Does anyone have this? It could be a lifesaver if you find yourself somewhere remote, out of sight in a cold wet ditch with a broken leg and a 250kg motorcycle on top of you!
If you’re a Triumph owner it’s free for three months and then £3.99 per month on a monthly subscription.
It could be useful but a few questions spring to mind.
How does the app know what emergency services to alert, and how do those services know the priority? Depending on the nature of the impact and the protection worn, it could make the difference between some bad bruising and an open fracture.
I tend to carry my phone in my pocket but many people have them attached to the bike. That’s going to make a difference, too. A bike slamming in to a larger vehicle will be a different accident profile to one that’s just sliding down the road inside a jacket.
I’d need to see a full privacy statement before signing up to anything that’s essentially tracking my movements.
If I were being particularly cynical I’d say the times this would be most useful would be in remote areas where there’s a chance no phone signal is available. In town someone will call the emergency services, or the other driver would. Not a dealbreaker, though.
Finally, I presume this is a service, a bit like the AA. In other words, if I have an accident in my car it’s still going to arrange an ambulence.
BMW fit an SOS system to many of their bikes as standard now (might be all but a CBA to check). It’s free too for the original owner and there’s a one off fee to transfer it if you buy a BMW with it already fitted. Having had it on my previous GS it can be a lifesaver as they too deal direct with the emergency services and contact them if they can’t speak to you.
Downsides I can think of with the App
you have to pay for it - £48 per year ( I hate the only so much a month sales pitch that’s widely used across industry as a whole to sell subscription/insurance services)
It relies on you having your phone on you and switched on
it relies on your phone being charged
It could relie on you having a signal on your mobile network in that location to work.
There could be difficulty in speaking with the SOS call centre if your phone is inside your jacket so you’ll probably need some form of compatible helmet based comms system like Pactalk etc.
But if it suits your needs it’s worth considering and being monthly payments you could just use it for tours etc, but then you can’t choose if/when you havd an off.
One “problem” I found with the BMW system when I had it on my 2018 bike is it would warn me when the mobile signal had been lost which could be distracting but at least I knew when I was out of range so it would be an idea if you’re considering this whether the Triumph one alerts you if it looses moblie signal and if it only works on the mobile network associated with your phone or if it works across all that are available and if so what the coverage is in the areas you ride is like.
As @Littleade says I’ve got the SOS button on my Beemer, I managed to drop it in a Spanish lay-by, within seconds a lady was asking if I was ok and needed assistance. Fortunately I didn’t, just a scratched pannier, wounded pride and SWMBO had a mega bruise the next day. But very impressed with the system which kicked in due to the bike being at 68deg. Still haven’t a clue where the speaker and mic are. The button is there so you can summon assistance if you come across someone else’s faux pas. I believe it doesn’t cover BM’s breakdown assistance which would make it even more useful. Doesn’t cost me anything, even when I bought the bike (used), probably just hidden in purchase.
I imagine Triumph are just trying to match this feature.
The advantage of monthly is you can cancel it at any time, you don’t have to buy a year at a time.
Yes, but I always have my phone with me on the bike. It’s normally attached to the handlebars acting as a satnav.
Yes, but I normally think of that in advance Normally the phone is also plugged into the bike via a usb connection.
This is true, no signal, no response. If however your phone is destroyed in the crash you will still get help because your last recorded location details are uploaded to the cloud.
I don’t think it works like that. As I understand it the process is automated. If the app thinks it has detected a crash it send a message to the emergency services and you are informed on the screen. You have the option to cancel the message if it’s a false alarm. The emergency services will then try and call you (I assume ambulance) to check on you. If you can’t respond, they will attend the scene.
There may be certain catastrophic scenarios where it won’t work, but if it’s been tracking you since you started the ride perhaps it just sends your last recorded location. They may have accounted for this situation.
It’s uses a combination of data to work out whether you’ve crashed. GPS (sudden loss of speed) accelerameters (tumbling) etc. That’s what initiates the upload of data (including location) to be processed and potentially trigger an emergency service alert. It only sends it on to the emergency service if you don’t move again for a while. It can be cancelled by the user.
The Triumph app is rebadged and licenced from Realsafe Technologies and looks like the same sort fo things as the Realrider app. The Realrider website has a FAQ page. One thing to note, the detection system is designed for the phone to be on the rider, not the bike.
If you pay annually, Realrider costs £2.99/month. Triumph SoS is £3.99/month. I’m not sure what you get for the additional cost apart from the branding.