Author: Joe Mueller

Geomate Jr: A Kids GPS For An Active Child

Geocaching is a great way for kids to ditch their video games and TV for an active outdoor adventure.  Kids need some type of excuse to get outside and play in the great outdoors. A life of video games and TV has led to high levels of obesity in America when combined with a steady diet of processed food. Our children need to exercise if they are to break the cycle, so finding interesting and compelling reasons to get them out the door is something that parents are going to be looking for at every opportunity.

Geocaching combines our children’s love for technology with their need to get outside and DO something.  It is like a real life video game, kids must use an electronic device to find a hidden treasure located somewhere around them.  The device guides them to their location and helps them navigate the world around them.  The can run, or bike, or even walk on their search – all of theses activities are recommended by government orginizations as great ways to improve your child’s health.

But there is one catch with geocaching, the GPS devices traditionally used for it are anything but cheap.  Devices like the Garmin GPS 60CSx Handheld GPS Navigator and the Garmin eTrex Vista HCx Color High-Sensitivity Mapping Handheld GPS run somewhere above $200 a piece. Sure, they are great devices that can be used for way more than just geocaching, but do you really want to bed dropping that much money on a device that will help your kids play?

Savy to this issue, a company and product was create to solve this issue: Geomate.jr.  The product is significantly cheaper than the more traditional geocaching alternatives provide by Garmin and other GPS manufacturers.  Right now, you can get it for about $70 at REI. The only thing that even really comes close to this in terms of price is the Garmin eTrex H Handheld GPS Navigator, which is being sold four about $85.

The Garmin eTrex has received some pretty high praise from its users as a geocaching GPS.  Here is one that I though was particularly telling:

This is my primary Geocaching GPS. The high sensitivity chip has the same strong processing power, and thus signal sensitivity and position resolution, as any of the more expensive units. It gives me excellent accuracy in areas where my older GPS units just give up, even dense forest cover.

If you’re only interested in point to point navigation (geocaching, trail tracks or just finding your way back to the car or the ski chalet), then this unit will do a great job for a no-regrets price.

In my opinion, this is going to be the product that you are going to want to compare the Geomate.jr up against if you begin to seriously consider it as a geocaching tool for your child since the price difference is only about $15.

So, what are the Geomate.jr’s features?

  • Comes preloaded with about 250,000 geocache locations covering all 50 U.S. states
  • Turn the unit on and it will load up the closest geocaching location stored in memory; to find another location simply press the next button and the GPS device will automatically load the next closest cahce
  • Not only does the location of the nearest cache appear, but other important details also are displayed, such as the Geocaching.com ID code, the terrain, difficulty rating, and the size of the cache
  • Has a “Home” waypoint that will assist you in returning to your point of origin
  • Displays compass heading, latitude and longitude
  • You can keep a log of all the caches that you have visted so far so that you don’t do the same cache twice if you don’t want to
  • The ability to add more caches at a point in the future (at an additional cost)
  • Powered for 12 hours on AAA batteries

The features that seem the nicest about the Geomate.jr is that the loading of the geocaches is automatic.  You don’t need to input the coordinates into your device yourself since they already exist within the memory.  This seems idealy suited to kids who might not be familiar with how to input some information into a handhelf GPS navigation device like the Garmin eTrex H Handheld GPS Navigator.

But I also think that this feature is also the biggest drawback to this device.  Without the ability to add your own caches to the device you run the risk of the Geomate.jr running out of caches for your child to go and find.  Do you really want to fork out money for cache updates that you could do for free on the more traditional handheld GPS?  I don’t think I would as long as my child was wise enough to be able to input coordinates into the GPS device themselves.

It is also pretty important to note that none of these devices are going to let you be able to track your kids with GPS.  Instead, they are just there for enterainment purposes.

What do you think, is the Geomate.jr worth buying or would you rather go with the Garmin eTrex H Handheld GPS Navigator?

GPS Tracking Blockers

Update 4/16/2012:  GPS jammers are illegal and should not be used.  After several events in recent years the US government has really began to crack down on GPS jammers since they pose a significant risk to public safety and  national infrastructure.  Consumers should not buy these devices unless they are approved by the FCC.  Any jammer in use should be retired and an alternative method to ensure location privacy should be employed since penalties for jammer use could exceed $100,000 and include jail time.

