Originally Posted by
I-Like-To-Bike
Your response makes much sense. I assume that the GPS function of smartphones and a suitable app that allows your wife to keep track of your real time location would meet both you and your wife's needs.
The "incident detection" function, given its unreliability and tendency to give false alarms (as described in several other posts on this thread), seems more likely to cause problems for both the bicyclist and those who either receive the false alarms, or are depending on being the first to be notified of a serious problem from a system that may or may not ever be reliable enough to be counted on in the unlikely event it is ever needed.
I have a question for you or anybody who is familiar with the operation of various incident reporting systems: Do they automatically send unfiltered "incident" notifications to 911 or other local emergency services whenever the system detects an anomoly that it interpets as an "incident"? If so, how do those agencies feel about responding to multiple false alarms?
With the Garmin you can easily turn the alarm off before it alerts anyone (not 911 btw). I have only had one instance of that. It is not unreliable - better a false alarm here or there than no alarm when you might need it. It does have one flaw however - it depends on your phones data capability. That means it is not effective if you are out of cell tower range or your phone gets severely damaged in the incident.