Solo evening runs, dark early-morning routes, women running alone. Most runners don't want a panic button — they want to know somebody's quietly watching the route, ready if needed. Vygard Running shares your live pin with one chosen friend, watches for the things you can't see coming, and gets out of the way the rest of the time.
One friend, partner, parent. They get a one-tap consent link before the first run — opt in once, never re-prompted.
Live pin is on. Fall + stillness detector runs at 50 Hz. No notifications, no haptic feedback during the run — the whole point is to leave you alone.
Stop moving for 5 minutes? The shared pin expires automatically. No lingering location share. Your person gets a one-line 'finished safely' summary.
No clever onboarding to dig through, no settings menu to find. Open the app, see one big button. Tap it. Get on with the run. The whole UI is built around “your hands are on the trail, not the phone”.
Trips, twisted ankles, sudden collapse. If you don't get up within 90 seconds, your person gets a live pin.
Activate it for the last mile of a route — your person sees the live pin all the way to the door, then it auto-expires.
Triple-tap the Apple Watch crown to fire SOS without your phone making a sound. Useful if you're being followed and can't be obvious.
Your person sets their own do-not-disturb windows. Genuine SOS overrides those; pre-run notifications don't.
If your route + the forecast looks dangerous (heatwave, ice underfoot), we flag it pre-run. Run anyway if you want — informed decision.
If your person doesn't acknowledge within 5 minutes of an SOS, the cascade escalates to 999 with your live location.
The phone in your armband or pocket is enough. The watch is what makes it quiet — silent triple-tap-crown panic gesture, on-wrist fall detect, no phone glance needed mid-run. Both together is the combo most evening runners settle on.
Free install from the App Store / Play Store. Your run history + route data stays on-device + your Vygard tenant — never sold or shared. Delete the app and everything goes with it.
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 FAQRunner-safety apps fall into two buckets: track-and-rate (Strava + clones, no real safety wiring) or alarm-strapped panic devices (loud, ugly, defensive). Most runners don't want to look defensive. Vygard Running sits on the phone they already carry, leaves them alone unless something goes wrong, and only tells one person quietly. Solo evening runners have asked for exactly this for years.
Fall detection catches falls onto hard surfaces well; soft falls onto grass or absorbing tumbles can read like a deliberate stop. The 90-second stillness window means we wait — meaning a runner who is conscious but in trouble (heart attack, asthma, attack) can press SOS directly on the watch instead of waiting for the detector to fire. We are not a substitute for situational awareness, well-lit routes, or telling someone where you're going.
We'll email when Vygard Running ships (Available now). No spam, one email, you're first in line.