Greetings!
I'm hoping someone can help me solve my problem. I have sleep mode / DND active on my S25 Ultra and my Galaxy Watch Ultra setup. I *THOUGHT* I correctly setup the specs to allow my father (a paraplegic) to be able to bi-pass the Sleep Mode/DND functions and allow his calls or texts to at a minimum vibrate, preferably ring and vibrate. The purpose being, if he is in bed for the night and has any number of potential problems occur that requires my help, & I'm actually asleep or the the sleep mode/DND feature is activated per my duration settings, his methods of contact will actually catch my attention or wake me up from vibration and/or ringing. I've been working through this problem here and there over the course of months. Just prior to the S26 being released, I upgraded from a 22 Ultra to the 25 Ultra and still haven't figured out the fix to this problem. It's rare I use the ringer for my phone or watch. 99% of the time it's on vibrate. When I'm asleep, its set to silent and DND. I'm under the impression I've done the right things to allow this to happen.
In the middle of writing this post, a test was performed. Both devices vibrate upon his calls. Just the watch vibrates from a text - a decent accomplishment. 10 minutes prior to all of this, his text didn't vibrate on either watch or the phone, hence the post for help. it seems like I've got it to work SOMETIMES but not 100% of the time. The goal would be to get this functioning 100% of the time and include the ringer for his calls to wake me up if that's the case. Obviously it's good for emergency alerts to operate the same way. I've attached screenshots of my current settings. Not sure If I have specific settings incorrect. I'd assume my phone and watch are capable of doing what I specifically want but perhaps have to sacrifice a preference or setting and make some compromise with myself and the ideal successful settings. Do I have to have vibrate and ringer turned all the way up rather than just vibrate as is throughout the day prior to the sleep mode kicking in? I hope I'm not over-complicating all of this and have provided enough detail for anyone to jump in and assist me with this. Please let me know what questions you have. I appreciate any and all help resolving this situation. Yes I'm aware it the screenshot displays 13 hours of sleep (at the time of the screenshot was tweaking settings).
First off, I see that one of the triggers to turn on sleep mode is phone calls from dad and 5 others. Remove that, as you don't want those phone calls to be a trigger, you want them to come through. You don't actually need "sleeping" as a trigger (unless you nap), since you already have a time period set. You have triggers and actions that conflict with each other which is why sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.
If you normally keep your ringer off or on vibrate, the notifications you allow through do not disturb will use that same setting. If you want your phone to actually ring, during do not disturb, you will have to add a parameter to "what this mode will do" to turn the ringer on at the volume you want, using sounds and vibration to change the sound mode during sleep mode. You don't have to turn the volume on on the watch, it will still vibrate, but the phone should have the volume on. Change that item in your settings. If you turn the ringer on it will ring for all those you let through, but not anything/anyone you excluded. In your contacts app, assign your dad his on specific ringtone, so at least you know whether to jump up.
So, your sleep mode configuration should look roughly like this - tweak to your liking:
