To get an alert when your child arrives at school or home, save the place in Orma, switch on Alert on arrival, and make sure your child's iPhone is sharing its location with your circle. When their phone enters the place, you get a notification. It takes about five minutes, and you only set each place up once.
What you need first
Arrival alerts depend on a few things being in place. Check these before you start.
- Your child has their own iPhone with Orma installed. Orma is iPhone only.
- They are in your circle. If you have not set one up yet, follow how to share your location with family on iPhone.
- They have agreed to this. Arrival alerts tell you when someone reaches a place, so the person should know about it. Our post on talking to your teen about location sharing has ideas for that conversation.
- Location is set to Always. On their iPhone, go to Settings › Orma › Location and choose Always. Without it, alerts only work while Orma is open.
A note on age: Orma is not meant for children under 13. Where local law requires a parent's consent for teenagers, a parent needs to agree before the teenager uses Orma. The privacy policy has the details.
Save a place and switch on the alert
- Open Orma and go to Places.
- Tap Add a place.
- Search for the address in Search an address or place, for example the school. You can also drag the map to the exact spot.
- In the Name field, type a name that will make sense in a notification, like "School" or "Home".
- Set the Alert radius. This is how close someone must get before it counts as arriving.
- Switch on Alert on arrival.
- Under Whose arrivals, choose Everyone, or tap just the person you care about.
- Tap Save.
That is it. The next time your child's phone enters the radius, you get an alert.
Choosing the alert radius
The radius is measured in metres. A small radius is precise but can be missed if the phone's location is a bit off. A large radius triggers earlier but may fire when someone is only walking past.
Some practical tips:
- For a house, start small. A small radius means you hear about arrival at the door, not when they turn onto the street.
- For a school, think about the grounds. A big campus has several entrances. A larger radius covers all of them, and you get the alert when they reach the grounds rather than the front office.
- Adjust after a few days. If alerts come too early or too late, edit the place and change the radius.
Get an alert when someone leaves, too
The same place can alert you on the way out. Switch on Alert on leaving next to Alert on arrival, or use it on its own.
This is useful for:
- Knowing when your child has left school or practice and is on the way home.
- Hearing when an older relative leaves home, if that is something you have agreed on. See checking on ageing parents.
Choose whose arrivals you hear about
In a bigger circle you may not want an alert every time anyone gets home. The Whose arrivals setting lets you pick Everyone or one or more specific people. A parent with two children at different schools can save two places and choose a different child for each.
If alerts do not arrive
Work through this list, in order.
- Notifications are on. In iPhone Settings › Notifications › Orma, allow notifications on your phone. In Orma, open Settings and check that Place alerts is switched on.
- Your child's location access is "Always". If it is "While Using", their location only updates while Orma is open.
- Their phone is sharing. If they tapped Stop sharing, or a timed share ended, nothing updates. Your circle sees when someone has stopped sharing.
- Their phone is on and has signal. If a sharing phone sends nothing for 2 hours, Orma can tell you the phone went quiet, if Phone went quiet is on in Settings. Orma can also tell you when a sharing phone drops below 15% battery, which is a common reason a phone goes quiet.
- The radius is big enough. Edit the place and try a larger radius.
Orma saves battery by pausing location updates while a phone is still, and turns them back on when it moves. That does not affect arrival alerts, because arriving means moving.
If you are still stuck, see support.
Privacy
Places, arrivals and departures are end-to-end encrypted on the phone. Our servers see scrambled data, not the names of your places or where they are. Push notifications carry generic text, and your iPhone fills in the names after decrypting them. More on this in what end-to-end encrypted location sharing means.
FAQ
Does my child need to open Orma for arrival alerts to work?
No. With location set to Always, alerts work when Orma is closed. If you choose While Using instead, location only updates while the app is open, so alerts can be missed.
Can I get an alert for places other than school and home?
Yes. You can save any place you like, such as work, a grandparent's house or a sports ground. Each place has its own Alert on arrival and Alert on leaving switches and its own radius.
Will my child know I get these alerts?
Yes. Everyone in a circle can see who else is in it, and nobody can be added without joining by invitation. Orma is meant to be used openly, with the person's agreement.
Do alerts also work for an older relative?
They do. Saving a relative's home or a daily walk destination works the same way, and you can choose to hear only about their arrivals under Whose arrivals.