New Safety and Tracking Features Now Available on Select Garmin Watches

Safety and tracking features¹, including assistance and incident detection, are now available on the vívoactive 3 Music, fēnix 5 Plus Series and Forerunner 645 Music wearables.  

If anything should happen when you’re on the go, activating the assistance feature will discreetly send a message with your real-time location to your preloaded chosen contacts², making it easier for help to find you. With incident detection, your device will automatically send a message with your real-time location to your chosen contacts when an incident is detected during an outdoor walk, run, hike or bike activity. Wi-Fi is not required, but your smartphone will have to be with you and Garmin Connect will have to be running for these smartwatch safety features to work.

Learn how to set up these features below:

Loading Emergency Contacts on Garmin Connect:

• Open Garmin Connect on your smartphone
• Press More (iPhone: bottom right corner; Android smartphone: upper left corner)
• Press Contacts
• Press the three dots on the top right corner and then choose contacts from your address book or enter their contact information manually
• Once you have chosen your contacts, press the back arrow in the top left corner
• Go to Safety & Tracking
• Click Incident Detection & Assistance
• Click Add Emergency Contacts
• Your contact list should show up, and you can select up to three emergency contacts
• Be sure to sync your watch when you are finished

Turning on Incident Detection:

• Incident detection will automatically turn on when a user adds emergency contacts to Garmin Connect (and those contacts get synced to the watch)

Forerunner 645 Music and Fenix 5 Plus Series:

• Incident detection can be manually toggled on/off for specific activity by:
  • Holding the up button on the device
  • Press Settings
  • Press Safety
  • Press Incident Detection

vívoactive 3 Music Series:

• Incident detection can be manually toggled on/off for specific activity by:
  • Press and hold watch face
  • Scroll down to Settings
  • Scroll down to Safety & Tracking
  • Press Incident Detection

Activating Assistance:

Forerunner 645 Music and fēnix 5 Plus Series:

• To activate, hold down the top left button (power button) for approximately 7 seconds until the watch vibrates three times
• This action will discreetly send a message with your real-time location to your preloaded emergency contacts
• Another option is to hold down the top left button for 2 seconds, scroll through the icons and select the Assistance icon

vívoactive 3 Music Series:

• Press and hold the device watch face
• Scroll down to Settings and press the screen
• Scroll down to Safety & Tracking and press the screen
• Press Incident Detection

If you initiate the feature or incident detection goes off, and your phone loses connectivity, the LiveTrack link will have your last location, and it will update as soon as your phone is connected again.

Safety and tracking feature is also available on new Forerunner 45 Series, Forerunner 245 Series and Forerunner 945.

¹When paired with a compatible smartphone; see Garmin.com/ble.  For safety and tracking features requirements and limitations, see garmin.com/en-US/legal/idtermsofuse. ²You must give Garmin Connect permission to access your contacts. Garmin Connect will only store your chosen contacts on the Garmin Connect server.

Compatible devices coming soon: Forerunner 645 running watch