What the alerts mean

When Stealward notices something, it reaches you on the device you kept with you.

What can trigger one

• The watcher was moved or picked up.
• It went dark — unplugged, powered off, or offline.
• Its battery is running low.
• AI Watchdog saw something threatening your belongings. This one needs the camera, and its availability depends on your plan; the rest work on any session. See plans and pricing.

How fast

• A moved device pings your phone in about a second from the moment the sensors detect movement.
• If the watching device goes dark, you’ll know within seconds.

Cutting through Do Not Disturb

Stealward’s security alerts — a moved device, a device going dark, and similar threats — are sent as critical alerts, so they can come through even when your phone is on silent or Do Not Disturb. Routine updates, like a session ending or the device coming back online, follow your normal notification settings. You grant the critical-alert permission when you set up alerts; without it, security alerts follow your normal settings too.

Critical alerts are available on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. A Mac receives alerts only while the Stealward app is running, so if a Mac is the only device you’re carrying, keep the app open. Critical-alert permission must be allowed for alerts to bypass mute and Focus. (See Alerts aren’t arriving.)

What’s in an alert

An alert tells you what happened in plain words — for example, “Your backpack is missing.” That wording is generated by Stealward and passes through our systems and Apple’s push service in readable form, so it can be delivered. The name of your device in the alert is encrypted, so only your own devices can reveal which device it came from.

What the watching device does at the same time

When it detects movement, the watching device also sounds a loud alarm to draw attention and deter whoever triggered it — and on iPhone and iPad it flashes the screen too. On a Mac, the alarm is designed so it can’t simply be muted. It also shows a locked cover that blocks the usual ways to get back into the device. (See The armed cover and Guided Access.)

This is a strong deterrent, not an unbreakable lock — someone determined who has the physical device may still get past it. The goal is to notice fast, alert you fast, and make walking off with your things far less appealing.