Most new smartphones come with emergency alerts already enabled; however, used phones or older phones may require you to turn on the emergency alerts feature.

To check whether emergency alerts are enabled on your phone, and to turn them on if needed, see the instructions below.

Most newer Apple devices, including Apple Watches, use the same method to activate alerts:

• Apple Instructions

Android devices can vary greatly in how to access the alert settings. For many devices using Android 10 or up these instructions should work.

• General Android 10 Instructions

More specific instructions for commonly used Android devices:  

If you do not see instructions that can help you access your phone's notification settings, please contact your mobile carrier for help.

 

More about the most common mobile devices

 

According to "The State of Connected Devices in North America 2020/21" by CUJO AI Labs:

• iOS devices make up 69.75 percent of the market with Android at 30.07 percent and other devices represented in the remaining 0.18 percent
• The most common iOS device in use is iPhone 11, followed by iPhone XR and iPhone 7
• The most common Android device in use is iGalaxy S9, followed by Galaxy A10e and Galaxy A20
• Among thousands of models, no Android device has more than 3 percent of the Android market