Amber Alerts on Samsung A5 (2017)

[RhinoCan]

Is there any way to stop Amber Alerts on my phone from signalling again and again and again until I click OK?

I have a Samsung A5 (2017). My area, Ontario in Canada, recently implemented a system of sending Amber alerts to all smart phone owners in Ontario. That's great and I support the initiative. However, I am not completely delighted with the actual implementation, at least as it affects me.

We had an Amber Alert this morning, just after 5am, when I was fast asleep. My phone was a few feet away, charging, and the volume was quite low. I think I managed to sleep through the first message but a few minutes later, the emergency tone sounded again. And then again and again and again, at shortish intervals - a few minutes but I wasn't timing them - and the cycle didn't stop until I got out of bed and clicked OK on the Amber Alert message. I confirmed that only one Amber Alert had come in but the phone kept nagging me about it until I finally clicked OK. In other words, it was acting much like an "automatic snooze button", if I can put it that way, because it kept telling me about this alert until I clicked OK.

A second alert occurred about 40 minutes later (for the same child but this time in English AND French instead of just in English) and this time I got up right away to click the OK and there were no further messages. As you can imagine these alerts were very disruptive to my sleep. I already have issues with not being to fall back asleep when awakened.

I'm wondering if it's a setting on my phone that causes it to re-signal me until I press OK? I realize it may be the way the Amber Alert system is implemented and outside of my control but if I can adjust my phone to only signal me ONCE per Amber Alert, my sleep will be much less disrupted; then I can potentially sleep right through the signal or, at worst, fall back asleep quickly if it does happen without having to get out of bed.

While I'm asking questions, let me ask one more. I know my phone has a motion sensor; I'm betting quite a few phones do now. Would it be possible for the people who administer the Amber Alerts to detect that my phone is stationary and hasn't moved for a while? I want to suggest to them that they check for that and *not* notify people that are a substantial distance from the missing child's presumed path, especially if their phone hasn't moved for a couple of hours, since such people are likely to be sleeping. But I don't want to suggest this if it isn't possible; that would just waste their time.

Sorry for the long-winded post but I wanted to be very clear.

 

[mikedt]

Is it a North American variant A5 you've got, or was it imported? Because international variants may not have settings for AMBER Alerts, which basically means there's no way to mute them, other than switching the phone to silent mode.

 

[RhinoCan]

I'm Canadian and I bought it here in Canada at a retail store in a mall so I assume it is a domestic model. If it's an export model, how could I tell for sure?

 

[mikedt]

I'm Canadian and I bought it here in Canada at a retail store in a mall so I assume it is a domestic model. If it's an export model, how could I tell for sure?

Suggest you post the full model number.

I've got a Galaxy S7 here, SM-G930F, originally purchased in the UK, and it doesn't have any settings for muting or ignoring AMBER Alerts. Although it's not a problem for me, because I'm actually in China.


And in fact the only time I've seen AMBER Alert settings, was on a CyanogenMod custom ROM.

I'm Canadian and I bought it here in Canada at a retail store in a mall so I assume it is a domestic model. If it's an export model, how could I tell for sure?

Suggest you post the full model number.

I've got a Galaxy S7 here, SM-G930F, originally purchased in the UK, and it doesn't have any settings for muting or ignoring AMBER Alerts. Although it's not a problem for me, because I'm actually in China.


And in fact the only time I've seen AMBER Alert settings, was on a CyanogenMod custom ROM.

 

[RhinoCan]

My phone's full model number is SM-A520W.

 

[mikedt]

Bell Canada variant?

According to....however my EU variant S7 doesn't have "Emergency Alerts".
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/turn-off-amber-alerts-galaxy-phones,news-21234.html
Open your Messaging app.
Tap the Menu button on the bottom right of your screen.
Tap Settings and scroll down.
Tap Emergency Alerts.
Uncheck AMBER alerts.

 

[RhinoCan]

I'm not a Bell Canada subscriber (for my cell); I'm using a wireless provider named Koodo but I'm not sure if they are issuing the Bell variant of the phone or a different one. How could I tell?

Not sure it matters: I found the option to uncheck Amber Alerts, although it wasn't quite where you suggested. In my case:
- the app is called Messages, not Messaging
- the menu button is at the top right, not the bottom right
- after I tap on Settings, I tap on Emergency Alert Settings, then Emergency Alerts, then I get the screen with the Amber Alert toggle.

