Alert my crew, explained
One button, 3 seconds, and your crew knows where you are. Cailloux does not call the emergency services. This page says exactly what the button does, and what it will never do.
In version 1.1, this button is still called “🆘 SOS”. It alerts your crew in the same way.
On this page
🚨 One tile, one button
AthleteWhen your route planner turns the feature on, a 🚨 Alert my crew tile (🆘 SOS in version 1.1) appears next to the race name, at the top of your screen. Not in a menu, not behind a setting — and it no longer moves: the top of the screen stays put while the rest scrolls. It is always in the same place, the one you reach without thinking.
It opens a single button. You hold it for 3 seconds — a gauge fills, and a giant countdown, 3, 2, 1, replaces the text while you press: an iPhone cannot vibrate, so everything has to be readable at a glance, at night, under a head torch. 3 seconds, because a light brush would fire on its own inside a pocket, and a false alarm sends a crew running for nothing.
On the button's screen, one sentence in large type: “Cailloux does not call the emergency services.” Just below: “📞 Call 112”, one tap away. Then race control and the race's emergency number. (The 112 button is in version 1.2, in beta since 19 October.)
📍 What your crew receives
CrewA notification that cannot be mistaken for any other, a long vibration, and above all your position: a link that opens their maps app directly. They do not have to guess where you are, or cross-check against your last check-in.
The app asks for a fresh GPS position the moment you trigger it. While that arrives, it already sends your last known marker — the alert never waits for it. Then, as long as the alert lasts, it follows your position and sends it again as soon as you have moved 50 m, and at least every 2 minutes: if you head back down or take shelter, your crew does not set off towards an out-of-date spot. Le Cairn also says where the position came from: a GPS reading, or the last pebble dropped. The two are not worth the same when you set out to find somebody.
On your screen, the position actually sent stays displayed in plain figures: it is what a rescuer will ask you on the phone, and you can read it out to them. And the screen does not go dark while the alert lasts.
The alert stays on their screen until you clear it yourself: “I am fine”, right at the bottom of your page — far from your thumb, on purpose —, with the same 3-second hold.
🏔 What the route planner sees
Le CairnAs long as an alert has not been cleared, a red banner stays at the top of Le Cairn, with the runner's name, their checkpoint and their clickable position. It has no button to close it: it goes away when the runner clears their alert, not when you have had enough of seeing it.
They also see where the alert came from: triggered with the runner's personal code, or not. Anyone who knows the race code can raise an alert under a race number — that is deliberate, the door is never shut on somebody who is running. The screen says so, and always ends with “if in doubt, go”.
The button is off by default on every race. The route planner turns it on deliberately, after reading what the feature does and does not do. And they fill in the emergency contacts: race control, the organisation's emergency number, and the person to call for each runner — everyone has their own, it is not one contact for the whole race.
⚠️ What the button does not do
This is the part to read in full, and to explain to your crew before the start. A safety feature that is misunderstood is worse than one that is missing.
- It calls no emergency service. Not the fire brigade, not race control, not the organisers. It tells your crew, and nobody else. The app repeats this to you constantly on the page. For the emergency services, call 112.
- With no signal, nothing is sent. Over a good part of a trail course there is no signal. The alert then stays in your phone until it finds some. The app tells you plainly — “nobody has received the alert yet” — and shows you the numbers to call. It cannot do better, and it will not pretend otherwise.
- A flat phone sends nothing at all. No alert, no check-in, no position. That is true of the whole app, but it deserves saying here.
- It does not track you before the alert. The button does not look at your position before you trigger it. After that, it follows it as long as the alert lasts. In the web app, only while the app stays open: a web app is not allowed to track your position in the background. That is why the screen stays on. The 1.2 Android app, in beta, keeps going even with the screen locked. The iPhone app will do the same: it is coming soon. And if the GPS goes quiet, the screen tells you.