With all this talk about how the police sometimes can and sometimes cannot use GPS tracking on your car I did a little research to see if there was something that a private citizen could do to prevent such activity from occurring.  There is – it is called a GPS tracking blocker.  What this device appears to be is a sort of signal scrambler that will confusing the tracking unit, making your vehicle “invisible” to the satellite eyes in the sky.

How Does  a GPS Blocker Work?

As stated above, the blocker will work by emitting a signal that interferes with the signals transmitted by the Global Positioning System that orbits the earth overhead.  The effectiveness of these blockers is only a few meters, so making sure that you place your device in such a way that it will be able to block a device placed in the front or back of your car is important.  If you are driving a large tractor trailer and there are tracking devices installed somewhere in the trailer section then your blocker is probably not going to work.  Also, if you have a particularly large SUV or truck be sure that your blocker is going to have a radius that will cover your entire vehicle.

The signal that the GPS tracking blocker emits is 1/1000 of the radiant energy that a cell phone transmits so you can be sure that these devices are much safer to have near you than a cell phone.  Speaking of which, it is important to note that these devices will block regular navigation GPS units from working properly but it will not block the signal from a cell phone.  What this means is that if you cell phone uses some form of alternative to GPS to get its position information you are going to need to buy a cell phone signal blocker if you don’t want people knowing where you are because of your cell phone.

A Word On Criminals

Now I want to be clear, I don’t want any criminals to be buying cell phone blockers or GPS blockers so that they can go do some sort of illegal activity.  That is just wrong and I don’t want that to happen.   But I do know that there are going to be some law abiding citizens out there who don’t want the government to be able to tell them what they should and where they should be and who they should be associating with.  They want their private life to be their private life and they want to have it without the threat of the government knowing everything about them.

GPS blockers are for this type of person.  They obey the law, they just don’t want the law breathing down their necks.

Where Can I Buy A GPS Blocker

Amazon offers a pretty limited selection of GPS tracking blockers that can be found here:

These device are certainly not very cheap and range anywhere from $50-$150. They do seem very sturdy and able to withstand a lot of wear and tear, but anything with an antenna like the ones found on these devices needs the antenna to be in good working condition if it is to block the signals the way that you want it to. I personally have not tested any of these GPS tracking blockers myself, but they do seem like they should work. If you have one or try one out, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below.

New York Requires Warrant To GPS Track Suspects

If you were one of the people scared out of your mind that some states like Wisconsin allow warrantless GPS tracking of cars then you can breath a sigh of relief in knowing that not all the courts in our nation agree.  New York, in a recent court decision, ruled that police in the state must have a warrant when placing a GPS tracking device on a suspects car – joining Washington and Oregon who already have rulings in places ensuring this.

The New York court differed from the Wisconsin one in one major way – the New York court seemed to think that GPS tracking was in fact different from physical surveillance or other technological forms of tracking (like a radio frequency emitter).  The court wrote:

Here, we are not presented with the use of a mere beeper to facilitate visual surveillance during a single trip. GPS is a vastly different and exponentially more sophisticated and powerful technology that is easily and cheaply deployed and has virtually unlimited and remarkably precise tracking capability. […]  Constant, relentless tracking of anything is now not merely possible but entirely practicable …. GPS is not a mere enhancement of human sensory capacity, it facilitates a new technological perception of the world in which the situation of any object may be followed and exhaustively recorded over …  a practically unlimited period. The potential for a similar capture of information or “seeing” by law enforcement would require, at a minimum, millions of additional police officers and cameras on every street lamp.

The majority opinion of the court is trying to make a distinction between the information gathered from physical surveillance of technologically assisted surveillance (the beeper from the 1983 Wisconsin case used as precedent in both this case the more recent Wisconsin case) and that made possible by a GPS tracking device.  The main thrust seems to be that in order to gather similar information on an individual you would need “millions of additional police.”

