In this podcast episode, host Seamus introduces the SoSecure app by ADT, a free iOS emergency assistance application designed to connect users quickly with ADT agents who can contact emergency services on their behalf. Seamus offers a detailed walkthrough of the app’s features, accessibility, and functionality, highlighting its usefulness—especially for those who rely on VoiceOver or have specific communication needs.
Listeners are guided through the app’s setup, key functions, and helpful tips to maximize its effectiveness and accessibility. Whether you are visually impaired, need a silent way to communicate during emergencies, or simply want a reliable safety app, this episode provides a thorough overview to get you started.
SoSecure by ADT is a personal emergency response app that offers an emergency button with PIN cancellation, automated guardian text notifications, silent SOS chat, and location tracking groups. It is accessible to VoiceOver users and free to download on iOS devices, making it an essential tool for safety and peace of mind in situations where calling 911 directly isn’t possible.
Key Topics Covered:
Introduction to ADT and SoSecure Seamus explains ADT’s long history as a home security company and clarifies that the SoSecure app does not require an ADT home security system to be used.
App Accessibility The app is about 95% accessible with VoiceOver, with a few minor limitations noted.
Account Setup Users are required to create an account that includes providing an email, phone number, and a profile picture. A four-digit PIN must be created to cancel emergency calls.
Emergency Button Functionality The app features a large emergency button that, when pressed, initiates a 10-second countdown during which the user can cancel the call by entering their PIN. If not canceled, an ADT agent contacts the user and, if necessary, emergency services.
Automated Guardian Contacts Users can add up to five guardians (emergency contacts) who receive automated text alerts in an emergency, sent directly from ADT’s system.
SOS Chat Feature Text chat is available within the app to communicate with ADT agents silently, beneficial for those who are deaf, hard of hearing, or in situations where verbal communication is unsafe.
Location Sharing and Groups The app includes a "My Groups" feature, similar to location tracking apps, allowing users to track and receive notifications about group members' locations, though this feature has limited accessibility.
Settings Overview Seamus details the settings menu, including account editing, notification controls, PIN management (which requires a verification text), FAQ access, and legal/contact information.
Demonstration of Adding and Removing Guardians The process of adding contacts from the user’s phone and removing them is shown, with accessibility tips for blind users.
Emergency Button Demonstration Seamus demonstrates using the emergency button and entering the PIN to cancel a test emergency call.
Why Seamus Likes the App Seamus highlights the app’s usefulness, especially when in unfamiliar locations or situations where it’s hard to communicate location details verbally.
Pricing and Availability The SoSecure app is 100% free on iOS, with mentions of a possible widget for quick emergency access.
Download SoSecure by ADT for iOS here: SoSecure by ADT on the App Store
Transcript
Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by AI Note Taker – VoicePen, an AI-powered transcription app. It is not edited or formatted, and it may not accurately capture the speakers’ names, voices, or content.
Seamus: Alright, welcome to my first ever AppleVis podcast. Today I'm going to be walking you through and showing the SoSecure app by ADT. So, if you don't know, ADT is a home security company. They have been developing home security systems since 1874. And I even have an ADT system. Anyway, you do not need an ADT system to use this app. But what this app is, is if you're in an emergency situation, you can use this app to get connected with an ADT agent who can then contact emergency services if necessary. Now, this app is fully voiceover accessible. I'm going to say 95%. I'm not going to say fully, but it's 95% accessible. There is one minor issue we will go over, and... Yeah, it's pretty accessible. I do want to mention when you first set up this app for the very first time, you will have to create an account. So you'll put your email address, like your personal email address, your phone number, and you will be required to take a profile picture of yourself. So you can't skip this like you can on other like a social media app. And this is required because this way, like if you're having a medical emergency or something's going wrong and the police need to find you, then they know who to look for. So, um, yeah, let's, um, and yeah, another thing too, uh, you'll also be asked to create a four digit pin. And this will be used to cancel the emergency call. So if you click the emergency button, you'll have 10 seconds to put your pin in. And once you put your code in, in that 10 seconds it will cancel. But if not, then ADT will call you. If you miss that 10-second window and you're not quick enough and you can't put your pin in that quickly in 10 seconds, you can just... I heard in the FAQ section of this app, once they call you, you can tell them it was a false alarm and give them your pin. The only thing, though, if you've forgotten your pin right there and you accidentally hit the button, there is no, like... They will just automatically call 911 on you or emergency services. I'm not sure if this works in other countries besides the United States. I'm pretty sure it does though. Once you, if you give them the wrong PIN, Just for security reasons, like if someone answered your phone, they will send the police immediately. So please be prepared for that. And they will, of course, use your location. So now let's go through this app. I'm going to take you through a tour of this app. I'm going to turn my speech on. So in the top left, you have your
Seamus/VoiceOver: profile. Swiping to the right you have the guardians button
Seamus/VoiceOver: now this is kind of like an emergency contact section you can add up to five contacts who will receive an automated text now it's not going to be coming from you it's going to be coming from their system which is nice because you won't need to hit send it will automatically do it and then you have Tap or slide for emergency. Once activated, use your four digits to cancel. Button.
