'Emergency Location Service'/'Advanced Mobile Location' on your phone

Page may contain affiliate links. Please see terms for details.

ColinJ

Puzzle game procrastinator!
I was just looking through various menus on my Android phone and I found an entry that I hadn't noticed before... Settings/Safety & Emergency/Emergency Location Service. It is to enable the phone to send an accurate location to the emergency services if you dial the standard emergency code in your country - 999 (UK), 911 (USA) etc. The only time it is used to track your location is when you dial that emergency number.

ELS / AML sounds like a good idea so I have enabled it. It is possible that your mobile service provider already does this, but no harm in making sure this way?

I am probably the only person on CycleChat who didn't know that this was available, but in case you didn't know either... now you DO! :okay:

[For the paranoid among us who think that THEY could use it to track us... Don't worry any more than usual - THEY ALREADY CAN! :laugh:]
 

Mo1959

Legendary Member
I was just looking through various menus on my Android phone and I found an entry that I hadn't noticed before... Settings/Safety & Emergency/Emergency Location Service. It is to enable the phone to send an accurate location to the emergency services if you dial the standard emergency code in your country - 999 (UK), 911 (USA) etc. The only time it is used to track your location is when you dial that emergency number.

ELS / AML sounds like a good idea so I have enabled it. It is possible that your mobile service provider already does this, but no harm in making sure this way?

I am probably the only person on CycleChat who didn't know that this was available, but in case you didn't know either... now you DO! :okay:

[For the paranoid among us who think that THEY could use it to track us... Don't worry any more than usual - THEY ALREADY CAN! :laugh:]
More and more things doing things like this. My Apple Watch can detect falls and dial emergency contacts and emergency services if I want. I don’t, so have disabled it.
 
OP
OP
ColinJ

ColinJ

Puzzle game procrastinator!
More and more things doing things like this. My Apple Watch can detect falls and dial emergency contacts and emergency services if I want. I don’t, so have disabled it.
I disabled crash detection on the phone - I don't want the phone making that kind of decision for me. I carry it in a bag on my back when cycling and my hearing isn't great so if the bag got knocked I might not hear an unnecessary emergency call going out!

(Obviously what will happen now is that I will fall off my bike into a ditch in the middle of nowhere out of sight of the anybody who does happen to pass, and be too badly injured to make a call myself! :whistle:)
 
going slightly off topic

when I go out riding I enable the Beacon feature on Strava so my wife can see where I am
2 reasons
a) if I am late back she can see where I am and maybe call out the cops to pick up the pieces - or create a Tinder profile - whatever
b) if she gets a message that we are having visitors - such as her son bringing the kids round - then she can see where I am am work out whether or not she should ring me - and/ or can tell them when I am likely to be back

On one occasion I was out on my normal route and I got into a conversation with a woman at my normal stopping point
she was just stopped on her walk as I pulled up to stop on my ride
Just as she left my phone rang and my wife asked where I was:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:
which was rather freaky - that is THE ONLY time she has rung me when I am out riding - just after I got talking to a random woman!!

Anyway - turned out that as I was going over the old bridge Strava lost contact with the GPS
some time later it still hadn't found out where I was so assumed total disaster and sent her a text saying I seemed to have been stopped for a long time
or so she said!!!!


to add to the authenticity of her story - over and above her having a stealth drone following me and her noticing me talking to a strange woman - I restarted Strava and it noticed a fault and carried on monitoring the ride - and drew a strait line from my last know position to the new one - which meant my ride indicated that I rode my ebike through the Mersey for a few miles then through several houses and factories until I reached the canal.
Still wonder of teh stealth drone story may be more plausible


anyway - TLDR - Strava has a Beacon feature that will tell your beloved - or other person such as your wife - if you stop for a long time with no excuse
which may be a problem to certain life styles:whistle::whistle:
 

PaulSB

Legendary Member
Does your phone have "emergency mode"? Mine does and dramatically extends battery life while still allowing very basic functions. I have 50% battery at the moment. In emergency mode that will last 4 days and 2 hours.
 
OP
OP
ColinJ

ColinJ

Puzzle game procrastinator!
The thing I like about this is that it does absolutely nothing until YOU dial 999/911/(whatever) and at that point you obviously WOULD want the emergency services to know where you were!

Half the time I don't know where I am within 5-10 km since I plot my routes on the computer and download them to my GPS, which does not have maps on it. If I fell off and injured myself I might just be able to say "somewhere between X and Y".

Even if you DID know where you were, you might black out before you could even speak.

YES to telling emergency services my location; NO to telling the rest of the world! :okay:
 
Top Bottom