The court then goes on to discuss the privacy issues involved in GPS tracking cases:

One need only consider what the police may learn, practically effortlessly, from planting a single device. The whole of a person’s progress through the world, into both public and private spatial spheres, can be charted and recorded over lengthy periods …. Disclosed in the data retrieved from the transmitting unit, nearly instantaneously with the press of a button on the highly portable receiving unit, will be trips the indisputably private nature of which takes little imagination to conjure: trips to the psychiatrist, the plastic surgeon, the abortion clinic, the AIDS treatment center, the strip club, the criminal defense attorney, the by-the-hour motel, the union meeting, the mosque, synagogue or church, the gay bar and on and on. What the technology yields and records …  is a highly detailed profile … of where we go,  … of our associations — political, religious, amicable and amorous, to name only a few — and of the pattern of our professional and avocational pursuits. When multiple GPS devices are utilized, even more precisely resolved inferences about our activities are possible. And … it will be possible to tell from … who we are and are not with, when we are and are not with them, and what we do and do not carry on our persons — to mention just a few of the highly feasible empirical configurations.

This judgment reads to me that the court made its decision to deny warrantless GPS tracking because it would give the police a lot of information about a suspects activities and would be much, much cheaper than putting a “tail” on the suspect.

Personally, I can’t seem to make myself agree with the courts rulings.  I am not a lawyer nor am I trained in the law, but it seems to me like the information gather by a GPS tracking device attached to a car could be gather by a physical tail on a suspect – but just at a much greater cost.

A police officer could tell if a person drove their car to a mosque, or a church, or a bar, or a friends house, or to work, or to a soccer game, or to their child’s recital.  All this information would be easily accessible to any person capable of seeing and all of it would be occurring in public space – where people have no fundamental right to privacy.

Granted, GPS tracking a cell phone could provide police with a much larger amount of information that would track a person’s movement’s within completely private places – such as a doctors office, or a church building, or a private club – so perhaps the court’s decision is taking these into consideration as well.

However, I am concerned with the way their ruling could affect the police’s ability to easily and precisely put a tail on a suspects vehicle. GPS tracking for cars will only really track the movements of an individual’s car in public places – something that seems very reasonable for the police to be able to track with GPS.  It is much more cost effective and gives them an opportunity to utilize their skilled officers in other tasks.

In the end, whether or not GPS tracking for cars will require a warrant or not is going to be decided in cases like this all over the country by Appellate courts who are going to differ on what the nature of GPS tracking is and what that means for a person’s 4th Amendment rights.

Wisconsin Allows Warrantless GPS Tracking of Cars

In a decision filed on Mar 7, 2009, the Wisconsin VI District Court of Appeals made a ruling that has interesting implications for GPS tracking’s place in society and law enforcement.  In the case in question, State of Wisconsin v. Michael A. Sveum, the defendant (Michael Sveum) was arguing that the GPS tracking device installed on his car by the police was in violation of his 4th Amendment right of protection from unreasonable searches and seizures.  The police claim that they did not violate Sveum’s 4th Amendment rights.

The crux of the issue here is summarized nicely by the court in their written decision, authored by Judge Paul Lundsten:

Michael Sveum challenges his aggravated stalking conviction. At Sveum’s jury trial, the prosecution presented detailed tracking information about the movements of Sveum’s car obtained from a Global Positioning System tracking device (GPS device) that police secretly attached to his car. Sveum argues that the police obtained this tracking information in violation of his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. The State responds that no Fourth Amendment search or seizure occurs when police attach a GPS device to the outside of a vehicle while it is in a place accessible to the public and then use that device to track the vehicle while it is in public view.  We agree with the State.

The court’s decision has some interesting implications.  What the court essentially did in ruling in favor of the state in this appeal is open up the public to warrantless GPS tracking of a suspects car, truck, or van.

This has caused a lot of buzz, with fear mongers taking up the call of state oppression and fears that their rights of privacy are being violated unduly.  I think a lot of this talk is not constructive and does little to actaully help protect citizen’s privacy from unreasonable searches and seizures.

When you sit down and think about it logically, the court’s decision makes a lot of sense.  GPS tracking is a lot like physical surveillance, except that you don’t have to spend tax payer’s money on sitting a person outside a suspects home for hours on end.  According to one news report, the GPS tracking for cars was used for 5 weeks to monitor Sveum’s activity. How much would it have cost to put a tail on a suspect day and night, 7 days a week, for five weeks?  A lot of money.

After the 5 weeks of tracking was up, the device was retrieved from the car and then processed by police.  The location information that they uncovered helped them get a warrant to search Sveum’s car and home, the resulting evidence discovered was enough for a jury to convict the defendant of aggravated stalking.

