Strava live tracking

ByMoises Campos
strava-tracking-live
Photo by Iliya Jokic on Unsplash

Beacon, is the name of the option of Strava for live tracking which allows other people to follow your route and check where you are. It is ideal for those athletes who travel for long journeys or races. If you are a user of this platform for athletes you will be able to use it and here you will learn more about this functionality.

What is Strava Beacon and what does it do?

Among the wide variety of functions that this platform offers athletes is the Beacon function related to safety and security. live tracking on Strava.

Because of this, it is possible for you to share your location in real time with up to three contacts that you have previously selected. These will be known as safety contacts, who will have the ability to live-track your location until the activity is complete.

The function Beacon was implemented with the aim of providing users with one of the features most valued and demanded by the community of Strava, which, according to the platform's regular polls, usually includes in its results that security is a priority for the majority.

How to enable live tracking on Strava

The procedure you need to perform to activate in Strava live tracking or Beacon is composed of the following steps:

  • The first thing to do is to log into the mobile application and start registering a new route.
  • Next, you need to activate the Beacon icon displayed at the bottom right of the screen.
  • At this point you must choose the three security contacts who will receive your location. (The three contacts are stored in a list of favourites so that next time you don't have to make the selection again, as long as you want to keep the same ones).
  • Now, an orange dot should appear and an SMS will be sent to your contacts. This way you can check that the tracking function has been activated.
  • The function performed by the live tracking on Strava (Beacon) is activated and configured before starting the logging of an activity and selected contacts automatically receive an SMS with a particular URL.
  • By means of this URL they can carry out live tracking on a map in real time. In addition to this, the battery level of the transmitting device is also indicated.

Strava Beacon is a very useful feature to ensure your safety, whether you prefer to ride alone or in a group. However you choose to use it, it's an effective and simple way to let people know you're safe and well.

Advantages of using Strava Beacon for live tracking

The Beacon function, with which the sports platform allows its users to choose the contacts they will make in Strava live tracking The advantages, especially for the safety of sportsmen and sportswomen.

The main advantages of using Strava Beacon for live monitoring are listed below:

  • Athletes have the possibility to gain greater control over their own security.
  • It is also possible for them to keep in touch with their community at times when they need it most.
  • It offers peace of mind to the athlete's family who can check where the athlete is in a very simple way.
  • Because access to this feature is completely free, all athletes can make use of Beacon, whether or not they are subscribed to the platform.
  • The chosen contacts do not need to have a Strava account to be able to view the activation in real time.

What is the cost of using Strava live tracking?

Strava has been modifying the features it offers for free or on a subscription basis over the last few years. However, it has recently managed to make one of its most useful functions, Beacon, which allows you to do in Strava live monitoring is completely free for all users of the application.

Until recently, this feature was included in Strava's subscription offer, but now that it's free, any athlete in the world can use it, as long as they have the app running on their smartphone.

This is very important to consider, because this option does not apply to other iterations of the service. For example, if you are using Apple Watch or a Garmin device to initiate the live tracking on Strava, it will not be free of charge. The reason given by the platform is that an additional degree of complexity must be considered in these cases.

The main beneficiaries of Strava's decision will be athletes who like to track their walks, runs or other activities and carry their smartphones with them.