Although disabling the Amber Alerts altogether is certainly an option, I had hoped there was some way to simply disable the part of the system that keeps sending the alert until you tap OK but it seems that is not an option. I don't necessarily want to miss all of the Alerts; I just want to be able to fall asleep quickly after receiving a single Alert, not have to get out of bed to tap OK. (I keep the phone a few steps away overnight because having the phone too close would make it easier to just shut off the alarm and fall back asleep.)

I suppose this is one of these things where it takes a while to fine-tune the app design until it has all the features people want....

Thanks for getting me this far, Mike!

Important Update! It turns out there's another setting, Alert Reminder that you can set to Once, Every 2 Minutes, Every 5 Minutes, and Off; it was set at every 2 minutes by default so I've just set it to Once now. THAT should stop the repetition of the alerts.

I may regret doing this eventually - if the problem was a gas leak in my immediate neighbourhood, I'd WANT to get nagged until I got up and evacuated - but that seems a lot less likely than getting another Amber Alert; we've already had 4 Amber Alerts this year, some of them in the middle of the night but never occurring anywhere close to here.

 

[mikedt]

I'm not a Bell Canada subscriber (for my cell); I'm using a wireless provider named Koodo but I'm not sure if they are issuing the Bell variant of the phone or a different one. How could I tell?

Not sure it matters: I found the option to uncheck Amber Alerts, although it wasn't quite where you suggested. In my case:
- the app is called Messages, not Messaging
- the menu button is at the top right, not the bottom right
- after I tap on Settings, I tap on Emergency Alert Settings, then Emergency Alerts, then I get the screen with the Amber Alert toggle.

Although disabling the Amber Alerts altogether is certainly an option, I had hoped there was some way to simply disable the part of the system that keeps sending the alert until you tap OK but it seems that is not an option. I don't necessarily want to miss all of the Alerts; I just want to be able to fall asleep quickly after receiving a single Alert, not half to get out of bed to tap OK. (I keep the phone a few steps away overnight because having the phone too close would make it easier to just shut off the alarm and fall back asleep.)

I suppose this is one of these things where it takes a while to fine-tune the app design until it has all the features people want....

Thanks for getting me this far, Mike!

I believe in Canada, you can use pretty much any phone on any network, as long as it's unlocked and has the North American bands and modes. I know Bell used to be CDMA, but they turned that off last year. I was in Canada about 10 years ago, and I used Rogers then.

My UK purchased S7 definitely doesn't have Amber Alert, etc. settings anywhere. And nor does any China variant phones I've had, like my Huawei Mate 10. The only time I've seen it, was when I had CyanogenMod on an Oppo Find 7.

 

[SeaofBlue]

On my Verizon phone, this is How to turn off Amber Alerts on the Galaxy S7 Edge: 1. Swipe up or down to display the gear icon to access SETTINGS 2.Navigate SETTINGS > CONNECTIONS> MORE CONNECTIONS SETTINGS (way at the bottom) 3.Tap EMERGENCY ALERTS 4.Tap the 3 dots in the upper right, then tap Settings 5.Tap ALERT TYPES 6. Select any of the alert types and turn off.

 

[RhinoCan]

On my Verizon phone, this is How to turn off Amber Alerts on the Galaxy S7 Edge: 1. Swipe up or down to display the gear icon to access SETTINGS 2.Navigate SETTINGS > CONNECTIONS> MORE CONNECTIONS SETTINGS (way at the bottom) 3.Tap EMERGENCY ALERTS 4.Tap the 3 dots in the upper right, then tap Settings 5.Tap ALERT TYPES 6. Select any of the alert types and turn off.

Thanks, SeaofBlue, but I don't have an option called Emergency Alerts under MORE CONNECTION SETTINGS so you suggestion doesn't work for my phone.

 

[mikedt]

On my Verizon phone, this is How to turn off Amber Alerts on the Galaxy S7 Edge: 1. Swipe up or down to display the gear icon to access SETTINGS 2.Navigate SETTINGS > CONNECTIONS> MORE CONNECTIONS SETTINGS (way at the bottom) 3.Tap EMERGENCY ALERTS 4.Tap the 3 dots in the upper right, then tap Settings 5.Tap ALERT TYPES 6. Select any of the alert types and turn off.

Yeh, my S7(bought in the UK) doesn't have that. So it must be something that's only in carrier version S7s in the US?