Our app
Deaflare
See it. Feel it. Hear it.
A warning works only when it reaches the person. Deaflare is a Deaf-first emergency app: every alert arrives through sight, touch, and sound — and each one alone is enough to act on.
One warning. Two very different experiences.
Hearing people
A siren says: DANGER. One sound, one meaning, learned once.
Deaf people
A text message that feels like any other message. It can sit in a list. It can be seen too late. In an emergency, later can be too late.
Deaflare gives Deaf people what the siren gives everyone else: a warning language of its own.
One warning. Three ways to understand it.
See it
The screen becomes a beacon.
A full-screen color wash, a large picture of the danger, and a white torch frame at the screen’s edges — readable from across a room, at full brightness even if your screen was dim.
Feel it
Each danger has its own vibration.
Water rolls. Storm knocks. Ground holds. Fire races. Face down in a pillow at 3 a.m., the pattern alone wakes you and tells you what is coming. For DeafBlind people, this IS the alert.
Hear it
A siren tone for the people around you.
The same rhythm as the vibration, played at full volume even if the phone was turned down — so a hearing partner in the next room hears what you feel.
Every alert is sent on all three senses and survivable on any ONE of them. It also helps everyone else: asleep, headphones on, in a loud factory — everyone is situationally deaf for hours every day.
Every alert answers five questions.
This is the heart of the Three Senses Alerting Standard — the draft rulebook we wrote while building Deaflare, because no rules existed to follow.
Is this an emergency?
A special signal that is hard to confuse. The whole screen becomes the alert — nothing ordinary looks like it.
How serious is it?
Color, a shape mark, and vibration strength all show the same level. Color never works alone.
What danger is it?
A picture and a vibration pattern. At night, the pattern alone can tell you what is coming.
What should I do now?
The action comes first, in simple words. “GO TO HIGH GROUND NOW” — before any weather details.
More information, in my language?
Local sign language by a real Deaf signer — never an avatar — plus text, voice, and accessible text.
How serious is it? Color never works alone.
Four levels, spoken three ways at once — color for the eye, marks for people who are color-blind, vibration strength for touch.
SAFE NOW
all clear
silence — a quiet phone means you are safe
BE CAREFUL
get ready
gentle vibration
DANGER COMING
prepare to act
strong vibration
ACT NOW
life danger
the strongest vibration — same rhythm, never faster
The all-clear plays nothing at all: a quiet phone means you are safe. When the danger changes, the phone alerts again.
What danger is it? A pattern your body can learn.
Not fifty patterns — a small vocabulary of danger families. These are drawn to scale below, and shown still, never flashing: this page is safe for photosensitive visitors, exactly like the app.
WATER
flood · tsunami · storm surge
long, rolling pulses
STORM
cyclone · typhoon · tornado
three sharp pulses
GROUND
earthquake · landslide
one long pulse that does not let go
FIRE
fire · wildfire
ten fast pulses — nothing else is this fast
These patterns are a draft. Testing with Deaf and DeafBlind people is how they will be finished — that is the point of the app.
The app is the laboratory. The rules are the goal.
While building Deaflare we searched for the rules an accessible alert must follow — and found none. So we wrote a draft: the Three Senses Alerting Standard, running in the app today as a reference implementation, free to copy. Inside the app, a Test & Learn tab lets you feel every pattern, practice every severity level, and try realistic drill alerts — safely marked TEST ONLY, never mistakable for the real thing.
We presented this work at the World Federation of the Deaf 75th Anniversary Webinar on disaster risk reduction. One founder is not enough: the standard will be finished by the Deaf and DeafBlind people who test it.
Be part of the testing.
Deaflare is in testing with Deaf and DeafBlind users now. Leave your email and we will contact you when a testing spot or the public release is ready.
Or try the web demo right now — no install needed.