Services
Rocky Mountain Digerati runs AvAI, a safety companion app for backcountry travel, and this site. Here is everything we offer and how each part works.
Check-out / check-in
Our main service. It's the old practice of telling someone where you're going and when you'll be back, made automatic.
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Check out before you go
In the app, set the time you expect to be back and choose your emergency contact. AvAI's servers confirm the check-out; until they do, it isn't active, and the app says so.
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Our servers watch the clock
Once a check-out is active, the watchdog runs on our servers, not your phone. If you allow location, the app sends it while you're out, whenever it has signal, so your last-known location stays current.
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Check in when you're back
Tap check in, and once our servers receive it, the check-out ends.
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If you don't check in, your contact is alerted
When your return time passes without a check-in, your emergency contact gets a text and an email with your last-known location and, where we can identify one, the local search & rescue organization for the area.
Checking out and in needs cell or internet signal. Delivery favors sending an alert twice over not at all, so occasional duplicates are by design. AvAI alerts the people you chose; it does not contact 911 or rescue services on your behalf.
AvAI is in beta. Do not rely on it as your only safety system. The check-out/check-in feature is being tested for reliability — bring a satellite communicator or radio for any backcountry trip.
More detail: what AvAI is, in depth.
Send Help
When you need help now, the Send Help button alerts your emergency contact immediately with your location, without waiting for your return time. A short window lets you take back an accidental tap, and an "I'm OK" follow-up tells your contact if you no longer need help.
For emergency contacts
If someone adds you as their emergency contact, you get a one-time text explaining what that means, and you can reply STOP at any time. If you receive an alert, here's what it means and what to do. Every message we send is listed on the SMS program page.
For search & rescue teams
Search & rescue organizations apply through this portal, manage their team and describe their service region. Our staff verify every organization by hand before approving it. Open the portal to apply.
Field observations
The app includes a capture tool for snowpack profile and core photos, the same method behind our open dataset. In this release, your captures stay on your phone.
Open research
We publish an open snowpack dataset and open-source models, and research how phones and machine learning could help backcountry travelers. None of it is part of the app today. See our research.
Who runs it
AvAI is a safety companion app. When you schedule a check-in, AvAI's servers will alert your emergency contact if you don't check in on time. The servers run in multiple locations to keep working when one fails, but AvAI is operated by a small team and may have outages of hours or days. Use AvAI as one layer of your safety practice, not your only layer. Always carry a second safety plan — partner check-ins, satellite messenger (SPOT, Garmin inReach), filed trip plan, formal training.
Questions: support.