If you think about it, the information gathered from the GPS tracking device installed on the car was exactly the same as that that could be gathered from physical observation.  Cars travel in public places and can be easily view by authorities with a desire to do so.  Such tailing is not a violation of a person’s 4th Amendment right and so the court reasoned that the GPS tracking was permissible.

It also reasoned that since tailing a suspect can be done without a warrant (since their activity is within the public sphere) then the GPS tracking of a car can also be done without a warrant.

Now in the Sveum case there was a warrant that let the police use the GPS tracking device, but the language of the court’s ruling indicated that this warrant was unnecessary.  Again, the language of the court:

Sveum challenges the admission of GPS tracking information showing the movements of his car. He argues that the warrant authorizing police to place the GPS device on his car was overly broad. The State responds that the warrant was unnecessary because no Fourth Amendment search or seizure occurred. In reply, Sveum implicitly concedes that placing the GPS device on his car and using it to monitor public travel does not implicate the Fourth Amendment. He contends, however, that because the GPS device permitted the police to monitor the location of his car while it was in his garage and in his employer’s garage, places out of public view, all of the information obtained from the GPS device should have been suppressed. Because we agree with the State that no Fourth Amendment search or seizure occurred, we do not address Sveum’s warrant argument.

Clear as crystal – the police, at least in Wisconsin, do not need to have a search warrant to place a GPS tracking device on your car.  They can do it for any reason and for presumably any purpose – as long as their resources allow it.

If you want to read the full text of the court’s decision you can do so here: State v. Michael A. Sveum

Update: May 20, 2009

According to the New York Court of Appeals, police inside New York must have a warrant when when using GPS tracking on a suspects car.  This is directly opposite of what the Wisconsin court ruled just a few weeks ago.  This difference in ruling highlights some of the current issues with the use of new technology in ever expanding areas of life.  Readers old enough to remember the stir that wire tapping raised when it was first introduced will see some similarities between that and GPS tracking.  If you want to learn more about this case and their ruling,check out our post New York Requires Warrant To GPS Track Suspects

Do you think that there is something fundamentally wrong with the Wisconsin’s ability to freely use GPS tracking on individuals?  Why or why not?

Cell Phone GPS Tracking

Cell phone GPS tracking is a little tricky to talk about because mobile phones have GPS-like capabilities without having to be GPS devices.  So, in some cases, a cell phone is able to be tracked even when it doesn’t have a GPS receiver installed in it.  The reason behind this is rather simple and has everything to do with a principle I have already covered on this site: trilateration.

Once you understand the basics behind this principle you will see that is is obvious that a cell phone could be tracked whether or not it was GPS enable.  Simply put, trilateration takes the know distance of an entity from 3 or more objects to calculate the exact location of that entity.  I know, that sounds confusing – but it really isn’t.

Imagine that you are sitting somewhere in a room.  The room is a 10×10 square and you are somewhere in it and you want to find out exactly where you are in the room.  There is a desk in the middle of one of the walls that you are 5 feet from.  On the exact opposite wall there is another table in the middle of the wall that you are exactly 5 feet from as well.  Then there is a mirror on the third wall that you are looking at yourself from 5 feet away.  Where are you in the room?

If you answered, “In the center.”  Then you already know everything you need about trilateration to completely understand how a cell phone can work without actually having a GPS tracking device installed in it.

Let’s use the example of the two table and the mirrors from above to help us understand this.  The tables and the mirrors here represent cell phone towers that are dotted across urban landscapes all over the country.  In my city, they are dressed up to look like palm trees or other pleasant things but you still know what it is, a cell tower.

These cell towers transmit cellular signals out to mobile phones.  The signals travel at a constant speed which makes finding out the distance between cell phones and cell towers very easy.  All one must do is record the amount of time it takes between the time that the signal was transmitted by the tower and when it arrived at the cell phone.  You then take the time that it took and multiply it by the speed at which the signal traveled.  This looks something like this:

Distance Traveled = Speed x Time

This will give you the cell phone’s distance from the cell tower.  Since the cell phone provider (a cell phone provider is a company like Nextel, AT&T, Verizon, TMobile, etc.) knows exactly where they cell tower is, they know that the cell phone is within x number of feet from that tower.  Imagine a big circle surrounding the cell tower in the map in your mind.