Seamus/VoiceOver: This is the emergency button. So I have tested this before. What will happen is once you double tap this button, VoiceOver will start doing the 10-second countdown. You can go ahead, enter your pin within that 10 seconds, and I will demonstrate this. I have a pin of 0000. I will change this to an actual pin once I end this podcast. Swiping to the right again, you have the SOS chat button. So what this does is I've never tested this. I'm not sure if it gives you the 10-second window. But what this will do is it will – I'm not sure if it does it in iMessage or if it does it through the messaging in the app. But it will – you can chat with them in text. Obviously, I don't recommend like using like voice dictation if you're in a situation where, you know, maybe like, for example, if you call them, someone might be like with you. You don't want them to verbally hear you saying something and that they're going to get in trouble. You can also use this if you're deaf or you're hard of hearing. That's a good use too. Or if you're speech impaired and you can't speak. Swiping right again. We have the My Groups heading. Now, this is, they labeled it as a heading. So they put the label as a heading. It's not like as a trait. It's not like a heading in voiceover. So you cannot use the loader.
Seamus/VoiceOver: So you can see if I use the rotor and I filter by heading, you can see it will not find the heading. Now, what this is, though, is this is kind of like Life360. And if you don't know what that is, that is a location tracking app.
Seamus/VoiceOver: It's not the most accessible, I will say. It does work, though. You can track people's location in here. I have not tested this, but it does, I think it does do a pretty good job. You can probably get notifications when someone leaves or enters a location.
Seamus/VoiceOver: Map underscore with underscore pins. Image. No groups yet. So it does say we have no groups. Choose different groups you want looking out for you, like friends or family, and worry less knowing when each of you arrives safely. and it kind of gives a little description.
Seamus/VoiceOver: We have the create a group button where we can join one. And we have the ADT logo. So I'm going to tap in the upper left corner of the screen. And we'll go into the settings, and I will show you what's in there. We're not going to be going into all the options, but it will describe what they do. Settings, headings. So we have My Account. This is where you can edit your account info. This will take you to the same thing as the Guardians button, which we'll get to in a second. Notifications. This is just for the groups. You can snooze notifications temporarily if you want to. Security pin, this is where you can change your pin. How this works is once you hit security pin, it will send a text message to your phone and that's when you can change that. How the app works, this will take you through a little introduction. The FAQ. Legal. Contact them. Now this is where you can call their phone number and This isn't like the security, but you can rate the app. You have the version number and the ADT logo. So I'm going to go to the close button. That is in the upper right corner.
Seamus/VoiceOver: And now I'll get to the Guardian screen. Now, this screen, it is pretty accessible, but it is not the most accessible for adding contacts. And I'll show you what I mean. So let's go here. So you have the Guardians, and I have my friend in here. I'm not going to show his info, because I'll let it speak the name, but it does also show the phone number below. So you have the close button. And then you have the phone number and his name. You can delete the contact. And then you have at the bottom... This is not accessible with VoiceOver, but there is a little note saying that you have, I think it's like, well, I have one out of five contacts. And once I add someone, they will be texted. So I'm going to turn VoiceOver off. VoiceOver off. And then at the bottom of my screen, there is a blue button. But if you're completely blind... I would recommend going from the charge port and right on the edge, tap that, and there you go. Your contacts list is up. Now, this is actually really cool.
