Incident Detection too sensitive!

Yep, it's happened to me a few times also.  It's the pace vs the sudden stop that's triggering it.  I'm not sure how to change this as an actual incident would look the same.  I guess that's why they added the confirmation feature before a notification is sent out.

Have you added anything from the CIQ store? I run hilly rocky trails frequently that involve lots of sudden movements and cannot remember the last time I had an incident alert.

The times I've had incident detection go off at the end of a run is when I'd just finished and patted my dog (it's gone off a few times that way) and two occasions at the end of a running event when I stopped then waited at the finish and briefly clapped another person as they came in.  It seems the rapid hand movement of patting the dog or clapping, immediately followed by little or no movement, is what triggers the incident detection; just stopping running on its own hasn't caused any false triggers with incident detection for me.

Cycling is another matter and I now understand why they disabled incident detection for MTB.  On my ride back from work I frequently go over a footbridge and ride down the steps on the far side; riding down those steps frequently kicks the incident detection off if I'm using the Bike app.  Again, the trigger seems to be some rapid sharp accelerations (the steps) followed by relatively little movement (riding on smooth tarmac again).

good point!  at least one of the times incident detection went off on me- was when I ran over to see the start of a bike race.  Got to the edge of the road.  stopped running and started *clapping* as the peloton came by!

This same scenario has happened to me a couple times. I stop mid run, pat my dog and it suddenly triggers an incident. A 10 sec threshold would help. Also, if any steps (not just GPS movement) are detected during that 10 sec threshold, I think cancelling the alert would be the right call. I also often use headphones and the audible lap pace times are a nice feature. Could you also add an audible incident alert so we could hear an incident has been triggered if we have headphones on?

I'm going to add my two cents to this as well.  This needs to be fixed, badly.  I'm using the Garmin Fenix 6 and today I had the unfortunate opportunity to give my relatives a thorough scare while on a more intense bike ride.  A portion of my route required me to make a sharp turn on my road bike with rapid slow-down, followed by riding over some bumpy ground and that triggered the incident detection.  I did not see or feel any countdown or alert come on, probably because of the focus on the ride and the terrain I was on.  Ironically, the incident detection kept tracking me for 0.84km before I realised what it had done and I turned it off.  I think if I am able to keep moving for 0.84km I am probably not dealing with an incident the likes of which the watch is trying to detect.  Also, I would prefer if there was a timeout option 10-30 seconds between the detection and sending the alerts, together with a blaring alert similar to that which alerts of an irregular heart rate or something where the watch shakes like crazy and blares an alarm.  I like the feature, but now I have to be extra careful that it doesn't send false alerts to people.  It is majorly unpleasant for everyone involved.

I've never had this happen, but probably because every time I suddenly stop while running for a light or traffic I am simultaneously pausing my activity on the watch (so the average pace remains accurate). This might be a solution for you.

dejanh said:

This needs to be fixed, badly. 

It’s not really something that is broken that needs fixing; it is what it is.  If they made it less sensitive, it wouldn’t work when it should do. There is quite a healthy degree of beeping and vibration before the alert is sent; so if you didn’t notice it happening, making that stage even longer is not going to make a difference for you. Once it has triggered and you go to end the assistance alert, there is then the option to send a follow on message to say I’m OK. If you find the kind of rides you do regularly trigger incident detection, then just use the MTB app instead of Bike. Some rapid accelerations followed by a halt is what triggers assistance alert and this happens all the time on MTB trails, so the feature was disabled some time back (on the Fenix 5+ as I recall) for the MTB and trail run activity apps.

Crispin_Ellisdon said:

It’s not really something that is broken that needs fixing; it is what it is.  If they made it less sensitive, it wouldn’t work when it should do

they could add an auto-reset to it if you're on a bike... and after the detection alert goes off, you lay down 250W and are going 24mph.  Or, if when running, you're cadence is back up to 180 and you're doing a 7 min/mi.  The watch has plenty of inputs indicating that you are healthy and moving that could be utilized.  

I had this happen twice during trail runs over the course of 3 straight days last September.  It happened once when I had to make a sudden stop due to a mountain biker coming toward me (grabbed a tree to stop quickly) and then another time when I came barreling down a hill and the trail curved toward a road.  I stopped quickly and it triggered the detection.  The funny thing is that on the 3rd day I tripped on a tree root and fell quite hard.  The crash detection didn't go off :).  I assumed that more recent firmware updates improved this as I haven't had an incident detection since nor have I fell hard enough where I think it should have.