New Discoveries (Garmin Incident Detection)
I love discovering new things and this is equally true to my time on the bike. Whether that is new roads to ride, new gear to wear, new food to eat or anything else. Recently I discovered a new feature on my bike’s Garmin GPS device. My wife also discovered it along with my kids, but I’ll get to that shortly…
The feature is called Incident Detection and is supposed to alert your emergency contacts in the event of an accident. I’d heard of it before but didn’t have it enabled on my old device. The new one (Edge 1030) must have switched it on automatically for me.
Sensors within the device are used to determine if there is an impact. If they are triggered a message is sent with last known location to the emergency contacts set up in the app. All very clever!
I’ve had my wife added as a contact for quite some time now, but that was to use one of the other features on the device – Live Tracking. This is a quite brilliant feature and allows them to see where you are at any time. I’m not sure my wife is fully on board with the intention though, as I thought she would have the garage door open for me to cruise in, with beer in hand and dinner on the table waiting for me just as I arrive home after work. It doesn’t seem to work quite like that…
Anyway, back to the incident detection feature. I was cycling home late one evening on an unfamiliar route. The wind was strongly against me and I was slogging my way through town. After stopping at some lights I took off just behind a bus, delighted to be able to shelter a while as I drafted in it’s wake.
Watch That Hole!
This is normally fine, but as I said these were unfamiliar roads and I should have been more careful. Before I knew it a stinking pothole emerged from under the bus and I had no time to react and take evasive action. With a thumping clatter both of my wheels smashed into the facing edge. Thankfully I managed to stay upright, but I tentatively awaited the tell tale signs of damage. Sure enough, my rear wheel immediately started bumping along the road as it lost all pressure.
At the very same time I heard an almighty blast of an alarm right on my shoulder. This came as a shock as the roads were very quiet and I thought it was just me and the bus on them. I panicked a bit as I tried to make my way across to the pavement with my flat tyre and allow the siren to pass. But turning around the road was empty…
Also at this very moment my good wife and children were tucking into dinner at home. Her phone pinged a message, which after reading it caused her to spit out her bolognese and let out a squeal of anguish. Obviously this is not normal behaviour for her at the dinner table so our 4 kids became very interested at the cause. Garmin had very kindly alerted her to the fact that I had been involved in an “incident” and gave her several options to pursue!
Thinking about it now, I’m relieved to see that she did actually try calling my mobile!
Back at the roadside I was now aware that the siren was actually coming out of my backpack and when I took it off could see that all the lights on my phone were flashing brightly as well. It was very effective and gave the passengers waiting at the bus stop across the road a bit of entertainment for their evening.
Having realised what it was I turned off the alert and saw that it then gives you an option to send an “I’m OK” message to your emergency contact. I did this promptly and set about fixing the flat tyre, which thankfully wasn’t too hard. Satisfied all was OK I then continued to slog my way home… much more carefully this time!
Lessons Learned
- Garmin Incident Detection is another really useful feature.
- Garmin Incident Detection is very sensitive! I’ve now had it being triggered several times by stopping abruptly at traffic lights, and once by going over a cobbled section of road.
- Learn how to cancel the Incident Detection before it sends any messages. The GPS unit actually gives you 30 seconds to do this by holding a small window at the bottom of the display. I never noticed this the first time as I was concentrating on staying upright and allowing the imaginary emergency vehicle get passed.
- Let your wife/partner know you are actually OK if this should spuriously go off. The automatic “I’m OK” message did not exactly set her mind at ease.
- Take extra care on unfamiliar roads. Allow yourself plenty of time to manoeuvre out of the way of potholes or other hazards. Probably best not to draft behind a bus, regardless of how windy it is.
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Joe Gaze
CycleCommute.CC