One breezy summer day, I was 15 miles out on a 16-miler, running on a busier-than-usual rail trail near my apartment. The marathon I was training for was a month out and, despite the heat, I was feeling pretty pumped. I toyed with the idea of adding an extra mile as I approached a road crossing. I smiled at a runner coming from the opposite direction, allowing her to pass through a barrier before me. Suddenly, the ground rushed toward me and I was eating dirt. The heel of my right foot had skidded on gravel, rocks scraping my hip bones and hands after I tumbled down. A gray-bearded man in sunglasses hovered above me as the runner who I had smiled at had suddenly materialized at my side, arm stretched out.
“That was some fall,” the man said.
Indeed it was. I waved off the runner’s hand as I slowly righted myself. Despite being worse for wear, I finished the last mile with smarting sores and bruised pride. But as I shuffled home in a cloud of embarrassment, another thought needled through: Why didn’t my Garmin detect my fall and alert my emergency contact?
Why Garmin Sometimes Doesn’t Detect a Fall
Published: Jul 22, 2024 11:27 AM EDT safety at the top of my mind before heading out. Because I don’t run with my iPhone, I rely on my watch’s safety features. But these features aren’t guaranteed to kick in when the time arises. I spoke with Garmin’s product manager, Joe Heikes, about the intricacies of incident detection and why your watch might not detect an incident.
Garmin’s watches detect incidents through two sensors: the accelerometer (a component in the device that measures vibration or change in motion) and GPS (which means detection only happens outdoors). Heikes noted that GPS signal is crucial; without it, incident detection would be null.
“[The watch] is looking for certain patterns of high impact followed by a quiet period,” said Heikes. “But there’s always a certain confidence interval. So, in some cases, the impact pattern of an actual event may not exactly match up to what the impact patterns in our database look like. Therefore, you could trip and fall and the incident-detection feature wouldn’t trigger.”
The opposite can sometimes happen, as well. For example, Heikes recalled when his watch detected a false positive while he was clapping at his son’s track meet. It’s not a perfect science, he commented.
Heikes was able to demonstrate his watch detecting an incident on our call. His building has a GPS repeater so his watch was able to register his location, reading that he was outside even though he was indoors. He started an activity on his watch after its GPS signal bar turned green, then smashed his fist against the table. This made his watch vibrate and triggered a countdown on the watch screen. Heikes was able to cancel the distress call before his son—his emergency contact—received the incident detection message.
The reason why my watch didn’t register that I was in danger when I fell was likely because I immediately stretched out my arm, brushing off trail dust and unwanted attention from concerned passersby. Had I collapsed on the ground, stunned or immobile, the countdown would have likely begun.
Garmin’s Safety Features and How to Troubleshoot
I shouldn’t solely rely on my watch’s safety features, especially when they can be faulty. But adding an emergency contact and turning on incident detection could still provide aid during instances when I don’t spring up onto my feet after a fall like Super Mario.
Here’s a list of settings available on Garmin watches and how to troubleshoot them before you head out for a run. Because I use the Forerunner 965, Health - Injuries search here The Best Turkey Trot Outfits for Your Fun Run.
Adding an Emergency Contact
To add an emergency contact, you’ll first have to download the Garmin Connect app on your phone. On the app’s home screen, select “•••” (“More”) in the lower-right corner. Then select “Safety & Tracking” followed by “Safety Features” on the next screen. Select “Emergency Contacts” and then “Add Emergency Contact.”
After you follow the prompts on the app, the person you choose will have to confirm themselves as your emergency contact via text or e-mail. If they decline—it is a big responsibility—you’ll have to choose someone else.
While you’re limited to adding three emergency contacts, you can add up to 50 non-emergency contacts under the “More” menu on the app. Select “Contacts” and follow the prompts on the screen. After adding your contacts, you’ll have to sync the data to your watch. You can do this by holding down the upper-left “Light” button on the watch’s dial and then selecting “Sync” from the on-screen menu.
Live Event Sharing
Why would you enter 50 people into your Garmin’s contacts? So they can follow your location and cheer you on during your next race, of course! One drawback about this feature is that it’s limited to Android phone users only.
To have your 50 favorite people track you and receive messages as you race, set up “LiveTrack” in the Garmin Connect app and choose the device you’d like your contacts to follow. You can also select to share the race course with your spectators and receive messages on your watch. (Another caveat: spectator messaging is only applicable if your paired phone has a data plan and when you’re in an area of network coverage.) The LiveTrack will be triggered when you start your run on your watch. It’ll track for up to 24 hours.
Assistance
Assistance is a feature you can access by holding down the upper-left “Light” button on your watch. A menu dial will appear. By selecting “Assistance” you can send a message to one of your emergency contacts.
Selecting Assistance will also prompt your watch to automatically send an emergency message. Your watch will vibrate three times and then countdown from 10 before sending an alert. You can cancel at any time during the countdown by holding any button down on your watch.
Unless you have a data plan, you’ll have to be near your phone to send messages. There are three pre-existing messages that you can send to emergency contacts:
- It’s an emergency. Please get help.
- The Best Prime Day Running Headphone Deals 2024.
- I need help. Follow my location to find me.
You can also type your own messages through the Garmin Connect app on your phone or by using the keyboard on the watchface (it’ll resemble a telephone keypad, requiring you to push the buttons a few times to select each desired letter). The message and your GPS location (if available) will be sent to your contact via e-mail or text after 15 seconds have elapsed. You can let them know you’re okay by pressing any button on your watch to cancel.
Incident Detection
The Garmin Forerunner 965 comes equipped with an “Incident Detection” feature. This feature automatically alerts your emergency contact when you’ve taken a fall or experienced a sudden impact. It will also send them your location, if available.
To enable incident detection, hold down the “Up” button (the middle button on the left side of the watchface), scroll down to Safety & Tracking, select Incident Detection, and choose which activities you’d like to enable.
Amanda is a test editor at Runner’s World who has run the Boston Marathon every year since 2013; she's a former professional baker with a master’s in gastronomy and she carb-loads on snickerdoodles.
