Emergency & Lockdown System — the complete manual

1Before you begin

The system is two apps:

• Emergency Station on an iPad plugged into the PA amplifier. It announces alarms over the speakers, shows the office what is happening, and keeps the list of registered phones and the history. It runs in the background, so a bell scheduler can share the same iPad.
• Emergency Remote on staff iPhones and Android phones. It raises alarms, receives them (even on silent), shows the alarm screen with who and where, and, for admins, sends notices, PA announcements and All Clear.

You'll need an iPad on iPadOS 16 or newer with an audio lead to the amplifier, on the site Wi-Fi, always on power. Phones need to be on the same Wi-Fi. No internet is needed for any alarm.

2The station: first launch

1. On the iPad, install Emergency Station and open it. There is no account and no sign-up.
2. Along the bottom are the five tabs: Home, Announce, Devices, History and Settings.
3. Home shows the system status. When nothing is happening it says No active alarms · Site is normal. That is what you want to see every day.

Home — quiet. Registered phones and their online status are a tap away in Devices.

The station keeps listening when you press Home or switch to another app. Only swiping it out of the app switcher stops it. After a restart or iPadOS update, tap the icon once.

3Station settings

Everything the office configures lives in the Settings tab. Top to bottom:

• Appearance — Light, Dark or System.
• Alert sounds — the siren played over the PA for each alarm. Built-in tones by default; import your own file per alarm (MP3, WAV, M4A, CAF). See section 6.
• Announcement voice — the voice that reads announcements. Pick from the voices on the iPad and preview it over the PA.
• Alert announcements — the wording spoken for each alarm. Editable, with {name} and {location} placeholders.
• Register staff phones — the QR code screen and the Auto-approve switch. See section 4.
• Emergency services number — 000, 911, 999, 112 or 111. See section 7.
• Drill mode and Admin PIN — see section 8.
• Station identity — the name phones see when they find this station (e.g. Riverside Primary · Main Office).
• Public address — Play PA test announcement to check your wiring and levels.

Settings — sounds, voice, wording, registration, emergency number, drill mode, PIN.

1. Give the station a name under Station identity and tap Save name.
2. Tap Play PA test announcement and confirm you hear it from the site speakers. If not, see the installation guide.

4Registering staff phones

Each phone registers once with a name, a usual room and a role. The station issues it a unique ID and a security token; from then on the phone reconnects on its own.

On the station

1. For a rollout session, switch Auto-approve new phones ON in Settings so staff don't have to wait. Switch it OFF afterwards — with it off, new phones wait in the Devices tab until the office approves them.
2. Tap Register a Phone (QR code). The screen shows a QR code and the station's address.

Register a Phone — staff scan this with their camera and the app opens already linked to your station.

On each phone

1. Install Emergency Remote (App Store or Google Play).
2. Point the phone's camera at the QR code and tap the link. (No QR handy? Open the app on the site Wi-Fi and it finds the station by itself.)
3. Enter a name and usual room, pick a role (Teacher, Admin/Office, First Aid…), tap Register Device.
4. Allow every permission the app asks for: notifications and critical alerts, location, and on Android, Do Not Disturb access. Part 3 walks staff through this.

Register once

Connected, critical alerts on

5Approving phones and admins

The Devices tab lists every phone in three groups: Pending (registered, waiting for approval), Approved and Blocked.

• Approve a pending phone with its tick. Until it is approved it cannot raise alarms; its Home tab tells the staff member it is waiting.
• Star a phone to make that person an admin. Admins can send All Clear from their phone, broadcast staff notices, and make PA announcements from anywhere on site. Star the principal, deputies, the office and first-aid officers.
• Remove a phone with the minus. A removed phone is blocked and cannot re-enrol itself; the office can un-block it here.
• The green dot means the phone is connected right now. A hiding indicator appears next to anyone who has tapped I'm hiding during a lockdown.
• Test sends a phone-only test alert to that one phone, without the PA. Use it to prove a phone sounds on silent.

Devices — approve, star the admins, test a phone, remove one.

6Sounds, voice and wording

What the PA plays

For each alarm the station plays its siren pattern, then the spoken announcement, then the pattern and announcement again, then pauses for thirty seconds and repeats until All Clear. Panic uses coded wording so students are not alarmed.

