iOS app
The site-down Live Activity
When a watched domain goes down a Live Activity starts on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island, shows the evidence and recent checks, and ends on recovery.
Updated · 2 min read
A Live Activity is the iOS surface for something that is happening right now. DomainGuard uses it for exactly one thing: one of your watched domains is down.
What starts it
The uptime probe marks a domain down on its second consecutive failed check and sends a time-sensitive push. The app starts the Live Activity from that push; it breaks through quiet hours and Focus modes that allow time-sensitive notifications.
What it shows
- The domain and how long it has been down.
- The server's own evidence line: the HTTP status or the error the probe saw.
- The last eight checks as a strip.
- When the next check is due (probes run every five minutes).
In the Dynamic Island the compact view shows the domain and the elapsed time; expanded, the same as the Lock Screen.
How it ends
When the probe sees a success, the domain recovers, the app updates the activity to "Back online after n min", and the activity stays on the Lock Screen for four hours before dismissing itself. You can dismiss it earlier by swiping.
Requirements
Uptime push (notify_uptime_push) on, notifications allowed, and Live Activities allowed for DomainGuard in Settings. Free accounts get it for their three probed domains.
Common questions
Two domains down at once? One activity per domain; iOS shows them stacked.
The activity did not start but the alert arrived. Live Activities need the app to have been opened at least once since install, and iOS can decline to start one under low power or when too many are active. The alert feed and the push still carry the event.
Why it exists
An outage is the one event where knowing five minutes sooner matters, and where the person who finds out is usually a customer. The Live Activity puts the state where the phone already is: on the Lock Screen, without unlocking, with the evidence line that says whether it is a timeout, a 502 or a DNS failure, so the first call to the host is a specific one.
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