Trad, sport and bouldering. The dangerous falls are the ones the belayer doesn't see coming — leader pumped on a runout, anchor failure on a multi-pitch, ground-fall from a low bolt. Vygard Climbing watches all three independently and escalates only the ones that matter.
Watch starts the climbing session. We track the lead — movement profile, altitude gain, accelerometer. Belayer's watch is paired so we know whose phone gets the alerts.
A clean catch on rope produces a deceleration pulse + immediate stillness. A ground-fall produces high-G impact + extended stillness. We can tell the difference within 2 seconds.
After topping out or lowering, you double-tap to confirm safe. If you don't tap within 5 minutes of the watch detecting you've stopped moving, your belayer gets pinged.
No clever onboarding to dig through, no settings menu to find. Open the app, see one big button. Tap it. Get on with the climb. The whole UI is built around “your hands are on the rope, not the phone”.
Distinct accelerometer profiles. We don't fire SOS on every redpoint — only the ones where the rope didn't catch you.
Your belayer's watch pairs with yours for the day. Their device gets the alert first — they're already at the bottom of the wall.
On a multi-pitch route, we know which pitch you're on from altitude + time. SOS includes pitch number so rescue knows where on the route to come.
Bouldering alone in a quiet evening session — if you stop moving for 10 minutes after the watch detected a fall, your contact gets pinged. The watch doesn't know if you're chalking or unconscious; the timer catches both.
Built-in siren on the Ultra fires loud + bright when SOS triggers — useful in a quiet outdoor crag with nobody else around.
Outdoor crag SOS routes to Mountain Rescue (England + Wales) or local police rescue (Scotland) via what3words. Indoor wall SOS routes to the wall's own first-aid number.
Vygard Climbing pairs two watches for the day — one on the leader, one on the belayer. The leader's watch needs the impact tolerance + siren of the Ultra; the belayer's just needs to receive alerts. The phone stays in the rope bag at the base.
Watches stay on whoever owns them after the session — Vygard pairs them just for the day. Free uninstall + free repair if anything fails the classifier's accuracy guarantee.
Every Vygard Personal app is designed so the vast majority of alerts cost us nothing to send. SMS and WhatsApp — which we'd otherwise burn at 3-5p per message — kick in only as an emergency fallback. That's why the apps stay at £4.99/mo.
If your contact has any Vygard app installed, they get a push notification with the alert + a tap-to-call button. Instant, no SMS cost.
If they don't have a Vygard app, your phone's own Messages app opens with a pre-filled SOS text + a one-tap install link. iMessage and RCS deliver it for free.
If your contact can't be reached any other way — or it's a genuine unconscious SOS where you can't tap — Vygard sends an SMS via Twilio. Counted against your monthly allowance.
Parallel path to SMS for contacts who use WhatsApp as their primary messenger. Same counting, same allowance pot.
Sized for ~5 SOS events per month at 4 messages each. Most users never get close to the cap. If your allowance runs out mid-month, the app falls back to opening your phone's Messages composer instead of blocking the alert — your safety is never gated on a billing limit.
Top-ups are monthly add-ons in your account settings — cancel anytime, no contract.
Per-user SMS cost is the biggest variable expense in any consumer safety app. If we shipped "unlimited SMS" on a £4.99 sub, we'd have to choose between losing money on heavy users or making the cap dishonest. By being explicit upfront — push-first, native handoff, then metered SMS — we keep the sub price low for everyone, and the people who do need more (frequent travellers, large family groups) pay a fair top-up.
Full breakdown in the FAQSolo bouldering accidents are the silent injuries — usually one person, often a quiet evening session, sometimes a head injury that takes the climber 20 minutes to walk out from. Most climbing apps focus on the route + the grade. Nobody's built a serious climbing-fall classifier — until now. Belay loops and helmets handle most cases; this is the layer for the cases they don't.
Vygard Climbing supplements proper belay practice, partner-check protocols and helmet use — it does not replace any of those. The classifier is most accurate for falls on overhanging sport routes; slab falls and trad falls with multiple piece-of-gear catches can read as clean-catch even when they're not. Outdoor crag SOS depends on cellular coverage — many UK crags don't have it. Plan accordingly.
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