How an alert travels
-
Hold the button
Hold SOS for just over a second and pick what is happening. The hold stops it going off in a pocket or a wet hand.
-
The person on duty hears it
The dispatch screen sounds and shows the spot on a map, with a circle for how far off the phone's location may be. Their phone rings too.
-
No answer means the next person
If nobody presses Acknowledge in time, SafeWatch pages the backup, then the next person on the list. An alert is never left sitting unseen.
-
Every step is on record
Who was paged, who accepted, when the team left and how it ended. Reports show how fast alerts were answered, worked out from the record itself.
No data? It still gets through.
Out on the lake, the signal often drops to one bar. When the app can't reach the internet, it sends the alert as one SMS by itself: what is happening, where, and how sure the location is. Nobody has to type anything.
The person gets a reply so they know it landed. When data comes back, the same alert follows over the internet and is matched to the SMS, so it is never counted twice.
SOS: drowning
Kpando landing beach
Location to within 24 m
SafeWatchRef DAZR: received at 09:41. A responder has not accepted it yet. If you can, also call 112.
Who uses what
People on and near the water
Fishers, boat operators, families on the shore. They use the SOS app on their phone. No account, no sign in.
Get the Android appDispatchers
They watch the dispatch screen, accept alerts, send a team and close each incident with what happened.
Staff sign inResponders
Alerts reach their phones. They see only the incidents they are assigned to, and the caller's number stays private.
Responder sign inWhat SafeWatch does not do
- It does not replace calling 112. The app shows the number on every screen.
- It cannot make a signal where there is none. With no signal at all, the alert waits on the phone and goes the moment one bar appears.
- It has no boats or rescue teams of its own. It gets the alert to the people who do, and keeps the record.
Put SafeWatch on a phone
Android phones: download the SafeWatch app and open the file to install it. It is a real app: it opens with no internet at all, keeps retrying in the background, and can send the alert SMS by itself.
Any phone, even without internet or a smartphone: dial and answer with the number keys. The alert goes at the first answer.
Any other smartphone: scan the code or open /app/ once while you have internet, then choose Add to Home screen in the browser menu. After that it opens offline too.