Waze Partners With Garmin to Add Cycling Alerts

The Waze team has teamed up with Garmin to add real-time cycling alerts to the car navigation app. Cyclists with Garmin devices can now opt in to appear anonymously on Waze, with drivers seeing them as temporary alerts.

“This feature is completely opt-in and built with privacy in mind. Drivers only see a temporary alert that a cyclist is nearby — never the cyclist’s name, identity, or exact route. Plus, alerts automatically turn off the moment a cyclist ends their ride on their Garmin device,” the Waze team said today.

Waze owns a big part of its popularity thanks to its crowdsourced alerts, but this new Garmin integration works in the background. To appear on Waze, cyclists will need to turn on Garmin LiveTrack on their Garmin smartwatch, but Garmin Edge bike computers are also compatible.

Real-time cycling alerts in Waze are rolling out today on iOS and Android. Overall, the feature seems like a privacy-respecting way to improve the security of cyclists on the road, and a good way to make Waze users more aware of other people on the road.  It will be interesting to see if Waze, which is owned by Google, will add similar integrations with Google’s own Fitbit fitness trackers and Pixel Watch devices.