Critical Alerts suppressed by Apple Watch

When an iPhone is paired with an Apple Watch and receives a critical alert, no sound is played. This makes it very easy to miss such notifications and defeats entirely the purpose of critical alerts.

For context, we build an app that improves the care coordination of heart attacks. We send critical alerts to notify healthcare professionals of such emergencies. These events may occur at night, when the user does not wear the Watch, and will therefore be likely to miss the notification entirely, which can be catastrophic.

I have searched online thoroughly for work-arounds but have not found anything. Others have asked this before elsewhere but have not found definitive answers: link.

Is there anything we can do as developers to force critical alerts to be handled by the phone, or at least to force the phone to ring when receiving a critical alert?

Edit: I am aware that in the Watch app, it is possible to prevent notifications from being mirrored by the Watch. However, this requires the end user to exit my app and navigate their settings. It is also impossible for my app to check if this was done correctly. As such, I am completely in the blind as to whether the user has set up their notifications correctly.

I am an Australian Firefighter and I use an app that pushes Critical Alerts to my phone, When a citizen calls emergency services my phone blares a pager. But when I'm wearing my apple watch instead I just get a few vibrations which can be catastrophic whilst sleeping or listening to music. I also have the same problem but I doubt any of the staff that read this will actually bring this up the apple chain of command to be fixed, Most likely it will be ignored.

I too am apart of the Aus VFRS and find my watch to suppress critical alerts that are sent through BART…

I have found the only way around this is to turn BART notifications off on my watch, however this also turns off other BART notifications such as events, stand-down requests or other communications which is hard to get to when your phone is 3 layers under your uniform.

It seems to be a pretty dangerous flaw in the notifications system…

This is huge for first responders. Critical Alerts should sound on both devices at the same time. Many times my watch does not wake me up at night since my phone does not go off. I am forced to take my watch off each night to ensure I hear the alert for responses.

There is a Watch App in your iPhone, you can set some App get rid of your Apple Watch's control.

There is a Watch App in your iPhone, you can set some App get rid of your Apple Watch's control(about notification).

This is a huge flaw with critical alerts. I have a different use case. As a Type 1 diabetic, I use the Dexcom continuous blood sugar monitor. Dexcom is now using the critical alerts rather than a custom override. I wear my watch when I sleep. The non critical vibrating on my wrist is great for highs and minor lows. I want both the blaring alarm on my iPhone as well as the vibration for ow/high on my wrist. This critical alert can save my life. This would be simple for Apple to allow the user to select both.

How do I as a end user report to Apple, that this could cause long term complications, is not death because of how this is coded?

This is also a problem here, when using an Apple Watch, critical alerts are only alerted silently on the phone without vibration and the Apple Watch only vibrates shortly.

I'm also facing the issue with critical alerts being suppressed on my iPhone when connected to an Apple Watch. My alarm app is using critical alerts and relies on loud notifications, but they're reduced to a minimal beep or vibration when an Apple Watch is paired. This significantly impacts user safety. Still waiting for a solution

Critical Alerts suppressed by Apple Watch
 
 
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