How do I Make Sure I Always Receive Alarm Alerts, Even When my Phone is Silenced?
Updated
There are a few options available to ensure you never miss a notification or phone call from our monitoring center in the event of an alarm: Critical Alarm Notifications, and allowing calls from our monitoring center’s phone number when your phone’s Do Not Disturb mode and enabling Alarm Texts for both iPhone and Android users. See below for more information on each of these options and how to enable them:
Critical Alarm Notifications
iOS / iPhone
Customers can now opt-in for Critical Alerts on Alarm Notifications to ensure that when your system is armed you never miss a push notification* in the event of an alarm—even if your phone is silenced or set to Do Not Disturb.
Opting in to Critical Alerts reduces the chances of missing an alarm alert in the event of a real emergency and helps avoid unwanted police dispatch in the event of a false alarm. Critical Alerts always play a sound and appear on the lock screen even if your iPhone is muted or set to Do Not Disturb.
*Please note that Critical Alerts apply only to Push Notifications received via the SimpliSafe® Mobile App. If Text/Email alerts are enabled or you are subscribed to Alarm Texts, these may still be muted if your iPhone is silenced or in Do Not Disturb.
Turning Critical Alerts on or off
Ensure that Push Notifications for the SimpliSafe® mobile app are enabled in your iPhone’s settings: Settings > Notifications > SimpliSafe > toggle Allow Notifications on/off
Enable Critical Alerts in your iPhone’s settings: Settings > Notifications > SimpliSafe > toggle Critical Alerts on/off
Enable Alarm Alerts in your SimpliSafe® Mobile App: My System from the bottom navigation bar > Alerts & Notifications > Alarm Triggered > Push Notifications > ON
Make sure to press Save in the upper right corner to save your changes
Android
Customers with Android devices can make adjustments to their settings to allow SimpliSafe® to control ring & notification volume and Do Not Disturb. Doing so will ensure that Critical Alarm Notifications via Push Notification will play at full volume, and any calls from the Monitoring Center will ring aloud.
Note: The Android device will not automatically be placed back to silent or Do Not Disturb after this occurs. You will need to manually place your device back into silent or Do Not Disturb mode should an alarm event occur.
To allow SimpliSafe® to control ring & notification settings on Android, use the following steps:
Go to your Android System Settings
Choose apps, then Special App Access
Choose Do Not Disturb Access
Choose SimpliSafe and enable the ‘Allow Do Not Disturb’ toggle, selecting Allow again for the popup that presents.
Allowing the Monitoring Center’s Calls Through Do Not Disturb
For both iPhone and Android, you have the option to allow specific phone numbers to ensure the call will come through when your phone is in Do Not Disturb mode. Please note that if your Android device is on silent and in Do Not Disturb mode, it is possible that your phone may not ring. You will need to enable Critical Alarm Notifications using the steps above to ensure that your Android device rings.
For iPhone:
Save our Monitoring Center’s phone number (855-693-4911) to your phone’s contacts
Open your iPhone’s settings
Tap “Focus” and then “Do Not Disturb”
Tap the “People” option in the Allowed Notifications section
You can also choose the “Apps” tab at the top of the screen to allow notifications from the SimpliSafe® app using the same steps 5–7 below
Tap the plus symbol to add a new allowed contact
Select the Monitoring Center’s contact that you added to your phone and then click “Done”
Repeat steps 3–6 for any other Focus options that you use (ex. Sleep, Personal, Work, etc.)
You can also add the 5-digit SMS number (82539) that Alarm Texts are sent from (see below) as an allowed phone number using these same steps
For Android:
If you have already enabled Critical Alarm Notifications with the steps above, you do not need to complete these steps.
Save our Monitoring Center’s phone number (855-693-4911) to your phone’s contacts
Open your phone’s settings
Select “Notifications” and then “Do Not Disturb”
Choose “People” and then “Calls”
You can also choose the “Apps” to allow notifications from the SimpliSafe® app using the same steps 5–7 below
Select “Starred Contacts” and then the gear icon next to it
Tap “Add Starred Contacts” at the bottom of the screen
Tap the star next to the Monitoring Center’s contact that you added to your phone
You can also add the 5-digit SMS number (82539) that Alarm Texts are sent from (see below) as an allowed phone number using these same steps
Alarm Texts
Alarm Texts are SMS messages that, when enabled, will be sent during alarm events to all primary contacts associated with your SimpliSafe® account, and will provide information about alarm events.
With Alarm Texts, Interactive and Standard subscribers will receive texts when an alarm is triggered and will be able to cancel burglary alarms within the first two minutes or request help through text message.
All primary contacts on your account will automatically be opted in to receive Alarm Texts and will receive three initial texts to introduce them to the messages. Alarm Texts will be sent from our 5-digit SMS number, 82539—to ensure you never miss a text, you can add this 5-digit SMS number as an allowed phone number using the steps above.
You can see this article for more information on Alarm Texts and how to enable them.