Every year in India the weather is a safety story. The monsoon drowns underpasses and strands commuters. Pre-monsoon thunderstorms bring lightning that kills hundreds. The summer pushes the feels-like temperature past 45 degrees. And the winter mornings in the north disappear into fog thick enough to pile cars on a highway.
A family safety app that ignores all of that is missing half of what actually puts people in danger on an ordinary day. So the latest ORBII update brings the weather in.
Always on your home screen
There is a weather card on Home now, under the air quality. On a calm day it quietly shows the sky and the temperature. When the weather turns into a real risk, the same card becomes a warning, and the advice is written for here, not copied from a generic app:
- Thunderstorm: get inside a building or a car, not under a tree, a shed or a bus stand, and stay in for thirty minutes after the last thunder.
- Heavy rain: underpasses and low roads flood fast and stall vehicles; don’t drive into standing water when you can’t see how deep it is, and share your trip so your circle sees where you are.
- Extreme heat: it warns by what it feels like, not just the temperature, and says to keep water, add an ORS when you’re sweating hard, and treat cramps or dizziness as a reason to stop and cool down now.
- Dense fog: low beam and hazard lights, not high beam, which only glares back off the fog.
On the map, and on your people
Open your circle map and the weather is drawn right onto it: rain streaks when it is raining, a flash during a storm, a drifting haze in fog, a warm glare in a heatwave. On a clear day the map stays clean. There is also a small pill on the map showing the air and weather where you are at a glance.
And like air quality, each person in your circle carries a weather chip on their row, for wherever they are. You can see that it is already storming where your sister is while it is dry where you are, and tell her to wait it out.
The honest limits
This is a short-range forecast for your area, not a guarantee and not a street-by-street reading. It is there to make you look up and decide, a little earlier than you would have. On a safety app we would rather warn you about a storm that softens into drizzle than stay silent about one that does not.
The weather will do what it does. Seeing it coming, for yourself and for everyone in your circle, is the part ORBII can help with.
Frequently asked questions
When does the weather card show a warning?
When the weather where you are is a real risk: a thunderstorm (lightning), heavy rain (flooding), extreme heat by the feels-like temperature, or dense fog. On a calm day the same card simply shows the current sky and temperature.
Where does the weather come from?
An open weather-forecast model (Open-Meteo), read for the area around you and the next few hours. ORBII rounds your location to about a kilometre before asking, so the source never gets your exact position.
Can I see the weather where my circle members are?
Yes. If someone shares their location with you, their row shows a small weather chip (Rain, Hot, Fog and so on) alongside their air quality, for wherever they are now.
Does the weather warning ring like an SOS?
No. It is a quiet card and, for the map, a subtle effect. The SOS siren is reserved for actual emergencies, so people never learn to ignore it.