Using the SOS button

Before you need it

The SOS alerts the members of all your circles, except the circles you excluded from your SOS alerts. Without a circle the button has nobody to warn, and the screen says so. Three settings make the difference on the day it matters:

• On the receiving phones: notifications allowed, and on Android the battery-optimisation exemption, otherwise a sleeping phone may not ring. The guide First launch and permissions goes through them.
• A verified phone number on every profile: that is where the fallback SMS lands if nobody has seen the alert.
• Which circles to alert: all your circles by default. In a circle, Sharing tab → “Include this circle in my SOS alerts” lets you leave one out, a friends’ circle for instance. A child member cannot exclude a circle.

Raising an alert

1. On the map, tap the round red SOS button.
2. The red screen shows a ten-second countdown. To cancel, swipe the slider: nothing is sent. To skip the wait, hold “Hold to send now”.
3. At zero the alert goes out with your position. The alert screen stays open and shows, for each member: sent, seen, taken charge of.

Your position during the alert

From the moment the alert goes out, your position is shared live with the alerted members, and only with them.

• It follows you: a new position every 5 to 30 seconds while you move. When you stand still, your last position stays on their map.
• It goes through your settings: Position sharing switched off, a circle set to “Off”, Geolocation switched off (Fenzly locates you again for the alert only, your switch does not change). It keeps going in the background, even with the app closed.
• Offline mode is turned off when you send the alert, and a message says so: “Offline mode turned off so the alert can go out”. It stays off afterwards; switch it back on by hand if you want.
• It ends by itself: when you cancel the alert, 30 minutes after someone takes charge, or 4 hours after the alert if nobody ever takes charge. Apart from cancelling the alert, nobody can stop it sooner, a child no more than an adult. It does not appear in the live-sharing banner.

Your alert screen reads “Your position is shared live”, then “Your position stays shared live until 14:45” once someone has taken charge.

During the alert

• As soon as a guardian or an adult has taken charge, their name shows and the ringing stops for everyone. Your position keeps reaching them for 30 more minutes.
• If nobody has seen it after two minutes, every member with a verified number receives an SMS: “Fenzly SOS from …, their position is in the Fenzly app.” Your screen then offers to call someone close or the emergency services. The position never travels by SMS.
• False alarm: tap Cancel the alert and confirm. Members are told it was a mistake.

With no network

If the alert cannot go out, the app does not pretend: it shows “No connection” and puts calling first, your country’s emergency number and the members reachable by phone. You can also queue the alert: it leaves by itself as soon as the network is back, and the screen shows “waiting for network” until then. Your position follows the alert as soon as it leaves. Offline mode alone does not count: if your phone has a network, the alert goes out normally and Offline mode is turned off.

Receiving an alert

Your phone rings, loudly, and again every thirty seconds as long as nobody has looked at the alert, including in silent or Do Not Disturb mode depending on your phone. The SOS screen shows who needs help and a See on the map button. As long as the person’s position keeps coming, the screen reads “Live position” and their marker moves on your map. Once someone has taken charge, the alert card in the chat shows until when: “Live position until 14:45”.

If you are a guardian or an adult of the circle, tap I’m on it: you stop the ringing for everyone and the person knows you are looking after them. A child member receives the alert as a normal notification, without being able to take charge.

What Fenzly knows about an alert

That it happened, at what time, who was alerted, who saw it and who took charge: that is what makes the phones ring and sends the SMS. Never your position or the content of the alert, which stay end-to-end encrypted between you and your people.