Testing Incident Detection

This is what the text looks like, in this case they're in the wrong order because I hit the I'm okay button immediately after the alert went through:

https://photos.smugmug.com/Other/General/i-xcJw876/0/9ae702c7/L/Screenshot_20180125-234950-L.png

When the alert triggers, the phone starts making a loud siren noise and the Garmin 520 displays a warning with a countdown timer, to cancel it you need to press enter (top right) which will bring up a prompt to Cancel? then you need to press up to change the 'No' to a 'Yes' then press enter again. I'm mentioning this because the first time it happened I was frantically trying to stop it as I knew my emergency contact would be worried if the message was sent, I didn't realise I needed to press up to change the no to a yes. After the emergency message sends you get a prompt on screen to say if you're ok, you just press enter and it shows the message you can see first on the screenshot above.

I'm not sure about how to trigger it as I'd tried a few times by dropping the Garmin while cycling but it didn't seem to trigger, it happened accidentally which I couldn't figure out why but it seems to be triggered by my front brake disc juddering as after the incident above it happened twice more when the front brake was applied. It had been fine before so I'm hoping once the pad beds in again, I can turn the incident detection back on.

I can't remember the exact sequence I used to enable the incident detection, I'm sure the 520 prompted me to switch it on then add an emergency contact on the app itself which I did and it seemed to be on automatically for each ride.

When I fall down for real, it didn't work at all. So it's pretty useless, it didn't trigger when I NEEDED it.

Thank you Johnmcl7, this was just what I was seeking about the messages. Thanks especially for the need to double confirm there is no emergency as I could easily see my contact freaking out unnecessarily.

Others - I am still seeking info on what will or will not trigger. Vaggos13 - can you tell what happened when you hoped it would trigger?

I've had my 820 replaced as the incident detection wasn't working, it seems the replacement has exactly the same fault. I've been told to perform a master reset and test it again, which I'll do this evening.

This was from Garmin on how to test:
Please refer to this troubleshooting link for further support -

Edge 820 - Incident Detection

One way to test this function is working is to be a passenger in a moving vehicle and tap it firmly in your hand to replicate an incident, the device should then send a message to the persons details you have entered.

As our early warning systems in Hawaii, Japan, etc. have shown recently, incident detection is a great theory. Not so good in practice. I found that having it on my 520 was more hassle than it was worth. In my case, it triggered for no apparent reason.

I've accidentally triggered mine once. Riding an undulating hills road, probably around 40-50km/h and swerved for a side road and stopped very quickly to let traffic behind me through. The unit started going crazy, but I managed to cancel things before it called my wife :) It seemed quite good. It would be very difficult to capture all incidents reliably I would have thought. I wouldn't bet my life on the feature, but it's better than nothing.