Your own sounds

In Settings → Alert sounds, tap the import arrow next to an alarm and pick a file. Your school's existing lockdown tone, for example. The play button previews it; the revert button goes back to the built-in tone. Sounds play over the PA only, never on phones.

The announcement voice

Settings → Announcement voice lists the voices on the iPad. "Best available" picks the highest-quality Australian voice automatically. For the most natural, authoritative voice, download a Premium one once: iPad Settings → Accessibility → Spoken Content → Voices → English → Australian → Lee or Karen (Premium). It appears in the list after download. Preview voice plays a sample over the PA.

The wording

Settings → Alert announcements lets you edit what is said for each alarm. {name} is replaced with who raised it; {location} with the location they typed (nothing is spoken if they typed none). Save, then Preview over PA to hear it.

7Emergency services number

The alarm screen on every phone has a one-tap Call button. Set the number once in Settings → Emergency services number: 000 Australia, 911 US/Canada, 999 UK, 112 Europe, 111 New Zealand, or type another. It is sent to every phone automatically.

8Admin PIN and drill mode

Admin PIN

Set a 4–6 digit PIN in Settings → Admin PIN. With a PIN set, All Clear on the iPad and the Settings tab both ask for it, so nobody walking past the iPad can clear a real alarm or change how the system behaves. Raising an alarm never needs the PIN.

Drill mode

Switch on Settings → Drill mode before a practice. Every announcement is prefixed "This is a drill", phones show a DRILL badge on the alarm screen, and history entries are flagged as drills. Everything else — sirens, phones, PA, All Clear — runs exactly as it would for real. Switch it off afterwards.

9PA announcements

The Announce tab is a general-purpose PA from the iPad, and the same library admins use from their phones.

• Live — type a message and the announcer voice reads it over the PA.
• Library — saved announcements, typed or recorded, that play in one tap: "Buses are here", "Wet-weather timetable today", "Move to the hall".

Announce — live PA and the shared library.

Admins have the same thing on their phone's PA tab: type for the announcer voice, or hold to record in their own voice and play it over the PA, or save it to the shared library. See section 22.

The admin PA tab

10Raising an alarm

On the phone's Alerts tab are four hold-to-activate buttons: Lockdown, Evacuation, Medical Emergency and Panic Alarm.

1. Press and hold for 1.5 seconds. A sweep fills the button so it can't fire from a bump in a pocket.
2. The phone buzzes and shows Received by station. If the phone is momentarily off Wi-Fi it shows "Reconnecting — your alert will send automatically", and does exactly that. No need to press again.
3. The PA plays the siren pattern and the announcement, naming who raised it. The alarm screen opens on the station and every registered phone, and every phone sounds even on silent.

Hold 1.5 s

Identical on Android

The alarm can also be raised or tested from the station: the Devices tab's Test button sends a phone-only test to one phone; Settings → Play PA test announcement tests the speakers.

11Silent alarms and escalation

Sometimes sound makes things worse: an intruder who doesn't yet know staff have noticed, or a situation in a classroom where a siren would escalate it.

1. On the Alerts tab, tap Silent Mode. It turns purple.
2. Hold the alarm as normal. Nothing plays over the PA. The station shows the alarm discreetly and every registered phone gets a quiet notification with who and where.
3. When it is safe to make noise, anyone can tap Escalate to PA on the alarm screen (or the office can on the station). The full siren and announcement play from that moment.

12The alarm screen

The moment an alarm is active, the station and every phone show the same alarm screen, colour-coded by type:

• The alarm type, a running timer, and a DRILL badge if drill mode is on.
• Who raised it and, if they typed one, their location.
• A map with the raiser's GPS position, and the positions attached to later updates. On phones, an optional direction arrow points towards it (off by default; switch it on in the phone's Settings if your site is large).
• The updates feed: everything anyone has added since the alarm started, newest first.
• Add your location — type where you are and send it.
• Call 000 (or your country's number) — one tap to dial emergency services.
• I'm hiding — lockdown and panic only. See section 14.
• Escalate to PA — on a silent alarm.
• HOLD FOR ALL CLEAR — on the station (PIN if set) and on admin phones.

