Documentation

Buy from Pricing, then open Download on the monitoring phone and sign in with your purchase email. Install the signed APK (Android will note it's from outside Google Play — that's expected). In the app, complete the permission wizard, add an emergency contact (Pro), plug into a wall charger, and tap ARM.

During a real blackout, your home Wi-Fi router loses power too — so a phone on Wi-Fi can't reach the cloud. Cell towers have backup power, so a phone with a mobile-data SIM can still send its outage report and heartbeats. Even without one, the dead-man's switch covers you: when your phone stops reporting mid-blackout, our servers notice the silence and alert your contacts anyway.

Aggressive battery managers can stop background apps. Allow OutagePing to run unrestricted:

• Samsung: Battery → Background usage limits → remove OutagePing from "Sleeping apps"; allow background activity.
• Xiaomi/MIUI: Security → Permissions → Autostart → enable OutagePing; battery saver → No restrictions.
• Huawei: Apps → OutagePing → Battery → allow Auto-launch and Run in background.
• Oppo/Realme: Battery → allow background running; disable sleep-standby optimization for OutagePing.

Also disable any "battery protection / bypass charging" feature — it can make Android report the charger as unplugged.

Stage 1 (after a short debounce): a quiet popup with a STOP button. Stage 2 (default +30s): a loud alarm that overrides silent mode. Stage 3 (default +3 min, Pro): SMS to all contacts and a phone call to the primary. Every delay is configurable. STOP silences the phone but still alerts contacts; Cancel stands the whole thing down. A restore message is only sent if contacts were already alerted.

Pro includes up to 60 SMS + 20 call-minutes per month, with a daily ceiling — far more than a normal home needs. If a flaky power supply flaps repeatedly, we collapse it into a single "unstable power" notice rather than texting your contacts dozens of times.

Use the in-app Test Drill (dry-run by default — shows what it would send without sending). For a real end-to-end check, set a short Stage 3 delay, use your own second number as the contact, and pull the charger.