Five built-in sirens
Alert24 ships with five sirens, named siren 1 to siren 5. They are designed to carry across a room and to sound like something is wrong, not like a message notification. Siren 1 is the default. Each has a different pitch and rhythm, so pick the one that stands out most in the places you spend time.
The chosen tone is used by every alarm: Don't Touch My Phone, anti-pickpocket, charger removal, earphone removal and drop detection. It plays in a loop for the whole alarm.
How to use a ringtone or your own file
Any sound the phone can play can be your alarm. Some people prefer a spoken warning or a well-known alarm sound over a siren.
- 1
Open Settings, then Alarm Tone
The Settings row shows the current tone. Tap it to open the tone picker.
- 2
Pick a siren, a ringtone or a file
The list has the five sirens and every ringtone installed on your phone. To use your own audio, choose the file option and pick an MP3 or other audio file from your storage.
- 3
Preview and select
Tap a tone to hear it, then tap Select. The next alarm uses the new tone. If you later delete a custom file from the phone, choose another tone so the alarm is not silent.
Pre-alarm beep per feature
Before the siren, Alert24 plays a plain beep. By default it lasts 5 seconds. Its purpose is to give you, the owner, a moment: if you unplug your own charger or pull your own earphones, you hear the beep, unlock the phone, and the alarm is cancelled and disarmed without ever reaching the siren.
You set the beep length in Settings under Pre Alarm Beep Settings, with a slider for each alarm. A shorter beep means the siren starts sooner after a theft. A longer beep gives you more time to react to your own mistakes. Drop detection has no beep; the alarm starts as soon as the fall is recognised.
- Default 5 seconds, adjustable per alarm
- Unlocking the phone during the beep cancels the alarm
- No beep while you are on a call; the alarm does not sound at all then
Volume: what a thief can and cannot change
Once the siren starts, the volume rules are the same for every alarm.
| Moment | What happens |
|---|---|
| Siren starts | Media volume is raised to maximum, whatever it was set to before |
| Volume keys pressed | The siren gets a little quieter with each press, but never below 60% of maximum |
| Wrong PIN entered | The siren keeps ringing; after your chosen number of wrong attempts a photo is taken |
| Correct PIN, pattern, knock code or fingerprint | The siren stops and your previous volume is restored |
| 5 minutes pass | The siren stops on its own. The lock screen stays until your secret is entered, and a new trigger rings it again |
More ways to be noticed
Sound is not the only signal. Each alarm tab has two extra switches.
Flash
The torch strobes every half second while the siren rings. Useful in dark bars, at concerts and at night.
Vibrate
A repeating one-second vibration for the whole alarm. Hard to hide in a hand or a pocket.
See it in action
The Don't Touch My Phone alarm page shows the whole countdown, beep and siren flow.
Learn more
Alarm tones: questions
Does the alarm play if my phone is on silent?
Yes. The siren uses the media channel and is raised to maximum when the alarm starts, so silent mode or a low volume does not stop it.
Can I use my own MP3 as the alarm?
Yes. In Settings under Alarm Tone, choose the file option and pick any audio file on your phone.
Why does the siren stop after 5 minutes?
Five minutes is long enough to be noticed by everyone nearby and short enough not to run the battery down if the alarm was a false one. The lock screen stays up, and any new trigger starts the siren again.
Can I turn the pre-alarm beep off completely?
You can make it very short in Pre Alarm Beep Settings. Keep at least a second or two so you can cancel your own false alarms by unlocking the phone.
Pick a siren nobody can ignore
Install Alert24, choose your tone in Settings and arm your first alarm. Free on Google Play.