Incident detection activation during activity

I was doing a hike activity two days ago and, while waiting for the complete group, decided to test how incident detection works with Fenix6(i have tested several times with Edge830 but never had an activation on Fenix 6)

So, I moved very very fast my hand, nothing happened first but then, after 3-4 seconds, the incident detection screen was triggered.

I waited the countdown counter to go OFF and the location was sent to my emergency contact -> ALL GOOD

Then I had a screen to "send I'm OK, no help needed", Did that too - information was sent to my emergency contact -> ALL GOOD

The big surprise for me was - after incident detection activation and sending the messages - the active recording activity was stopped and saved. So i had to start a brand new activity for recording the rest of the trip.

It saved also an activity for this incident detected entry - https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/5051980859

So, if you are inside an activity, do not try to test incident detection just for fun :)))

0 DouthatBiker over 3 years ago

Incident Detection is WAY too ZEALOUS! It won't wait for you to test it! It will TEST YOU.

I've had an Edge 830 for nearly 2 years now, and less than a month on my Fenix 6S Sapphire, and BOTH of these are WAY too aggressive at "detecting" incidents. The Edge has falsely tripped numerous times, both on mountain bike rides, (where it is at least slightly more understandable, but several times the "event" was nothing more than stopping reasonably quickly.)

The Fenix tripped today simply because I stopped at a spring water pipe to refill bottles. It STOPPED my ride without even telling me in any way. No request to Save the ride or delete, nothing. I didn't even know it was doing an Incident until it was too late to cancel it, missed cancelling it by a second. Happily, I had no cell service so it quickly said the message was not sent. THEN I was able to CANCEL the message to my wife.

HOWEVER, I had no idea the ride had been stopped until I'd gone almost a mile further and noticed no lap time reports, glanced at my Fenix, and saw it wasn't even recording anymore. Had to start a new ride, lost some distance and elevation, but also lost my record of a "Gran Fondo" distance (62mile) ride for October.

Okay, not earth shattering, but pretty frustrating that it stopped the ride! My Edge has not ever stopped one, and the Edge 830 HAS gotten to the "Incident Reported" state because I didn't get it cancelled in time. I've had the Edge "detect" an incident that was not one, and had to stop the bike to address it, even though it was nothing but a roll over a log or some such, and even though I am still riding fast along the trail.

That is just poor design. The SPEED at which an incident needs to be reported to a spouse or friend or whatever is NOT going to make the difference in saving a life, IMO. Letting the DEVICE ITSELF figure out that THERE IS NO INCIDENT and therefore it CONTINUES TO WORK WITHOUT REQUIRING any intervention on our part could save lots of trouble. By giving a wider timeframe for response, and in the meantime allowing the intelligence of the device to note that all is continuing on just as it was before, false detections could be far fewer. NO REPORT NECESSARY!! And IMO, it NEVER SHOULD STOP RECORDING MY RIDE without asking me, at least not for a very generous amount of time AFTER the "incident." That could even extend depend on battery life remaining. What harm is there? And losing your ride or run or whatever is pretty darn frustrating. We bought the Garmin for that purpose!

I HAD TO TURN OFF what otherwise MIGHT be a useful feature because it simply is nothing but a NUISANCE. That is true ONLY because this Feature has not been well designed and implemented. Period.