Did you know that iPhones have a built-in emergency notification? While this is a crucial tool designed to provide quick assistance in emergency situations, allowing us to contact emergency services quickly, there are times when we need to disable the Emergency SOS feature, largely due to the sensitivity of the side button and the ease with which it can be activated.
Although we believe it is important to have quick access to this option, you can decide to disable it or adjust it to avoid inadvertent calls and for this we have prepared this post, where we will explain how to disable the Emergency SOS function on your iPhone, how to customize it for more appropriate use and how to manage your emergency contacts.
What is the SOS Emergency feature on iPhone?
Before disabling or changing this feature, it is important to understand how Emergency SOS works on an iPhone.
By activating Emergency SOS, the device can make a call to the emergency services in your area automatically., which can even activate via satelliteThere are different ways to activate it:
- side button: On iPhones with Face ID (no Home button), pressing and holding the side button along with one of the volume buttons for a few seconds will activate Emergency SOS.
- Power button five times: On older iPhone models, such as those with a Home button, the feature can be activated by quickly pressing the side or power button five times.
- Countdown: Once activated, a countdown of three to five seconds begins before the call is made, allowing the action to be cancelled if it was accidental.
In addition, You can set up emergency contacts who will receive a message and your location When this feature is enabled, something can be incredibly useful in critical situations.
Why would you want to disable Emergency SOS?
And yes, this is super useful, but it is true that some people prefer to deactivate the SOS Emergency function, these being some of the most common:
- Accidental activations: It's easy to accidentally activate this feature if you press the side button while carrying your phone in a pocket or bag. While the countdown allows you to cancel, some people don't manage to do so in time.
- Non-critical situations: Sometimes you can press buttons in a non-critical situation and accidentally call emergency services.
- Notifications and contacts: In some cases, your emergency contacts may receive unnecessary notifications, which can cause unnecessary concern.
How to disable the SOS Emergency feature on iPhone
Deactivating SOS Emergency is a simple process that takes little to no time if you know how to do it:
Open the Settings app
First, unlock your iPhone and Open the Settings app, the well-known grey icon with gears that is usually found on the main screen.
Go to “SOS Emergency”
In the Settings menu, scroll down until you find the SOS Emergency option. Of course, you must click on it to access the function settings.
Disable the relevant options
In the SOS Emergency menu, you will see several options that you can adjust. Here is how to modify each of them:
- Call with the side button: This option allows you to make a call to emergency services by holding down the side button and one of the volume buttons. If you prefer to avoid accidental activations when holding the phone, you can disable this option by sliding the switch to the off position, leaving the rest of the functions intact.
- Call automatically: This option, when enabled, will automatically initiate an emergency call after the countdown. This will prevent unintentional dialing of calls to emergency services.
- Sound during countdown: While this option doesn't disable the SOS feature, you can choose whether the iPhone will play an alert sound during the countdown, which is a good idea if you don't want to lose the feature but want to have room to cancel any mistakes.
- Deactivate SOS with five clicks on older models: On iPhone models with a Home button or those that allow you to activate the feature by pressing the side button five times, You can prevent accidental activation by disabling this feature.. In the same menu, look for the option that mentions five-click activation and disable it.
How to customize Emergency SOS instead of disabling it?
If you are worried about losing the ability to access the SOS Emergency feature, as we have told you, You can opt for an intermediate solution that may be of great use to you: customization.
Specifically, you can modify these options that will ensure that you do not have any problems with the SOS Emergency mode.
Set up emergency contacts
You can set up the right people in your emergency contact list so that only they receive notifications when you activate the SOS feature, which is vital to only “bother” the targeted contacts instead of the vast majority.
To do so, head to the Health app and select your profile at the top. Then, Select Emergency Contacts to add or remove people from this list.
Turn off “Auto Call” but keep the side button on
You can Keep the SOS Emergency activation function with the side button, but disable the automatic callThis way, you will have time to cancel the call if it was accidental.
Using accessibility widgets
If you prefer to have access to emergency functions without using the physical buttons, you can Add an accessibility widget that allows you to access these functions from the main screen.
Whether to deactivate the SOS Emergency function or not: that is the question.
The SOS Emergency function is an important tool that can make a difference in critical situations and disabling it could, in some cases, limit your ability to respond quickly to an emergency.
Therefore, we believe that before disabling it completely, it is worth considering whether adjusting the controls and customizing it a bit might be a better option, always making sure that any changes you make to your settings is something you can handle in stressful or dangerous situations.
As our advice, always remember to check your settings before disabling any critical features of your iPhone, and adjust them according to your needs and lifestyle to ensure your safety without compromising comfort, and hopefully you'll never need this feature again!