Setup
Up and running in two minutes
Sign in, pick your cameras, done. There's no hardware to buy and nothing to configure unless you want to.
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Sign in to your cameras
Open OffDuty and sign in to Blink. This happens on Blink's own page, so we never see your password, and the access token Blink returns stays in your iPhone's Keychain.
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Choose what a snooze covers
Your systems and cameras appear in a list. Pick whether snoozing should quiet everything, one system, or specific cameras. Most people leave it on everything.
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Snooze
That's the setup finished. From here on it's one action, whichever you prefer:
- In the app. Open OffDuty and tap snooze.
- Ask Siri. "Hey Siri, snooze my OffDuty cameras." The app stays closed and your phone can stay in your pocket.
- Home screen. Press and hold the app icon, choose Snooze All.
- Shortcuts and Spotlight. Useful if you want it on the Action Button or inside an automation.
Each snooze is two minutes. Repeat to add more, up to ten.
Everything below is optional. If you never add a button, OffDuty never asks for location permission and there's nothing else to set up.
Optional: add a button
A physical button makes snoozing hands-free, which helps when your hands are full of groceries or dog leash, exactly when the cameras tend to fire. Press it and your iPhone reacts from inside your pocket.
Skip this entire section if the app alone suits you. Nothing is missing without it.
1. Get a button
OffDuty is built around the BlueCharm BC-B2, a coin-cell Bluetooth button. It's the one we test against and the only model the app can configure for you.
We don't sell hardware and we earn nothing if you buy one. This is simply the button the app is built around.
2. Let the app configure it
Tap Add Button and hold the button next to your phone. The app finds it, names it, writes the right settings over Bluetooth, and verifies them. You don't need the manufacturer's app and you don't need to know what any of the settings mean.
The button restarts itself at the end. That's expected, because the new configuration only takes effect after it does.
3. Grant the location permission
This is the one thing a button costs you, and it deserves a straight explanation.
iOS does not allow an app to be woken by a nearby Bluetooth beacon through Bluetooth APIs alone when the phone is locked. The only mechanism Apple provides sits behind the Always location permission. OffDuty registers the identifier of your button and nothing else.
No coordinates are read, stored, or transmitted. The app never asks iOS where you are. See the privacy policy, which lists every field the app collects.
iOS heavily throttles Bluetooth scanning while your iPhone is locked, and no app can opt out of that. OffDuty uses every wake-up mechanism Apple offers, and presses land reliably at the door in everyday use, but they are not guaranteed every single time. If one doesn't register, pressing again almost always works.
This limitation applies only to the button. Snoozing from the app, Siri, or your home screen is unaffected.
If you already configured the button with another app
Buttons previously set up in the manufacturer's KBeaconPro app may have a custom password that stops OffDuty configuring them. Factory reset it in KBeaconPro, then run Add Button again.
For the curious: what the app writes
You don't need any of this, because the app handles it. It's here so you can see there's nothing surprising going on, and so you can reproduce the configuration by hand if you want to.
| Slot 0 | Eddystone-UID, always advertising |
|---|---|
| Trigger | Single click, action 17, advertises slot 0 |
| Advertisement change | Yes. This is what lets the app tell one press from the next |
| Advertisement duration | 20 |
| Advertisement interval | 1022.50 ms |
| Transmit power | 0 |
Still stuck?
The support page covers the problems people actually run into, and how to reach a human.