faq's

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Those were the models we started with. You can help us decide which models to make next, though. Go to the ‘What Phone Do You Have’ page and let us know what model you currently have, or will have soon. When we have enough people for a certain model, we’ll have our engineering teams get on it!

Phone batteries are being asked to do more all the time. We wanted to make sure your CellVenom® would activate when you needed it the most – regardless if your phone was charged or not. It certainly wasn’t easy to add separate power to CellVenom®, but it was the right thing to do!

We couldn’t get comfortable with the idea of someone needing to activate their CellVenom® and the phone battery being low or dead. It’s just a bad idea to rely on the phone – so we solved the problem the right way.

(BTW, a battery status/reminder feature is coming soon. But for now, it’s best to get in the habit of charging it every night.)

Our testing has showed, about 3 days at the outside. But don’t plan on it – be safe and fully charge it every day! Most people charge their CellVenom® when they charge their phone at night. A minimum of three hours is needed – more is better!

(As we stated in the previous question; a battery status/reminder feature is coming soon. But for now, it’s best to get in the habit of charging it every night.)

The first one, (white lights), is for normal use. The second is for reading maps at night, like on a trail; or if you just don’t want to be so obvious and noticeable.

You can access these by pressing and holding the right side button on the case for 2 seconds.

Press and hold the right button on the case for 2 seconds and the white lights will come on. Press and release quickly again and the other lights will come on. Press and release quickly again, to turn them off.

If you use the flashlight slider in the app, just the first flashlight, (white lights), can be turned on and off.

It’s to help people to find you. It could be used in a parking lot at night, so people can find you and your car if they’re coming out looking for you, say.

Or if you’re lost on a hiking trail and searchers are close by, but can’t quite find you.

Or after a natural disaster like a flood or something. It makes it much easier for Search and Rescue people to find you – especially if it’s at night, they’re using Night Vision goggles and they’re in a helo!

When we involved many law enforcement agencies early on in our development, they suggested we not have it call 911; because of the possibility of false alarms. The purpose of the Alert List is for your friends to try and reach you first, once they’ve been text notified that you may be in trouble. If they can’t reach you, then they call 911 and pass on your information to them.

Your friends are your first line of defense, so choose them wisely!

There is the possibility that when you activate your CellVenom® and your friends are text alerted, some of them may not be immediately available to see the Alert, (meetings, out of range, asleep, etc.). We determined that 4 gives you the greatest likelihood of having at least one who would be immediately available. More than 4, and some may not be able to get through to you during a false alarm, and start notifying the police, because you’re talking with another friend in your list.

You don’t need to use all four spots though. Choose those people you think you can really count on, and just use them.

TIP: It’s best to enter TESTING MODE before you practice activating your CellVenom®. This mode does not send out the text alert messages to your friends when you activate your CellVenom® while practicing. It’s a great way to get more comfortable with your device without sending your friends into action!

Exactly! If you accidently activate your CellVenom®, (or are using it as a proactive warning in your area while you’re walking to your car at night, etc.); you can tap the Send False Alarm button so everyone in your Alert List gets a ‘stand down’ text.

(BTW, it’s best to enter TESTING MODE for this. The alarms will go off, but no texts go out.) But in case you’re in a hurry, we added the Send False Alarm feature.

We want to prevent CellVenom® from being activated during a flight. It’s about being responsible with this technology so no accidental activations can occur and startle or scare any other passengers. 

When in Airplane Mode, you can still access the Flashlights and Beacon either through the app or by pressing the case buttons. We left those on in case of a crash, heaven forbid, so you’d still be able to use these tools in an emergency.

Remember to return your CellVenom® to Armed mode, (out of Airplane Mode with the slider in the App), once you land so it will be ready to go in case of an emergency.

If you squeeze both buttons on the case in Airplane Mode, nothing will happen – that’s by design. So reset it after you land!

We want you to actively use Testing Mode often, so you’ll be familiar and prepared to use your CellVenom® whenever you need it. Just like any defensive measure – practice, practice, practice.

But we didn’t want your CellVenom® to remain in Testing Mode after one minute, just in case you got distracted and forgot to turn Testing Mode off. If you were attacked or had an emergency, the core alarm would still operate normally. But your Alert List would not receive the texts. And you may want to notify them!

CellVenom® automatically returns to Armed Mode after one minute, just to keep you covered.

You may find yourself in a situation where you don’t want your position to be known; i.e., an active shooter where you may be trying to hide. In cases like this, you can still notify your Alert List without setting off your CellVenom® alarm. Simply open the App and tap the “Trigger Silent Alarm” button on the bottom of the Home page. You will get a confirmation message to make sure you want this to go out. If you tap Yes, the text messages will go out without activating the lights or sound patterns!

NOTE: realize that your friends will hopefully try and reach you to see if you’re ok. This could ring your phone, or make an incoming text sound – so be careful! You may want to mute your phone in these situations to minimize reveling your location.

Most likely, it’s because your CellVenom® battery is dead. Start by charging your CellVenom® and see if the app changes to Armed.

If after fully charging it still isn’t showing Armed, you may try uninstalling and reinstalling the app itself. We’ve had this happen on a few devices and are looking to see why.

If it still doesn’t show Armed after reinstalling, contact us and we’ll figure out a solution for you!

Yes – in some instances. The Android models will be able to do that. Not iPhones. The iOS doesn’t allow our app to automatically activate the camera without the user doing it. In the chaos of an attack, no one’s going to be thinking about that, nor have the time. Disappointing – we agree.

We keep seeing if we can make it happen in the Apple world. But for now it’s just available in the Android space.

This is a constraint of the low energy Bluetooth module in your device. We have to send little packets of the firmware, one at a time; wash/rinse/repeat, until they’re all in there. Once they are, then the system can update quickly.

We recommend that when you tap the Update Firmware button on the System page, you do so when you are on a secured network, have the device plugged in to a USB port, and have time to let it do its thing. It can take up to 10 minutes – sorry, we wish we could speed that up.

Not really. In order to have the sound be maximized, there has to be an opening in the case. There are also other access points in the case for buttons, chargers, etc., that are not water tight; so water can get in.

The components are pretty tough, but if the case gets submerged, you’ll want to pull your phone out as soon as possible and dry things off the best you can. We’ve done it ourselves to see, and everything still works. But we dried everything off VERY FAST!