There are so many things you can do with your Android smartphone, so it’s quite easy to lose track of some useful stuff along the way. For instance, did you know that you can make your phone set alerts for emergencies? Continue reading to find out how you can take advantage of this feature on Android.
Getting Started
To enable emergency alerts on your Android, you’ll need to install Google’s Live Transcribe app from the Play Store. Alternatively, if your phone is running Android 11 (and above), it should be already available on your device. This is a service that Google created for the hearing impaired, but that doesn’t mean regular users can’t take advantage of this excellent accessibility app.
Using state-of-the-art automatic speech recognition technology, Live Transcribe can perform real-time transcription of speech to text directly on your phone’s screen. While this option was originally designed to allow hearing-impaired individuals to participate in conversations around them, it can prove quite useful in several other scenarios. One example is using the app to take notes during a video call.
But that’s not all this clever little app can do. Most recently, Google’s Live Transcribe app has gained the ability to notify you when it hears important sounds. We show you here how you can set up the feature yourself.
How to Enable Emergency Alerts on Your Android
The app can identify many different sounds, including smoke and fire alarms, sirens, shouts, babies, ringing doorbells, knocks, barking dogs, appliance beeps, running water, and ringing landline phones. These are all sounds the app listens for by default.
1. Open the Live Transcribe app on your device.
2. When the app asks permission to use your microphone, allow it.
3. Tap on the gear icon in the lower-left corner on the app.
4. A pop-up menu will appear below. Select “Open Sound Notifications.”
5. On the “Welcome to Sound Notifications” screen, tap the Next button.
6. Follow the instructions that appear on the display and center the phone in the room where you want your device to listen for sounds. Additionally, make sure nothing blocks the phone and that other sound sources are kept on low volume.
7. You can try a demo first and see what happens if your phone detects a smoke alarm when pressing “Try a demo” button. The phone will flash the camera light to alert you and send out a notification on your phone and/or connected wearable.
8. Once you’re ready to start using the feature, press the “Turn on” button.
9. The app will switch to Live View and start listening for sounds in its surroundings. Once it picks one up, it will send out notifications. By default, the app will prompt the phone to vibrate, flash the camera light, and display a notification on your display.
In the Live View screen, you can tap on the gear icon in the top-right corner to access “Settings -> Notification Preferences” and customize your notifications. For example, you can disable the vibrations or even the flashing light if you think it’s not helpful to you.
In Settings, you can also easily disable “Sound Notifications” by toggling the option off if you no longer need it.
Additionally, you may wish to receive alerts only for certain sounds. To do so, simply tap on “Sound notifications are active” and disable the sounds for which you don’t want to be alerted.
If sound is a major focus for you, then perhaps you may also like to learn all about improving sound on your Android phone or how to change the notification sound on your device.
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