Q&A — Rientro

Quick answers to common questions. For a complete walkthrough of setup, alerts, and daily use, see the Family Guide. For community operations, see the Facility Guide.

Rientro is designed to help people notice meaningful change, respond with appropriate care, and return to ordinary life whenever possible.

For Families

Why is there a subscription—can't I just pay once?

Rientro is an ongoing service. Live location, watch connectivity, alert processing, notifications, secure storage, and support all require infrastructure that runs continuously. A subscription keeps those services available while the watch is in use.

Do I need to re-enter my data when I create an account?

If you use the demo with demo data, you will set up the real profile when you create an account.

If you tapped Use My Own Data before signing up, your profile carries over automatically. Review it, complete anything missing, and confirm the emergency contacts before relying on it.

Does one subscription cover multiple family members?

No. Each subscription covers one person and one watch. If you care for more than one person, each profile needs its own subscription and watch.

What is the 15-minute rule?

Fifteen minutes outside the safe zone is one of Rientro’s core safety rules. If that threshold is reached, the alert moves to Emergency (Level 1). This is a prompt to check the situation—not a conclusion about what happened.

The system may also reach Emergency sooner when other signals point to an immediate safety concern. At night, between 10 PM and 6 AM, elapsed time is treated as more urgent.

Does the watch's siren sound automatically?

Only for a fall or an abnormal heart rate — situations where your loved one may not be able to call for help themselves. For everything else, including reaching Emergency through distance and time alone, sounding the siren is your call, from the alert screen. You can also turn the option off entirely for a loved one who is especially sensitive to sound, from their profile; the two automatic cases keep working regardless.

How does the WiFi departure signal work?

When you add your home WiFi name to the profile, the watch can provide an early signal that your loved one may have left home. This can happen before GPS registers the departure.

A 60-second grace period allows for ordinary moments such as checking the mailbox or taking out the trash.

What happens if they enter an area with no signal?

You receive a Signal lost alert with the last known location. The watch keeps recording GPS data internally and uploads it when the signal returns.

Treat the gap as a gap, not as safety. The last known location is where they were when contact broke, not where they are now. If the battery has gone flat, nothing further will arrive. Go and look.

What if they take the watch off?

The watch detects removal and sends a notification. If it stays off for 5 minutes, the alert rises to Monitor (Level 4). The watch also transmits its last known location before going offline.

Does the system behave differently at night?

Yes. Departures between 10 PM and 6 AM receive attention sooner because nighttime changes can carry additional safety concerns. A 3 AM departure can reach Emergency before the 15-minute rule would trigger it during the day.

What is Stay Close and when should I use it?

Stay Close is for when you are out together — a doctor's appointment, a store, a walk around the block. It tells Rientro to treat your loved one's current spot as safe, rather than measuring against distance from home.

When you tap Stay Close, two things happen:

• Stay-close alert: A small boundary forms around your loved one's position at the moment you tap it. If they move away while you are briefly distracted, your phone alerts you.
• Home-distance alerts pause: Rientro stops treating distance from home as the important signal while you are together.

Fall detection and heart rate monitoring remain active no matter what.

Always release Stay Close when you get home. If you forget, it releases on its own after 8 hours so protection doesn't stay paused overnight — but don't rely on that; make it a habit to tap it off when you're back.

Why is the map dark? Can I switch to a light map?

The dark map is designed for active alerts and low-light use:

• It is easier to read at night without making a dark room suddenly bright.
• The current location, hazard markers, and safe zone remain easy to distinguish.
• Dark screens can use less power on some OLED devices.

There is currently no light-map option.

What do the colors and shapes on the map mean?

• Red dot — your loved one's current location, updated continuously
• Green circle — the home safe zone boundary, fixed in place
• Shaded rings — appear starting at Monitor (Level 4); see "How does the search area work?" below for how they change at Concern (Level 3) and below
• Orange markers — hazard points you saved: roads, water, or railways
• Blue markers — memory anchors: places they are likely to head

The green circle and any shaded rings are anchored to home and don't move. The red dot does. Right as an alert starts they can sit close together or overlap — watch the red dot separate as your loved one moves. If an orange hazard marker happens to be near their current position, it can briefly sit right on the red dot too; that's just two markers occupying the same spot, not a change in what either one means.

Is my loved one's location data private?

Under normal conditions, location data is visible in the family app only to the people who have access to that profile. If the profile is connected to a care facility, authorized facility staff can also see it.

Rientro protects data in transit and at rest and uses account permissions to limit access. Authorized administrative access may be required to operate and support the service; that access is controlled separately from family and facility accounts.

