How a Smartphone Safety Check Can Give You Peace of Mind

Check-in features on your phone can let you know when loved ones reach their destination safely

Edward C. Baig,

AARP

Comments

Published June 24, 2025

I worry a lot about my kids and grandkids when they dash off someplace, and I think they worry about me too. I hear smartphones can let you know they’re OK without you bugging them. Is this true?

“Call or text me when you get there.”

How many times have you said that to your kids or grandkids, or they said it to you?

Maybe those dear to you do let you know when they get where they’re supposed to be. But maybe not. Conversely, when you’re the one being worried about, perhaps you forget to inform family and friends.

Tools on certain smartphones can provide peace of mind, hopefully before our minds wander off to some dark place — like “Grandma must have passed out,” or “The person my kid is meeting is a hardened criminal.”

Several features and apps on phones can literally save lives, whether you’re dealing with a hurricane, flood or other natural disaster; your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere; or you need to summon 911 when you find yourself incapacitated.

In this column, I’ll focus on a pair of personal safety features that take different paths to confirming loved ones are safe and sound: Google Safety Check on Pixel, and Check In on iPhone.

Google Safety Check sends alerts if family or friends don’t respond

On a Pixel, open the Personal Safety app by tapping Safety |Safety Check. If prompted, tap Add contacts to choose the people you want notified when you either arrive at your destination or find yourself in a pickle. The app is preinstalled on the latest Pixels, but you may have to download Personal Safety from the Google Play store for other compatible Android phones.
Under Start a Safety Check, tap the Reason you’re initiating the feature by picking from a drop-down menu. Your choices are: Walking alone, going for a run, taking transportation, hiking, write on my own to supply your own reason
Select a Duration for when your contact receives a Safety Check from you via text. One hour is the default, but you can choose 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 2 hours, 3 hours or 8 hours. Or tap Other to pick a custom time interval. Optional: Enable the Notify contacts when you start a Safety Check switch to do just that.
Tap Next | Start. If at the end of the selected Safety Check time you fail to indicate that you’re OK, Pixel enables an Emergency Sharing mode in which your current location will be shared with your preselected contacts. In the interim, you have additional options: If you’re running late, tap Add time to delay the Safety Check; If something is worrying you, tap Emergency Sharing | Start to share your location immediately; If urgent, tap Call 911; To prematurely end the Safety Check, tap Stop.
Tap I’m OK when the timer ends to indicate all is well. If anything changes, you can still tap to share your location or call 911.

Ask the Tech Guru

Your contact will get alerted by text with a message along the lines of “Ed ended the Safety Check” or “Since Ed didn’t check in as safe, they may need help. Consider contacting them.”

Most Popular

The recipient can also click a link to see your real-time location in Google Maps.

iPhone Check In is part of the Messages app

The Check In feature on iPhones automatically texts designated recipients once you’ve arrived at a specific location, and/or within an expected time frame.

Apple refers to these either as travel-based Check Ins or timer-based Check Ins.

Follow these steps to initiate a Check In:

Launch the Messages app and either tap the New Message icon — it resembles a writing instrument inside a square — or tap an existing conversation.
If it’s a new message, select the person or persons who will receive the Check In.
Tap the circled + icon to the left of the field where you type messages.
From the list that appears, scroll down and tap Check In.
Tap Edit and select one of the following tabs: Destination or Timer. If you choose Timer, by default the iPhone sets a timer for one hour past the time you initiated Check In. You can extend the timer in 5-minute intervals up to 23 hours and 55 minutes.
Tap Done once you’ve selected the time. If you choose Destination, follow these additional steps.
Enter the address of the location the person is headed to, which will be plotted on a map. Tap Done. Optional: Choose an arrival radius among Small, Medium or Large to determine how close the person needs to be to their final destination before Check In recipients are notified.
Choose the mode of transportation: Driving, Transit or Walking. The iPhone will estimate how long it’ll take to get there. Tap Add Extra Time to tack on 15 minutes, 30 minutes or 1 hour to the travel estimate. Tap Done.

Family or friends receive notifications with your travel duration when the Check In or timer ends or you end it, or when an emergency SOS call is placed. They’ll also be alerted if you don’t respond within 15 minutes of being prompted, or if your iPhone is offline for an extended period of time.

In the iPhone Settings for the Messages app, you can decide whether the data shared is limited or full.

If limited, what’s shared are your most recent location, battery details and the network signal for the phone.

If full, shared data will also include the travel route, the last time the iPhone was unlocked and, if you wore an Apple Watch, when the watch was removed from your wrist.

Bonus Tip: Initiate a Workout Check In on Apple Watch.

Speaking of which, if you do wear an Apple Watch, you can also let a loved one know you’ve finished an exercise in the Workout app.

Launch Workout on the watch and choose Outdoor Run, Outdoor Cycle or another activity. Swipe right on the watch, scroll to Check In and tap Check In. The last contact you dispatched a Check In to is automatically selected to receive this Workout Check In, though you can pick someone else. Tap Send when you’re ready.

You can also initiate a Workout Check In from an iPhone.

If you fail to check in after exercising, your designated person receives a critical alert with your current whereabouts, your route, battery details and network information, for both iPhone and Apple Watch.

%{postComment}%

Edward C. Baig covers technology and other consumer topics. He previously worked for USA Today, BusinessWeek, U.S. News & World Report and Fortune, and is author of Macs for Dummies and coauthor of iPhone for Dummies and iPad for Dummies. Follow him on LinkedIn; Threads; and X, formerly known as Twitter.