How Lanturne works

Everything Lanturne does is on this page: what you get an alert for, what happens when one comes in, your emergency contact, the record and your privacy. To get it going, see Setting up Lanturne.

Seven things you get an alert for

Something happened

The HELP buttonPressed and held on the watch.
A fallThe watch detects it and nobody cancels it.
I am not wellThe answer to your Just checking in.
The watch is unpairedIt's taken off your account.

Nothing happened

A missed check-inNo tap two hours after the check-in time, unless you change that.
The watch stops reportingFor longer than you chose.
Worn with no pulseOn the wrist, no pulse and no movement, for as long as you chose.

You get an alert on your phone.

Nobody has to press anything for the bottom three. A pendant can't do that.

The HELP button

The Lanturne HELP button on the watch: a lighthouse in a gold ring, HELP in red, reading Press and Hold for 3 Seconds

The watch after sending: We are contacting your Lanturne

What happens when HELP is held

Hold HELP for 3 secondsA ring fills and the watch buzzes.
Let go earlyNothing is sent.
Then a 5-second countdownTap Cancel to stop it.
CancelThe watch says it's canceled. Nothing is sent.
The alert is sentWith the location, if the watch can find it.
The button comes back20 seconds later, ready to use again.

If the watch restarts during the countdown, the alert still goes out when it turns back on.

The watch says out loud what it's doing at every step.
The location goes with the alert if the watch could find it.
HELP is in the app on the watch, on the watch face and on the tile.

The daily check-in

Once a day, at the time you pick, the watch asks out loud for a check-in.
The person wearing it answers on the watch. Here's what they do each day.
If nobody answers, you get an alert. Lanturne waits two hours after the check-in time before it alerts you, unless you change that.

When an alert comes in

An SOS alert on the phone, with a map, Acknowledge and Call 911

The Status screen after an alert is acknowledged, with Mark as resolved and the last known position

It keeps alerting your phone until someone taps Acknowledge. We resend it for up to two hours, and the repeats come further apart as time goes on.
It shows on your lock screen and can break through Do Not Disturb, once you've allowed that. The app asks you during setup, and you can also find it under Settings, then Do Not Disturb.
Your phone reads the alert out loud.
The alert says what happened and when. For a HELP press or a fall, it also shows on a map where the watch was, if the watch could find its location.
There's a Call 911 button. It opens your phone's dialer with 911 ready.
Once someone acknowledges the alert, it stops for everyone. It stays on your screen until you mark it resolved.

Your emergency contact

Two people in their seventies, laughing together

You can add one person for free. They don't need their own subscription.
They only get the alert if you haven't answered within the time you set. Until you change it, that's four minutes, and you can set anything from two to thirty minutes.
You still get every alert.
Either of you can close the alert. Whoever marks it handled first stops it for both of you.
They see the alert and nothing else. They don't see the history, check-ins, battery, settings or past days.
They get one email when you add them, saying who added them and where to get the app.
If you remove them, the app asks you to confirm first.

What you see on your phone

The Status screen on the phone, with the last check-in, battery, wrist, last seen, check-in time and last pulse

The Patterns screen on the phone: time on the wrist and charging for each day, and the daily check-ins

The top of the screen shows whether anything needs you. Either you see what needs you, or a line like "Nothing needed your attention. The watch last reported 2 min ago."
Below that are six tiles: last check-in, watch battery, wrist, last seen, check-in time and last pulse.
The wrist tile says On, Off or Not known, and Off shows in red.
If something on the watch needs fixing, you see a message that says what's wrong and what to do about it.
If your own phone can't sound an alert, you see a message with a link to the setting.
You can look back over days and weeks and see the patterns: time on the wrist, charging and the daily check-ins.
Recent events are listed with the most important first.
The last known location is on a map.

The record

The History screen on the phone: events grouped by day

The history lists every event, grouped by day, newest first, with older days folded up.
Press and hold an event to hide it. It still stays in the record you can download.
Tap any event to see its map, pulse and battery.
You can make a full report for any dates you pick. It shows the days covered, check-ins, missed check-ins, SOS presses, falls, alerts, and each day's heart-rate range.
Save the report as a PDF and share it from your phone.

What you can set

The Settings screen on the phone: who you watch over, alert timing, emergency contact, Do Not Disturb and watch face

The time of the daily check-in.
Four wait times, each anywhere from five minutes to twelve hours. They're for a missed check-in, a watch that has stopped reporting, a watch that's worn but has no pulse, and no movement.
The name, pronouns and time zone of the person you look after. Lanturne asks for pronouns, never gender.
Do Not Disturb access, and which phone gets the alerts.
Your subscription, which you manage in Google Play.
Deleting your account. It's all in one place, with a clear list of what gets deleted.

What the watch tracks

Whether it's being worn, from skin contact and the pulse together.
The pulse, whenever the watch can read it.
Steps, from the watch's own daily total.
Battery. When it runs low, your phone gets one low-battery notice. The notice goes away once the watch has charged again.
Its own settings. The settings Lanturne needs on the watch have to stay on, and your phone only shows you one if it's wrong. How to fix a setting that turned off.
Where it last reported from.

When the watch is offline

It saves everything that happens while it's offline, and keeps it encrypted.
It sends it all as soon as it's back online.
It tells the person wearing it, out loud, when it loses its connection.
It never deletes an emergency to make room. Everyday events go first.
If an event gets sent twice, you still only see it once.

Privacy

We keep one location, the last one the watch sent. Each new one replaces it, so there's no route and no record of where the watch has been.
We keep a location only for a HELP press, a fall or the daily check-in.
The watch can only send. It can't read anything about you, and it never shows your name.
We don't sell data, and we don't share it with advertisers or data brokers. There are no ads and no third-party tracking.
We use the pulse for one thing: to know whether someone is wearing the watch.
You can delete everything from the app, or ask us to do it. The delete your account page lists what gets deleted.

Security

Your account and the watch have different permissions. Your account can read and manage, and the watch can only add events.
Only you can pair or unpair a watch.
We store watch keys and pairing codes in scrambled form.
Sign-ins expire quickly and renew by themselves in the background.
If you delete your account, the watch shows a new pairing code.
We never see your card. Google Play handles payment.

What keeps it running

We log every alert before we send it, so it can't be sent twice or get lost.
An error never closes the app.
Our servers keep checking, day and night, for a check-in that didn't come or a watch that went quiet.
We back up the database every night.

A man in his seventies holding his laughing granddaughter

See what it costs after the seven free days.

What you need to get started · Setting up Lanturne · Everything else we have written

Questions? Use the contact form at lanturne.com/contact. A person reads every message.