How it works
VeiligSamen exists for one moment. No group chat, no timeline, no list of addresses: one SOS button that alerts neighbours nearby, so whoever can come, can. Below is exactly what happens when you press it.
In an emergency always call 112 first. VeiligSamen alerts neighbours nearby, not the emergency services.
In three steps
From pressing to finishing takes a few seconds. There is nothing to set up and nobody to add.
- 1
Hold the SOS button down
The SOS button is the red one in the middle of the bar at the bottom of the app. Hold it for two seconds; a ring fills while you hold. Let go sooner and nothing happens — no alert goes out. The very first time, the app first shows briefly what is about to happen — who gets alerted and what is shared about you — and the alert only goes out once you confirm. After that it skips the explanation; you can always read it again from the menu.
- 2
Neighbours nearby are alerted
Everyone with the app who has been within 500 metres of you in the last 30 minutes gets a push notification at once: "SOS nearby", with the distance to you and a pin on the map. On your own screen you see how many neighbours have been alerted, how many are offering to help and how many are on their way, and below that a map with your position and the circle the app is currently searching.
- 3
You say when it is over
Press "I am safe". Everyone who received your alert then sees that it is over. If you do not answer, the app asks after half an hour whether you are safe; if you stay quiet, your neighbours are told that nothing more has been heard from you.
What neighbours see
Neighbours see the distance to you and a pin on the map, and nothing else. They do not see your name or your email address; those stay with us. That way someone who does not know you can still come and help without you sharing your address with the street.
If a neighbour wants to help, the app asks you first. Accept someone and you each see the other's name and position on the map — so you know who is coming and how far away they still are. Anyone you do not accept goes on seeing only the distance.
While your alert is running, your position keeps moving on their map. If you walk on, they are not left standing where you were a minute ago.
If you do not answer the check-in, your neighbours see that too — with the sentence that belongs with it: no answer does not mean you are safe, and it does not mean something has happened either. They see how far away the alert is, when it started and when it was last updated, and they can call 112. Anyone you had accepted can also reopen the conversation.
Talking to whoever is coming
As soon as you accept someone, you share one conversation. Accept a second neighbour and they join the same one, so you are not repeating yourself to each of them. It is meant for the short exchange that matters at a moment like that: where exactly are you, what is going on, are you nearly there.
You send text. Photos and voice messages are not possible — they may come later, but not in this version.
Once your alert has ended nobody can write any more. Reading back is still possible: the conversation sits under Alerts with that alert. Messages stay for 90 days and then go, while a record of what happened is kept for a year. If you want to keep a conversation longer, you say so yourself.
Why you have to hold for two seconds
A button that fires on a single touch goes off by itself in your coat pocket. So the app counts two seconds while you hold. Long enough to prevent an accident, short enough to do while you keep walking or look away.
The button sits in the middle of the bar at the bottom, in the same place on every screen, so you can find it by feel.
How far an alert reaches
The app first alerts neighbours within 500 metres of where you press the button. Who falls inside that depends on where their phone last reported itself.
If nobody offers to come within a minute and a half, that is not the end of it: the circle grows by 500 metres and the neighbours in that new ring are alerted after all. That repeats up to 2 kilometres. As soon as someone offers to come, the widening stops — help is on the way, and half the city does not need waking. Anyone already alerted is not alerted twice.
The app shows how far it is searching at that moment, so waiting means something.
- 500 metres — the circle your alert starts with.
- 2 kilometres — as far as it ever reaches, in steps of 500 metres.
- 30 minutes — how long a neighbour's last known position still counts. Anyone who has not opened the app for longer falls outside the alert.
- As the crow flies — the distance is a straight line, not the walking route. 500 metres across the water is further to walk than 500 metres down your own street.
Finishing an alert
While your alert is running you see how many people have been alerted and how long it has been active. Press "I am safe" and the neighbours who received it see that it is over.
If you do not answer, the app asks after half an hour whether you are safe — in the app and as a notification on your screen, even when the app is closed. Say "no, not yet" and the alert simply continues. If no answer comes, we do not close it quietly: your neighbours are told that nothing more has been heard from you, so somebody can go and look. After two hours at most the alert stops anyway, and it says plainly that no confirmation came.
You can have one alert running at a time. Once it is finished, cancelled or closed you may send another straight away: an alarm you break off and then genuinely need a minute later is the ordinary case. Only at a third alert within ten minutes does the app ask you to wait, and it tells you beforehand how long — so a neighbourhood is not woken five times over one incident.
If there is nobody nearby
It can happen that nobody with the app is within 500 metres at that moment. Your alert says so honestly: "Nobody alerted yet" — and goes on searching in a wider circle, up to 2 kilometres. The app shows how far it is searching and when the circle grows again. If even the widest circle turns up nobody, the alert stays open, so someone who comes into the area afterwards and opens the app can still see it.
The more neighbours have the app, the smaller that chance becomes. That is why VeiligSamen works best when a street or a neighbourhood installs it together.