How ReadyEye alerts work

What sends you an alert

Alerts need a free ReadyEye account, so they can reach your phone and your email. An event reaches you in four ways:

• An event you follow. Open any event on the map and tap Follow. You hear about every change to it — including when it ends — whatever your alert level.
• Your properties. Each property has its own circle — 25 km to start, anywhere from 5 to 100 km. An event inside that circle reaches you while the property's Monitor switch is on.
• Your travel plans. A trip with Monitor on is watched for its own circle, either for the travel dates only or from now until the end date. A trip clears itself the day after it ends.
• Near my location. Turned on, your last position — the point only, refreshed when you open the app — is checked against each event within your chosen distance. If you haven't opened ReadyEye for 7 days, the old position stops counting.

ReadyEye checks every 5 minutes. You get one alert each time something changes:

• an official weather or Alert Ready alert is issued, updated or ends
• a wildfire is new, changes status (for example to out of control), or roughly doubles in size
• a water gauge rises fast — 0.5 m or more in about a day
• a Restricted Fire Zone starts or ends
• an earthquake of magnitude 3 or more
• a sighting is checked and confirmed by the ReadyEye crew

The three alert levels

Every change gets one level. You receive your level and everything more serious. Critical only is where everyone starts. Your level decides what buzzes your phone, what lands in your inbox and what is emailed when a push can't reach you. Events you follow always update you, whatever the level.

Below your level, a change near your places doesn't reach you at all — no push, no email, no inbox entry. The map still shows everything.

One buzz per real change

• The first time an event reaches you, your phone buzzes once.
• After that it stays quiet unless something major changes: a fire goes out of control or comes under control, roughly doubles, a warning is upgraded or downgraded, or an evacuation is called. A warning that's simply reissued never buzzes you again.
• After a buzz, that event stays quiet for 6 hours unless it gets worse — and a fire coming under control always comes through.
• Several things at once? One buzz names your places: “Severe thunderstorm warning — near Home, Cottage and Parents”.
• Events you follow end by themselves two days after they're over, after one last “Ended” note.

Quiet hours

From 10 pm to 7 am, Ontario time, only official alerts — Environment Canada and Alert Ready alerts, and Restricted Fire Zones — and a fire going out of control near one of your places come through as a push or an email.

Everything else that changes overnight waits in your inbox. At 7 am you get one buzz listing what waited: “Overnight near your places: 2 updates”. Quiet hours apply to events you follow too.

A limit on everything but the critical

Alerts that aren't critical buzz you at most once a day and 3 times a week, the morning summary included. Anything past that waits in your inbox.

Critical alerts — official warnings, evacuations, and a fire near your places that's new, out of control or under control — are never limited.

Push, email and your inbox

• Push — a notification on your phone or computer, even when ReadyEye is closed. Turn it on for each device you use.
• Email — the backup. When a push reaches one of your devices, there's no email too. When no push can reach you, the same alert is emailed, with why you got it and the official source. Turn on Also email mein Settings to get both. Every alert email has a one-tap link to stop alert emails.
• Your inbox — one line per event. When the same alert comes round again, or something small changes, the line quietly shows the latest and stays read. It only turns unread when your phone buzzed. Tap one for its details — why you got it and where it came from — or to mute that one event. The number on the menu is how many you haven't read.

Open your inbox →

Set up your alerts, step by step

1. Sign in, then open Settings from the menu.
2. Under Your alerts, choose how alerts reach you: the Push and Email switches. Email is the backup; switch on Also email me if you want every alert by email as well.
3. Turn on Push on this device and allow notifications when your phone or browser asks. On an iPhone using the website, add ReadyEye to your Home Screen first (Share → Add to Home Screen).
4. Pick your Alert level — Everything, Important or Critical only. A sheet shows exactly what the new level sends and holds back; nothing changes until you tap Confirm.
5. Optional: turn on Alerts near my location and slide the distance.
6. Under Your properties, add your home, cottage or business, and set each one's distance.
7. Under Your travel plans, add a trip with its dates, and choose when it's watched.
8. On the map, open any event and tap Follow to hear about every change to it.

Go to Your alerts in Settings →

Turning alerts down or off

• Fewer alerts: move your alert level to Critical only.
• One event: open it in your inbox and tap Mute this event. For an event you follow, you can also switch its Push or Email off in Settings → Your alerts, or tap Remove.
• One place: switch off Monitor on that property or travel plan.
• Near me: switch off Alerts near my location.
• This device: switch off Push on this device. Your other devices and email carry on.
• All push or all email: switch off Push or Email at the top of Your alerts. The one-tap link in any alert email also stops alert emails.
• Your phone's settings can also silence ReadyEye notifications at any time.

How we designed it

• 911 first. ReadyEye adds to 911 and Canada's Alert Ready system — it never replaces them. Keep emergency alerts on in your phone's settings.
• Official sources, named. Alerts relay what Environment Canada, Alert Ready, Ontario's fire service, Earthquakes Canada and the Water Survey of Canada publish, and say where each came from. We never tell you to leave or to stay — that is the job of officials and 911.
• A person checks what the public sends. A sighting only becomes an alert after the ReadyEye crew has checked it. Computer-only signals, like satellite heat spots, stay on the map and never send an alert.
• Less, so it counts. Research on emergency alerts shows that too many minor alerts lead people to switch them off — and then miss the one that matters. That is why everyone starts on Critical only, why email is a backup rather than a second copy, and why each change sends one alert, never a repeat.
• Your choice, in small steps. You can turn down one event, one place or one device without losing the rest.

Questions? Contact support →