The phone displays a phone keyboard to dial an emergency number, as well as, at the top for my phone, a button to access emergency medical information, that needs to be double tapped:
There is still, however, more information available. If you look carefully at the screen above, you will notice that there are two tabs in the red header. One, titled INFO, is active. The other one, titled CONTACTS, can be clicked:
All the information can be filled here. In the same way as when you want to access the contact information from the emergency screen, you need to select the CONTACTS tab at the top to fill that part.
Do note that you can only select from existing contacts when providing emergency contacts.
Which Android versions have an emergency screen
This emergency screen is available for all Android phones running at least Android N (Nougat), version 7.0 and above (released on July 16, 2016)
A note of caution
Anyone having access to your phone can get to this information, even if the screen is locked.
@Michel I’ve looked at every setting on my Android 7.1.1 Samsung Note 8 phone and the option to set an emergency screen is not anywhere to be found. There is no setting category “users” on my phone either.
Perhaps this is one of the services that Samsung left out of their ROM.
Also I don’t use a lock screen. I did however make an emergency screen in an app called Tasker, and it can be accessed by tapping an icon on my home screen. I only have one home screen so it is quite obvious. My.emergency screen even has a link that can be tapped to access my Bg track in xDrip+.
Thanks to the thread in which @elver was talking about the emergency screen, I was motivated to have one. I think it’s a great idea!
I have read that the emergency screen can only be accessed from the lock screen. It is possible that, unless you lock your phone, Android won’t give you access to the emergency screen info.
Although I think it quite possible also that Samsung has somehow succeeded in taking it out of their phones: if one supplier has Android leverage, it is them.
Samsung phones have had special emergency info since before Android N. This is how you used to be able to get to it:
go into Contacts
In your own Profile, an option allows you to enter medical information
Close and reopen Contacts
Look for Groups
Under Groups, look for ICE - Emergency Contacts
pick as many emergency contacts as you want, then Save
There are also some phones where the info will be under Settings > Lock Screen. There, it may be either under > Contact Info, or under > Information & Widgets > Contact Info.
Finally, if none of this works, one other suggestion would be to go into Settings, select Search (the magnifying glass icon), and enter some of these keywords: “lock screen”, “emergency” or “medical.”
@docslotnick Samsung historically takes a very heavy handed approach to Android. They think their custom UI is superior and perfect for everyone. I personally liken the Samsung UI experience to early days AOL - come play in our safe little sandbox and don’t worry about that world wide web thing over there. This is one of the reasons “stock Android” phones like the Google Pixel the One Plus and Essential do so well.