At Emergency (Level 1), location and medical information are shared with the emergency contacts you listed. Rientro does not send that information directly to police or emergency services. You can share a live tracking link with responders yourself.

Can I use Rientro outside the United States?

GPS tracking, the five alert levels, the live map, and app notifications work internationally. And share the live tracking link manually from the alert screen.

What if I cannot afford the subscription?

Rientro is exploring partnerships and subsidy options that could make safety support more accessible. Availability will depend on the program and location. Contact support if you want to be notified about future options.

Is Rientro a replacement for a caregiver or emergency service?

No. Rientro is a support system that helps people notice changes and coordinate a response. It can be affected by battery, cellular coverage, GPS accuracy, watch fit, permissions, and other conditions.

Keep following your care plan and facility procedures. Call emergency services whenever the situation warrants it; do not wait for Rientro to make that decision.

If I am monitoring two people, can they see each other's location?

No. Each profile is separate, and the person wearing the watch does not use the family app to view other profiles. Your caregiver account can switch between the profiles you are authorized to manage.

For Facilities

What is the Facility Dashboard?

The Facility Dashboard is a web workspace at `rientro.care/dashboard` for memory care, assisted living, skilled nursing, and other care communities.

Staff can sign in from a browser and see current resident status, active alert levels, live location, event history, and relevant care information. No app installation is required for the dashboard.

Does the dashboard update automatically?

Yes. The dashboard refreshes every 30 seconds. A green LIVE indicator in the top right shows the last update time.

A current alert level with an old Last Seen timestamp should be treated as a coverage gap, not as proof that the resident is safe now.

What can I see on the Incident Detail page?

Click any event in a resident's alert history to see:

• GPS trail on a map — the resident's path, color-coded by alert level
• Alert timeline — automated notifications and level changes with timestamps
• Summary information — duration, highest alert level, distance, and resolution
• Resident reference card — medical information formatted for sharing with EMS

How do I export an incident report?

On the Incident Detail page, click Export Report. This opens a print-optimized page with the resident's information, event summary, alert timeline, and resolution details. Click Print / Save PDF to generate the document.

The export can support your facility's incident and compliance records. Follow your facility's required paper, reporting, and regulatory procedures; do not treat the export as a substitute unless your policy allows it.

What is the Movement Heatmap?

The Movement Heatmap shows where alerts and movement changes have clustered when residents leave the safe zone. Larger circles mean more events; warmer colors mean higher average attention level.

Filter by resident or view all residents across 7, 30, or 90 days. Use it to notice recurring exits, environmental patterns, or locations that may deserve discussion. It is a context tool, not a prediction of what a resident will do next.

What are attention trend badges?

Each resident card on the Overview Grid shows a trend indicator:

• RISING — recent events may be calling for more attention than before
• STABLE — no meaningful change is visible in the available history
• EASING — recent events appear less intense or resolve more readily

These badges are prompts for discussion and context. They do not diagnose a resident or automatically determine a care-plan change.

What analytics does the dashboard provide?

• Community-wide context: total events, average response time, average attention level, and locations or residents that may benefit from closer review
• Per-resident 30-day chart: daily event count and peak alert level
• Movement Heatmap: geographic clustering of events to help the community understand recurring conditions
• Per-resident history: total events, average attention level, maximum range, and resolution types

Does Rientro call emergency services?

No. Rientro notifies the staff and family contacts assigned to the profile and provides the current location and relevant information. Calling 911 or the local equivalent is a staff decision and staff action at any level.

Technical & Partnerships

How does the search area work?

Starting at Monitor (Level 4), Rientro draws expanding rings around home showing statistically how far the resident could have gotten, based on time alone. At Concern (Level 3) and below, this sharpens into a shape calculated from real walkable roads and paths rather than a simple circle.

The search area is an aid to human understanding. It is not a claim about the resident's exact location, and it should be combined with staff knowledge of the building, grounds, routines, and current conditions.

We represent a police department. How can Rientro help?

Rientro does not dispatch officers or replace local emergency procedures. Families and care teams can share a live tracking link and relevant identification or medical information with responders when appropriate.

A professional responder-facing experience may be developed in the future. Until then, coordinate with your local protocols and make the emergency call directly when needed.

We are a long-term care insurance provider. What is the value?

Rientro can support earlier awareness, clearer coordination between families and care teams, continuity across shifts, and more complete records of what happened and how it resolved.

The value depends on the community, the population served, existing workflows, and how consistently staff close the loop. We do not promise that Rientro will prevent every event or eliminate every cost. Contact us at support@rientro.care to discuss a specific program.

Last Updated: August 26, 2026