If you’re a parent chances are you probably worry about your children’s whereabouts when they’re out with friends, worried that they may be in bad neighbourhoods or doing things in places where they’re not meant to, or even to check whether your child made it to school that day and did not play truant. Enter the app Life360 which is basically a tracking service that used to be exclusive to Android and iOS devices, but can now be used by any phone.
For smartphones, the location of the person they’re tracking makes use of a mixture of GPS, WiFi data and cell triangulation, while regular phones get their locations from the carriers themselves. Both parties are required to have the app installed for smartphone users while those using regular phones will be sent a text message asking for permission to be tracked. Alternatively GPS locators can be bought from Life360 which can be attached to an object and track it, so instead of asking permission from your kid if you can track them (chances are your kid won’t be too thrilled about saying yes) you can just slip the GPS locator in their school bag and you’re good to go, unless of course they ditch their bags.
In the grander scheme of things this can be great for emergency situations say you slipped and fell and twisted your ankle while hiking in the woods, by hitting the panic button it will send out notifications to your emergency contact numbers via text messages, voice and e-mail. For more information regarding this service and their offerings just head on down to Life360’s website.