5 Ways To Set Up Your iPhone For Emergencies – SlashGear

If you are an iPhone user located in the United States, you can easily call 911 on your mobile phone when you need emergency help. In some cases, you can also send a text through the Messages app to 911 or a local emergency services provider. In case you are unable to unlock your device via passcode or Face ID to do any of that, you can tap Emergency on the passcode screen and call for help that way.

Another thing you can do is long-press the side button along with any of the volume buttons to initiate an emergency call without using your iPhone’s dial pad. Once the Emergency Call slider appears onscreen, you can swipe it to reach out to Emergency Services or keep the side button and volume button pressed until a countdown is triggered. Once it runs out, release the buttons so an emergency call will be placed.

This button-press combination is set as the default for emergency service calls on iPhone 8 and newer models, but you can add another gesture or switch to a different method entirely by doing the following:

1. Launch the Settings app on your iPhone.
2. Go to Emergency SOS.
3. You will have two options to choose from:

• Call with Hold and Release, which is the option described above.
• Call with 5 Button Presses, which allows you to quickly press the side button five times to initiate a call countdown and will do so once it runs out.

As a safety precaution, you can enable one of the options or both of them.