How to use Trail-Safe.
From installing on your watch or phone to seeing your route on the dashboard. Five minutes, in the order you'll actually need it.
Install on your watch or phone
Install from Google Play
On your Wear OS watch, open the Play Store and search for Trail-Safe (or open the Google Play listing). Tap install. It takes about 15 seconds.
Rather use your Android phone? Install the same app from Google Play on the phone; it joins the same family map.
Don't have a Wear OS watch yet? Trail-Safe needs Wear OS 4 or newer and a built-in GPS chip. Our Apple app ships under our consumer brand PaceGuard — see paceguard.io. Garmin is rolling out on Connect IQ.
Sign in with Google
Open Trail-Safe on the watch. Tap Sign in with Google. The watch hands you off to the standard Google account picker.
Your account is what links the watch to this dashboard. Use the same account for both.
Grant the three permissions
The next screen explains what Trail-Safe needs and why. Tap Grant access.
- Location — required, used to record your trail.
- Heart rate — optional, used for the live BPM pill.
- Notifications — optional, used to keep recording running in the background.
Record a trail
Find the map
The map is Trail-Safe's home screen. You'll see your position, a heart-rate pill, a compass pill, and two buttons at the bottom: SOS and REC.
Hit REC to start
Tap the REC button. The dot turns red and starts pulsing — the watch is now sending your fixes to the dashboard.
Want recording to start automatically when you open the app? Toggle Auto-start recording in the watch settings.
Read the rings
- Pulsing green — a location just made it to the backend.
- Orange — no connection. Fixes are queued on the watch and will sync when you're back online.
Stop when you're done
Tap REC again to stop. Trail-Safe stays connected so the dashboard still shows the watch as online, but no more positions are recorded.
Use SOS
On every plan SOS works on every plan, including Free — triggering it is never behind a paywall. What a plan changes is who hears it: on Free and Single your SOS reaches Trail-Safe users near you who opted into Community SOS; from Family up, your circle sees it live as well.
Read this first. Trail-Safe SOS shares your last known position with your family circle and with opted-in Trail-Safe users near you; your watch separately alerts the emergency contact stored on it. It does not call emergency services, and it cannot reach anyone who is none of those. In a real emergency, dial your local emergency number first.
Set up who hears you
Two separate things, both worth doing. On the watch, Settings → Emergency contact stores a name and number on the device itself — we never receive it. On the dashboard, Settings → Community SOS opts you into the nearby-walker network; the toggle is mutual, so agreeing to receive others' alerts is what puts your own on it.
Trigger SOS
On the map, press and hold the SOS button. The ring around the button fills as you hold — release before it fills to cancel.
The hold-to-trigger pattern is deliberate. It prevents accidental triggers from a wrist bump or sleeve.
Quick-launch SOS
On every plan, SOS is one tap away without opening the app:
- Tile — swipe to the Trail-Safe SOS tile and hold the disc.
- Complication — add Trail-Safe SOS to your watch face for a one-tap shortcut.
- Side button — map the watch’s customisable button (Samsung: Settings → Advanced features → Customize buttons) to Trail-Safe SOS.
Side-button and app-drawer launches show a 3-second cancel countdown before firing, so an accidental press is easy to abort.
What happens next
- The SOS signal is sent the instant you fire — no waiting for a GPS fix.
- Live tracking starts automatically, so every subsequent fix is tagged and streamed to your contact.
- Your contact gets a link to your live trail on the dashboard.
- The watch buzzes a short confirmation, then loops the Morse SOS pattern until you cancel. Vibration is on by default — toggle in Settings → SOS.
- The SOS state stays on until you cancel it from the map.
Trail-Safe Guardian — fall & faint detection
Premium Guardian is a paid, Premium safety feature that watches over you automatically — no button to press.
An added safety net, not a medical device. Guardian detects a hard fall or faint — it cannot be guaranteed to catch every one, and it is not a substitute for calling your local emergency number in a real emergency.
Turn Guardian on & pick a mode
Guardian has its own entry in the main menu, right below Settings. Choose how watchful it is:
- Off — not monitoring.
- Only while recording — active during a tracking session.
- Always on — watching whenever you’re wearing the watch.
Fine-tune sensitivity and how it behaves on low battery in the same screen.
How it spots a fall or faint
Guardian reads your watch’s motion sensor and looks for the tell-tale signature of a hard fall or collapse, in three steps:
- The drop — a brief moment of free-fall as you go down.
- The impact — a sharp jolt as you hit the ground.
- Going still — the key signal. If you stay motionless afterwards, Guardian takes it seriously; if you get up and move, it stands down.
Your heart rate adds context during the still moment, but it never triggers an alert on its own — wrist readings are too noisy to trust alone.
The 60-second check
If you go still after an impact, the watch throws up a full-screen alarm — loud (even on Do Not Disturb), buzzing, with a 60-second countdown.
- Fine? Tap “I’m OK” and it stands down instantly.
- Any wrist movement pauses the countdown and gives you longer to react.
- Need help now? Tap “Send SOS” to fire immediately.
Automatic SOS
No response by the time the countdown ends and Guardian raises your normal Trail-Safe SOS for you — tagged as a detected fall:
- Your live location is shared and tracking kicks in, exactly like a manual SOS.
- Your family — and opted-in helpers nearby — are alerted that you may have fallen and haven’t responded.
- Everything runs on your wrist; the only time the outside world is involved is the moment help is called.
Your dashboard
Family live map
On the Family plan, every member's live position appears on the dashboard map with their name. Pins move as new fixes arrive — no refresh needed.
SOS lights up the map
When a paid-plan member triggers SOS from the watch, their pin turns red and pulses on every dashboard map watching that family. It clears the moment the watch cancels.
Community SOS map
See nearby Trail-Safe users who currently need help. Opt-in on both sides — available on every plan, including Free, so other hikers in your area can find you sooner.
Trail playback & history
Pick any recorded session and the dashboard plots it with start / end pins and a table of every fix — coordinates, accuracy, heart rate. Free includes recent history; paid plans keep more.