Waze and Garmin Turn Cyclists Into Live Beacons for Drivers Worldwide

Drivers who rely on Waze for navigation are about to get a new kind of heads-up: a moving cyclist icon on the map, backed by a temporary alert urging them to slow down and share the road. The feature, built in partnership with Garmin, is rolling out globally on Android and iOS and represents one of the first mainstream integrations that turns a fitness device into an active safety beacon for vulnerable road users.

• Opt-in by design: Cyclists must activate Garmin LiveTrack on a compatible Edge bike computer or smartwatch before their position appears in Waze.
• Privacy-first alerts: Drivers see only an anonymous, session-based cyclist icon — never a name, identity, or exact route.
• Automatic shutoff: Alerts disappear the moment the rider ends the outdoor activity on their Garmin device.

How the Garmin–Waze integration actually works

The mechanics are straightforward but depend on a chain of hardware and connectivity. A rider starts an outdoor cycling activity on a compatible Garmin Edge computer or Garmin smartwatch with LiveTrack enabled. That location data travels from the device to the rider’s phone, through Garmin’s servers, and into Waze, where nearby drivers see a cyclist icon moving along the road in real time. According to reporting on the launch, drivers do not need to be actively navigating a route to see the icons — they appear whenever the Waze app is open and a rider enters the driver’s broader route area or immediate surroundings.

The feature builds on LiveTrack, Garmin’s existing live location-sharing tool that lets friends and family follow a rider’s real-time location, speed, and course. Extending that stream to motorists is the core innovation here, and it costs nothing extra for riders already using compatible Garmin gear. Waze itself remains free for drivers.

“Safety is a top priority for Waze, and we’re excited to collaborate with Garmin to help keep cyclists safer on the road,” said Gai Berkovich, Vice President and General Manager of Waze. “By bringing Live Cycling Alerts to Waze, we’re giving drivers a helpful heads-up so they can slow down, stay aware and safely share the road.”

Susan Lyman, Garmin Vice President of Consumer Sales and Marketing, framed the collaboration as a natural extension of the company’s cycling safety portfolio: “By increasing awareness between cyclists and motorists, this new tool is designed to foster a safer riding environment for Garmin customers by giving drivers valuable real-time visibility to their whereabouts.”

Privacy safeguards and practical limits

The privacy architecture is central to the feature’s acceptability. Location sharing is temporary and session-based, initiated only when a cyclist activates LiveTrack for an outdoor ride. Personal information is never displayed in Waze, and alerts switch off automatically when the ride ends. That design avoids the surveillance concerns that typically accompany any “share your location” feature.

Still, the system has real-world caveats. It works only for cyclists carrying a compatible Garmin device and only for drivers using Waze — a platform with roughly 200 million active drivers, compared with Google Maps’ more than two billion monthly users. Signal dependency is another factor: position data must travel from the Garmin device to the phone, through Garmin’s servers, to Waze, and finally to the driver’s phone. On patchy rural connections, a few seconds of lag could place the icon on the wrong side of a bend. A rider who leaves their phone at home or loses signal simply will not appear.

The feature also does not apply to indoor rides, and it is no substitute for bike lights, high-visibility clothing, and defensive riding. It is an additional layer of awareness, not a guarantee.

Why this matters for road safety

The collaboration addresses one of the most persistent failure points in cycling safety: the moment a driver fails to see a bike in time. By converting a cyclist’s GPS unit into an active beacon that broadcasts to surrounding motorists, Garmin and Waze are tackling driver distraction and spatial awareness directly. The opt-in, anonymous, session-based approach is precisely the opposite of the always-on tracking that tends to raise alarm.

The obvious next question is scale. Restricting real-time alerts to Waze leaves a large share of motorists in the dark, and expanding the protocol to Google Maps — which acquired Waze in 2013 — could establish a broader safety standard. The integration may also pressure rival hardware and software brands to follow suit. For now, the feature stands as a practical proof of concept: a small, voluntary connection between two existing data streams that could prevent collisions without asking riders to surrender their identity.