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What kinds of notifications you'll receive

expreScan uses push notifications sparingly. The app only asks you to do one thing through a notification — scan a card — and it only sends that prompt when something on the other end of the system is actually waiting on you. This article explains what you’ll see, why it shows up, and what your phone does behind the scenes.

The model

Section titled “The model”

There is exactly one kind of notification the app delivers today: a scan request. Everything else you might see on your lock screen from expreScan is iOS plumbing around that single category.

sequenceDiagram
  participant Charger
  participant Backend as Polaris backend
  participant APNs as Apple Push (APNs)
  participant Phone as Your iPhone
  participant You


  Charger->>Backend: Driver wants to start a session
  Backend->>APNs: Send scan request to this driver's device
  APNs->>Phone: Deliver push
  Phone->>You: Banner + sound — "Tap to scan your card"
  You->>Phone: Tap banner
  Phone->>Phone: Open expreScan, ready to scan

The notification is tap-to-act. There are no buttons on the banner, no “Approve” or “Decline” choices — just the prompt itself. Tapping it opens expreScan with the scan screen ready to go.

What the notification looks like

Section titled “What the notification looks like”
Where you areWhat you see
Phone lockedBanner on lock screen with sound
Phone unlocked, app closedBanner at top of screen with sound
Already inside expreScanBrief banner — the in-app prompt is the real UI

The app does not add a number badge to its icon and does not leave entries piling up in Notification Center. A scan request is either acted on now or it has already expired.

Why it works this way

Section titled “Why it works this way”

A scan request represents a live, time-sensitive moment: someone (or something) is at a charger waiting for authorization. Treating it like email — letting it queue up, adding badge counts, offering “snooze” or “ignore” actions — would imply you can deal with it later. You can’t. By the time you’re looking at an old scan request, it’s no longer valid.

That’s also why the app only ever registers a single notification category with iOS. More categories would mean more types of prompts, and more types of prompts would dilute the meaning of the one that matters.

The app never sends:

  • Marketing or promotional pushes.
  • “Your session is complete” receipts (those live in your account history, not as notifications).
  • Background pings to keep the app alive. expreScan does not wake itself up in the background.

What this means for you

Section titled “What this means for you”

Trust the banner. If expreScan sends you a notification, something is genuinely waiting on you. Tapping it is the fastest path to unblock whatever’s happening.

You won’t miss anything by clearing notifications. Scan requests are short-lived. If you swipe one away and it was still valid, you can usually just trigger the scan again from the app itself. If it wasn’t valid anymore, you saved yourself a tap.

Permission matters. expreScan asks for notification permission during onboarding. If you declined and want to re-enable it, go to Settings → expreScan → Notifications on your iPhone and turn on Allow Notifications. Without permission, the app falls back to asking you to keep it open when a scan is expected — which works, but is less convenient.

Battery and data are not a concern. Because there’s only one notification type and the app does no background polling, expreScan costs essentially nothing when you’re not using it.

Section titled “Related”