The Best Apps for Safely Walking Home Alone

Based on advice from personal safety expert Pete Canavan, we’ve crowned UrSafe the best app for safety when walking alone, going on a date, catching a rideshare, or meeting up with a stranger. It is button- or voice-activated, automatically livestreams from your camera, and shares your location with emergency contacts and/or law enforcement.

We found a few other Pete-approved personal safety apps that fill the gaps in UrSafe’s performance. Keep reading to find the best one for you.

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To activate UrSafe, just press the button on the app for three seconds. You can also say your custom safeword to launch the “SOS protocol” without ever touching your phone.

UrSafe starts recording and sends a livestream to your emergency contacts along with your location. The app also dials 911.

If you’re nervous but not in danger, you can turn on the FollowMe function. The app sends your location to three emergency contacts so they can make sure you keep moving and end up in a safe place.

You can also schedule a timed or location-based check-in to confirm that you’re safe. UrSafe also lets you set up a fake phone call for a ready-made excuse to leave an awkward and potentially dangerous situation.

UrSafe’s free version lets you use the “FollowMe” feature, but only one emergency contact can track your location. That’s about all you get for free, but the app itself isn’t too expensive at around $5 per month.

You can also purchase 24-hour premium access for around $1 if you anticipate being in a risky situation. 

Plus, you can make it look like you’re not even recording to prevent a tense situation from boiling over. Meanwhile, everyone designated as an emergency contact within the app gets a call, email, and text message with your livestream and location. It all fires off with a simple tap.

To avoid a cluttered interface, Parachute lets users customize their app experience with “add-on” features. For example, you can set up voice activation through Siri, send livestreams to your Twitter account, or stream from both the front- and rear-facing cameras simultaneously.

We recommend enabling the “Superlock” add-on, which locks your phone but continues to record. Even people who are familiar with Parachute’s “end recording” sequence won’t be able to stop the livestream without your permission.

Parachute doesn’t include an option to call 911. The developers were considering it as an add-on update in 2019 but haven’t released any information since.

Noonlight’s one of the few personal safety apps with a free version. In addition to using the emergency button, you can add emergency contacts to your list, leave notes about where you’re going and who you’re meeting, and record important medical information for first responders.

Noonlight doesn’t tick many of the boxes outlined by our personal safety expert Pete Canavan. There’s no siren, strobing light, or camera recording. But Noonlight does share your location with emergency contacts and 911 dispatchers during an emergency, and you also have the option to share your real-time location with emergency contacts for 24 hours.

Voice activation requires Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa plus a premium Noonlight membership. Other integrations—including Uber, Lyft, or IFTTT—are also available with an upgrade.

Learn more in our full Noonlight review.

You can also use the bracelet to start a fake call to your phone, giving you a little extra help exiting an uncomfortable situation.

Other than that, Flare bracelets don’t do much. But they complement a more robust recording app like UrSafe, letting you choose a bold or discreet approach when you need help.

Flare bracelets cost $129 each, and there’s no monthly subscription fee.

Bond doesn’t automatically livestream when activated, but you have the option of video calling with an agent. They’ll talk with you until you’re safe and dispatch emergency responders if they detect danger.

If a video call seems like overkill, you can ask Bond agents to simply monitor your location until you arrive at your destination. If you go off course or don’t arrive within a certain time frame, Bond contacts you to make sure everything’s okay. If they can’t reach you, they call 911.

Bond’s “Ready an Agent” feature works like Noonlight’s SOS button. Just tap and hold the button when you feel uncomfortable. Release the button to connect with a Bond agent within five seconds.

Bond agents can also coordinate telemedicine services and dispatch physical bodyguards, roadside assistance, or rideshare drivers, but you may have to pay extra for these third-party services.

Finally, Bond is one of the few personal safety apps that turns your phone into a siren and a strobe light. Safety expert Pete Canavan recommends using these features to disorient someone long enough to put distance between them and you. They’re also great for attracting the attention of nearby helpers.

Bond is by far the most expensive personal safety app we’ve come across. Premium features cost $50 per month. If you use the service more than five times per month, the cost doubles to $100 per month. You get a discount by paying for a whole year up front.

We compared more than 20 personal safety apps before selecting and ranking our top five. Here are a few other notable contenders.

The Hollie Guard app includes an impressive list of features, including automatic recording and a strobe light that accompanies a blaring alarm. It even includes a duress PIN so that an assailant thinks you’ve canceled the alarm, but in fact you’ve confirmed the alarm with first responders.

Unfortunately, the Hollie Guard app is cluttered and cumbersome. It takes too long to find the feature you want to activate.

BSafe includes most of the same functions as our top pick UrSafe, but it’s missing one crucial element: contacting local authorities.

Your friends and family are responsible for contacting law enforcement and sharing details about your location if they think you’re in danger and can’t get to you. If that’s not a dealbreaker for you, BSafe’s $19.99/year subscription is more affordable than UrSafe. 

InvisaWear jewelry is monitored by security giant ADT, so you know you’re in good hands when you connect to the monitoring center. You also have the option to contact up to five friends or to call 911 after pressing the button.

You can buy InvisaWear necklaces, keychains, and scrunchies in addition to bracelets, so it’s a better option than Flare if you aren’t much of a bracelet person.

We chose Flare over Invisawear for our top five due to InvisaWear’s poor durability. We also liked the fake phone call feature on Flare, which InvisaWear doesn’t offer.

Life360 caters to families with features like individual driver reports, location history, and geofencing. It’s also one of the few safety apps to provide an analysis of safety risks in your current location.

It has an SOS button that reaches emergency contacts only—not 911. Life360 doesn’t livestream or include a siren.

A Life360 subscription costs the same for one person as it does for an entire family. And everyone gets identity theft protection, roadside assistance, and stolen phone protection with the $19.99/month Platinum Membership.

The One Scream app features a special kind of voice activation: a woman’s “panic scream.”

The developers explain that women are more likely than men to scream when in a scary situation and that this panic scream makes a specific sound—one that you can’t even replicate for testing. The app activates when it recognizes that sound.

One Scream is free to use, and we don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t add it to your arsenal of personal safety apps if you think it will help you. We left it out of our top five because of its limited accessibility, lack of features, and impossible (or at least unethical) testing scenario.

Although we couldn’t pin down a personal safety app that met all of security expert Pete Canavan’s criteria, UrSafe came close to perfection. But you might choose another app based on personal preference:

• Parachute for tamper-proof livestreams
• Noonlight for a free panic button
• Flare for sending a discreet SOS alert
• Bond for professional bodyguards and concierge assistance

To find and review the best app for safety when walking alone, we chatted with personal security expert Pete Canavan. He provided a list of features to look for in apps to keep you safe:

• Automatic video recording/livestreaming
• Automatic location sharing
• Easy activation through a button or voice cue
• Analysis of safety risks in the area
• Loud siren
• Strobe light

We also prioritized apps with an option to contact 911 and virtual “walk me home” features.

From our initial list of 20 apps that keep you safe, we compared features and read user reviews to find the top contenders. Then, we downloaded and tested apps to create our final lineup.

Learn more on the SafeWise methodology page.

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