How To Turn Off SOS On iPhone

Emergency SOS on iPhones is an extremely useful, life-saving feature. It has saved multiple lives – some of them in the Maui wildfires alone, while others benefited from timely response by authorities thanks to crash detection. However, there are times when you would want to turn off emergency SOS on your iPhone.

What Is SOS Feature?

As the name suggests, the SOS feature is triggered when it detects crashes or when the side button is pressed five times rapidly.

Apple introduced the Emergency SOS via satellite feature with the iPhone 14 series and Apple Watch Series 8. Older iPhones also have the Emergency SOS feature without satellite support.

The Emergency SOS feature allows you to quickly call for help and also alert your listed emergency contacts.

How Does SOS Feature Work On iPhones?

• On iPhone 8 and later, you can use it to call emergency services by holding the side button and a volume button.
• On older iPhones, rapidly press the side or top button five times.

Once done, an emergency slider will appear on the screen – simply drag it to make the call. Your iPhone will also send your location to your emergency contacts via text.

See Also: Face ID Not Working On iPhone Or iPad? Here Are 8 Possible Fixes

That said, the Emergency SOS feature can generate false positives and alert authorities even when there is no emergency. For example, the crash detection feature was falsely triggered in instances when users were playing sports like skiing, snowboarding, and more.

In such cases, you might want to turn off Emergency SOS.

How To Turn Off Emergency SOS On iPhone

While there is no single toggle to turn off Emergency SOS on iPhone, you can turn it off by disabling all the options by following these steps:

• Go to Settings and tap Emergency SOS.
• Turn off the Call with Hold and Release, Call with 5 Button Presses, and Call Quietly options.
• If you have an iPhone 14 or later model, you will have a crash detection feature that will need to be disabled as well. Turn off the Crash After Severe Crash option.

Despite this, the Emergency SOS feature can still be accessed from the power-off screen. However, since this is done manually, you don't have to worry about it being triggered falsely.

It is worth repeating that Emergency SOS is a life-saving feature, so disable it with extreme prejudice and consider enabling it again once you are done with the activity that could falsely trigger it.

Image Credits – Shutterstock

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