Strava makes its location sharing safety feature free

Social fitness network Strava has made one of its most useful safety features available to all users. Starting today, anyone — not just those with a subscription — can use the app’s Beacon feature to share their location with friends and family members.

To enable the feature, tap the “You” tab at the bottom of the main interface and then the cog icon that appears near the top right corner. Once you’re in the settings menu, scroll down until you see the relevant section and toggle the feature on. With Beacon, you can share your location with up to three people. When you add a list of safety contacts to the app, Strava will automatically notify those individuals when you start recording an activity. Another option is to manually text a Beacon link to a friend or family if you don’t want to flood them with notifications each time you go out for a spin.

As a free user, you won’t be able to use the Beacon functionality through a connected device like a Wahoo bike computer or Apple Watch. Strava says that’s something that you will still need a subscription to access “due to the added complexity of supporting those integrations.” One other thing to keep in mind is the software will only share your location as long as you’re recording an activity. Either way, making a safety tool like Beacon free in most contexts is a good move for Strava, particularly after the company moved some previously free features behind a subscription.