FREE SOS feature on your phone

Recently, I had to start doing research on devices that would allow the user to activate a panic or sos button that would notify friends or family that they needed assistance.  While I still have not found the exact device to suit my needs, I did stumble across some very useful information about a FREE feature included on ALL cell phones  regardless of model or provider, without having to download an app or pay for a service.

If you are interested in hearing more, please keep reading!!!

Let me start by telling you what this feature does, or how it works after you do an initial setup and then I will post screenshots on how I set it up on my phone.

Once you have completed the initial setup, if you need to send an SOS message, you simply click your power button 3 times quickly.  Doing so,  enables the front and back cameras on your phone to take a picture.  It also makes a 5 second audio recording, and sends all of this information including your GPS coordinates to a pre-selected contact.

Too good to be true?  I thought so too.  So of course I had to test it out numerous times to try to find a flaw.  I’m happy to say that I couldn’t find any.

Each time I tested this, either myself or my contact received the message within 30 seconds.  The camera does not use the flash, so their is no indication to an outside party that you have clicked an alert.  The GPS coordinates were accurate to within 200 feet.

The steps I used to set this up on my phone are as follows:

1. Go under your settings tab
2. scroll down to privacy and emergency
3. turn on send sos messages
4. select a contact
5. on the final screen you have the option to attach pictures and/or audio

From what I can tell, this feature is available on all makes of phones regardless of your service provider.  While each person I have talked to about this, has been able to set this up on their phone, FOR FREE, the steps were slightly different than the ones I used.  If you are interested, Google… ” how to set up sos messaging on your phone”.

Let me know if you tried this, and any opinions or concerns you might have that I might not have thought of.  I am very curious to know if it also works in other countries besides the US.