If you ever went for a late run or you enjoy long rides through the countryside and before leaving the house, you usually left a note saying what time you’re coming back, you might have also left your relatives in a slight worry. Why is he late? Has anything happened to her? Those would probably be one of the things your family and friends might have been wondering while you were away building up your fitness. Since last week you (and they) might feel a little safer, as one of the most popular athletics apps for both Android and iOS, Strava, launched a new premium feature called Beacon. Strava will not only make you strive to become an athlete, but also to keep you safe.

The athletes only need to have an iPhone or Android, select three safety contacts with a mobile phone, laptop, or PC with internet connection and let them know they’re going for their run or ride. Rayleen Hsu, Director of Product Marketing at Strava, says that the idea for such a feature comes from the Strava community: “We started by surveying our athletes to find out what types of features they would be most interested in and safety ranked highest.” So, now your loved ones are able to see you during an activity in real time on a map without the need of logging to Strava or installing the app. They receive a text message with a secure and randomized URL that lets them see your location, or if you stopped and, if anything were to happen to you, they’d be able track you down through GPS.

With more than 8.2 million users, this might be a great way of building up on the 192.000 athletes who use the premium feature of the app. Although, a question arises as whether it wouldn’t serve the company better to make sure all their users are safe and attract more sport lovers to get their app this way. Moreover, one of other possible issues might be that the link you send to your 3 contacts contains a URL which is technically accessible by a broader public and not really securing the security of your personal information as described in the video here. Would you subscribe to use such a safety tool? Let us know in the comments.

Credits:
Strava