	SPDX
Firmware and software	GPL-3.0-or-later	GPL-3.0-or-later
Enclosure designs	CC BY-SA 4.0	CC-BY-SA-4.0
Documentation and images	CC BY-SA 4.0	CC-BY-SA-4.0
Seismic data	CC BY 4.0	CC-BY-4.0

The firmware and the enclosure designs are share-alike: if you distribute modified versions you must publish your modifications under the same license, so improvements flow back to everyone. The data is CC BY 4.0; attribution is all it asks.

Trademarks

"GeoShake", the logo and the wave device are trademarks of Appflows Teknoloji A.Ş. and are not licensed. You may build and sell devices based on this firmware and these enclosure designs, but not under the GeoShake name or logo. See TRADEMARKS.md. The App Store, Google Play, Google Home, Amazon Alexa, Home Assistant and Smart Life logos in assets/images/third-party/ belong to their owners and are not covered by this repository's licenses.

Official devices and network

Pre-assembled, tested and flashed devices are sold at geoshake.org. The GeoShake cloud, verification backend and station map are operated services; joining the official network requires credentials from geoshake.org/join-network.

Shipping devices with this firmware

If you build products from these sources, please credit Source: github.com/GeoShake/geoshake. That credit is a licence requirement for the enclosure designs (CC BY-SA 4.0 §3). It is not a GPL source offer: if you distribute a device carrying GPL firmware, §6 obliges you to convey the corresponding source for the binary you shipped. Pointing at this repository does not discharge that, because we mirror by hand and what is published here is not necessarily the build in your customer's hands.