Seamus/VoiceOver: You'll see when I get to the contacts list. X mark, that's your close. Search. And here's the cool little part you'll see.
Seamus/VoiceOver: So you can see there are my contacts. Now I can double tap to add someone. So I'll add my Google voice number.
Seamus/VoiceOver: And I'm not sure why it's not in alphabetical order, but you'll just kind of have to do some swiping and find that one.
Seamus/VoiceOver: And I've checked my name so you can see. I'm not sure it probably will say selected. I'm not sure though. And then we're going to do add contacts. And it will say one contact added. It's It shows a little progress bar, and there I am. So I will get a text from Google Voice or from ADT to my Google Voice number saying that this contact has been added. But I'm going to delete my Google Voice number because I don't need to contact myself. So swiping right after the contact, there is a delete contact button.
Seamus/VoiceOver: So it will ask if you're sure.
Seamus/VoiceOver: And it will pretty much just say your phone's contact will be kept, but it will be removed. So because I'm sure, I will hit remove contact. And we are going to close this. And now the last part that I'm going to do is I'm going to demonstrate the emergency button. I'm going to do this really quick. I'm not going to explain why I'm doing it because I only have 10 seconds. So I'm going to hit the button. VoiceOver will probably start saying the countdown. And since I do have some vision, I can actually see the keyboard up on my screen. But I'm going to enter my pin, which is 0000. And then it will go from there. So I'm going to... I'm going to double tap this. Now before I do this... This is not something you should be messing around with. I don't recommend letting it go through the full 10 seconds. Obviously, if it did go through the full 10 seconds and I made a mistake, I can let them know and they can do their thing and cancel it. So I'm going to double tap this and I'm going to enter my pin. Here we go. In 3, 2, 1. 0, 0, 0, 7, 0, 0.
Seamus/VoiceOver: Hi, Seamus. Settings. Button. And I canceled it. So now... Tell us a bit more about this. Heading. This little pop-up will come up. Tell us a bit more about this. Now, I think I can see visually... Close.
Seamus/VoiceOver: Button. Oh, there we go. There is a close button, so I can close this.
Seamus/VoiceOver: Option 1. Just testing. Double tap to select. So we have three options. We have just testing. So if you weren't feeling safe, but you're just fine now, you could say that. Or I made a mistake. Or submit feedback. So I'm going to say that we were just testing. I'm not sure if that goes to ADT or not, but I'm pretty sure it does. I'm going to say submit feedback.
Seamus/VoiceOver: Hi, Seamus. Settings. Button. And there we go. So that is the walkthrough and a little bit of a demonstration of the SoSecure app by ADT. Now, before I stop this screen recording and end this podcast, I do want to mention why I like this app. is let's say I was in an area I didn't know. I didn't know. Maybe I was in a hotel room or in a car and something went wrong. If a 911 operator asks for your address, I could, I don't know, I could maybe tell them, but even if they ask, like, what's around you, and you tell them, well, I'm blind, I don't know if they would be able to help, especially, like, if you're in a moving car or... something's happening so if you um call them and hit the button and you let the 10 seconds run out and you tell them or even if like maybe let's say you just couldn't answer your phone um the adt agent will just call 911 for you they will send toys or fire or medical depending on what you need I'm not sure if they would do Fire Medical because this is more of a security app. I'm pretty sure they would though. But yeah, this is actually a really good app. It's pretty accessible. It is just good to know when you hit the add contact button, that button is just right above your charging port. Now, another thing is I'm not sure if it's like a number that they will contact you from. I already have ADT's number saved because I have a home security system by them. I'm not sure if they would contact you by that same number, but But yeah, so make sure we like do not disturb is turned off for this or silence unknown colors is also turned off. Well, even with the new iOS 26 update now that we have call screening, maybe like read that transcript and see. So then you can answer it, tell them. what's going on. But yeah, I think that is pretty much it. I think I've shown you pretty much everything. It's very simple. Now, I do want to mention pricing. This app is 100% free. So you could go ahead download this app make an account and that's pretty much it you can just kind of have this app now I also heard that there is a widget now I'm not sure how that I think it's like one of the interactive ones so I think you would put this on your home screen And you can hit the button and then obviously they would call you and you can tell them. So yeah, I think I've wrapped up everything and shown you pretty much everything and how the app works. So thank you for listening and have a good day.