Arrival and departure alerts
Who gets told when you reach a place, and how to turn it down.
When someone crosses into a saved place, everyone else in the space can be told. Crossing out is a departure. These are the alerts most people mean when they talk about Circl telling them things.
What triggers one
Your phone compares your position against the place's radius. Entering fires an arrival, leaving fires a departure. The radius matters more than people expect: see Saving a place for why a very small one causes repeated alerts rather than fewer.
Turning them off
The bell on a place opens its own notification settings. Arrival alert and Departure alert control what that place tells your space about you, and below them a per member list lets you switch each person's in and out alerts off for that place alone.
Beyond that place, there are three separate controls, and they do different things:
- Your notification settings stop you receiving arrivals or departures
for anyone. Nobody else is affected.
- A quiet place stops a place announcing anyone at all. See
- Muting one person stops you receiving that person's arrivals and
departures while everyone else still gets them. See Muting someone.
Why an alert can arrive late
Alerts depend on your phone noticing the crossing. A phone in low power mode, with the app killed, or on a poor signal may report the crossing minutes after it happened. The alert is still accurate about what happened, just not about when it reached the other person.