Emergency alerts
Take over every screen instantly with a lockdown, evacuation, weather or announcement message — no publishing.
An emergency alert takes over your screens straight away, with no publishing. It stays up until the time you choose, or until someone ends it, and then screens go straight back to what they were playing.
Send an alert
- Go to Emergency alerts.
- Pick a quick start, which fills in the wording for you: Lockdown, Evacuate, Fire, Shelter in place, Severe weather, Medical, Closing early or All clear. Change the words as you need. Short and direct reads best from across a room.
- Choose the look:
- Emergency: red, with a slow pulse, for danger and immediate action.
- Warning: amber, for weather, closures and safety notices.
- Announcement: blue, for news everyone should see right now.
- Or show one of your designs full screen.
- Choose the screens: All screens, or Choose screens (tap a group to pick all of its screens).
- Choose how long: Until I end it, or from 15 minutes to 8 hours.
- Turn the Alert tone on or off, then Send now and confirm.
Screens show the alert within a few seconds. The preview shows exactly how it will look.
While an alert is up
- It covers the whole screen, info bar included. Music and video sound stop.
- Screens that are offline show it as soon as they reconnect, unless it has ended by then.
- A banner across SignBlink reminds everyone an alert is live, with a link to View or end it.
Ending an alert
On Emergency alerts, choose End alert, or Change when it ends. Screens go straight back to their playlists.
Automatic weather warnings
In the US, severe weather warnings from the National Weather Service can go up by themselves. See Automatic severe weather warnings.
From another system
Safety and building systems can send and end alerts automatically through the SignBlink API.