The station during a lockdown

Every phone

13Location, updates and the map

The PA announces who raised the alarm, never their registered room, because people are rarely in their room when they need help. Where they are comes from two places:

• GPS — if location permission was allowed, the phone's position is attached to the alarm and to every update. It shows on the map on the station and on every phone. Indoors it may be approximate; outdoors it is exact.
• Typed location — on the alarm screen, tap Add your location and type it: "Library, north door", "on the oval, west end". It appears on the station and all phones instantly. For Evacuation and Medical it is also announced over the PA; for Lockdown and Panic it is never announced (see below).

Anyone, not just the person who raised it, can add an update from the alarm screen. The office can add updates from the station. Everything is timestamped and logged.

14I'm hiding

In a lockdown or panic, a staff member hiding with students must not have a phone that buzzes or lights up. One tap on I'm hiding:

• Puts that phone into a no-sound, no-vibration state for the rest of the alarm. Updates still arrive silently on screen.
• Tells the station and admins that this person is hiding: their name appears with a hiding indicator on the alarm screen and in Devices.
• Tapping it again ("Hiding — phone silenced") turns it off. All Clear turns it off for everyone.

Hiding: silent until All Clear, and the office knows.

15Lockdown wins

Alarms have a priority: Lockdown above Evacuation above Medical and Panic. While a higher alarm is active, a lower one cannot replace it. The phone that tried is told "logged, not announced", and the station's history records it, so nothing disappears silently. Clear the lockdown first; then raise the medical alarm if it is still needed. A higher alarm always replaces a lower one immediately.

16All Clear

1. On the station, hold HOLD FOR ALL CLEAR for two seconds (enter the Admin PIN if one is set). Admins can do the same on their phone's alarm screen.
2. The siren stops, the PA plays a chime and the spoken stand-down, and every phone returns to normal. Hiding phones are un-silenced.
3. The event is closed in History with who cleared it and when.

Back to normal on every phone.

17History and records

The station's History tab keeps every event: alarm type, who raised it, silent or audible, drill or real, every update with its time, refused alarms ("not announced — lockdown in progress"), and who sent All Clear. Export CSV shares the whole log for your incident records or a post-drill review.

History — the full record, exportable as CSV.

18Staff notices

Not everything is an emergency. Admins can send a notice to every staff phone from the Notices tab: wet-weather timetable, assembly moved, buses late. Notices arrive with a normal notification tone and live in each phone's Notices tab. They never touch the PA.

Notices — normal tone, no PA.

19Setting up your phone

When you're done, your phone will sound an emergency alert even if it's on silent or in Do Not Disturb. That is the whole point, so please finish all the steps.

1. Install Emergency Remote from the App Store or Google Play.
2. Ask the office to show you the Register a Phone QR code on the station iPad. Point your camera at it and tap the link; the app opens already linked to your site. (No QR? Just open the app on the site Wi-Fi.)
3. Enter your name and usual room, pick your role, tap Register Device.
4. Say Allow to everything the app asks: notifications, critical alerts, location, and local network. Location is how responders find you on the oval, not just in your room.
5. Wait for the office to approve your phone if it says it's pending. Then check the Home tab: Critical alerts must read On.

20iPhone: let alerts through silent and Do Not Disturb

1. The first time you open the app it asks: "Emergency Remote would like to send you Critical Alerts." Tap Allow.
2. If you tapped it away: Settings → Notifications → Emergency Remote → switch on Allow Notifications and Critical Alerts.
3. Back in the app, the Home tab's Critical alerts card should say On. If it says Off, tap Open Settings on the card.
4. Leave the app installed. On iPhone it works even when the app is closed: the station pushes emergencies to your phone.

21Android: Do Not Disturb access and battery

1. Allow notifications when asked (or tap Allow notifications on the Home card).
2. Tap Allow Do Not Disturb access on the card. Android opens a list of apps: find Emergency Remote, switch it on, confirm. This is what lets an emergency override Do Not Disturb.
3. Stop the phone putting the app to sleep: Settings → Apps → Emergency Remote → Battery → Unrestricted. Samsung and Motorola phones are strict about this.
4. You'll see a small permanent "Emergency Remote armed" notification. That's the app holding its line to the station. Leave it. Don't swipe the app away from Recents.
5. The Home tab's Critical alerts card should now say On.

22Using it in an emergency

23If something's wrong

Help: austech.online.tech@gmail.com. Keep this guide with the emergency procedures folder.