Now imagine a second cell tower that also transmits a signal that is picked up by the cell phone.  This is a certain distance from this second cell tower so imagine another circle around this second tower.  Where the two circles intersect are the potential locations of the cell phone as far as the cell phone provider is concerned.

Once you add a third tower in the mix you should have a pretty darn good fix on the location of the cell phone – all without the use of GPS tracking devices.

It is important to understand that this is also exactly how GPS works, but instead of cellular towers on the urban landscape you have satellites in the heavenly firmament  and instead of circles you have spheres around each satellite.  This is pretty amazing stuff if you ask me.

Now that we have learned that cell phones can have GPS tracking without actually having a GPS device installed in it, let’s take a look at what can be done with GPS cell phone tracking.

There are several different applications that should be considered, but we will only take a look at three to give us a flavor of just how awesome this type of technology can be.  Cellphone GPS tracking can be used for navigation purposes, to monitor a loved ones activity, and to learn useful things about your current location.

Cell Phone Tracking and Navigation

There is little doubt that the use of GPS for navigation purposes is a huge industry.  That was, after all, one of the initial impetus behind the Department of Defense creating the satellite system.  They wanted a way to know where they assets were but they also wanted to us it to tell where there assets were going.

GPS navigation has become the norm in many families across America with Garmins or TomToms or Magellans replacing the friendly AAA triptiks of two decades ago.  I still remember as a child going into the AAA office with my mother to get a triptik ready for a family vacation.  Now, you just enter your trip into the GPS and it does all the routing for you.

Cell phone companies realized that this was a huge market and that their technology could easily break into it.  They could either us GPS technology to do the mapping just like a Garmin can, or they could leverage the cellular signals they were already broadcasting to create new navigation systems.  Some companies decided to go with GPS and other stuck with the cell signal.

Either way you look at, cell phones now use GPS or a GPS-like technology to give turn-by-turn directions to drivers all over the country.  While this isn’t GPS tracking as most would think of it, it still is using a cellular phone to track and record position information.  It can tell people how to fast you are traveling, an ETA (estimated time of arrival), and it can actively tell you your current location.  This is GPS tracking if you ask me.

As we will see this information can be used for other purposes other than navigation.

Cell Phone GPS Tracking And Location Monitoring

Location monitoring is another useful application of GPS in cell phones.  Unlike the type of tracking that goes on for navigation purposes, the information used to track the location of a cell phone is actually transmitted from the cell phone back to the cell company.  This process is often referred to as “tracing a cell phone.”

We hear about it all the time if we watch any crime show drama.  They are always putting “a trace on the cell phone” or “triangulating the cell’s position” – especially when a kidnapper or other bad person decides to call up our favorite detectives for a to have a chat.  Essentially what is happening in these instances is that a third party, in the case the police, are using information gathered by a cell phone provider to find the location of a caller.

The police obviously find this information particularly useful, especially when responding to a 911 call made from a cell phone.  But there are other interesting applications for this as well.  One of them is to GPS track a teen in order to monitor their driving habits or to make sure that they are not lying to you about where they are. All teens use cell phones these days so this service is relatively painless for you and for them.  It is also relatively cheap and can be as little as $6 a month for 4 phones.

Another application of cell phone tracking is for getting fitness performance metrics.  Just take your phone with you on a run or bike ride when you have a certain application installed and you will automatically get information like the average speed of your run and the distance traveled.  You will even be able to see your entire course on a mapping application like Google Maps.

Another bit of information that cell phones have been regularly used to monitor is the activity of a spouse or lover suspected of cheating.  In situations where this could be going on it is imperative that the suspecting spouse snoops around the other’s activities.  This can involved GPS tracking or it can be through other methods, it just has to get done.  Cell phone GPS tracking can be a good solution for individuals that find themselves in this situation so you might want to consider using it.  It might be difficult if you have separate cell phone plans or they regularly pay the cell phone bill since any tracking charges will undoubtedly show up on your bill.  But if you are in charge of this you might be able to set up GPS tracking without them even knowing it.

Finally, cell phones can be a great way to introduce GPS into a kids life.  You could use the phone for GPS tracking for kids or you could just use it to help your child learn about the world around them.  Kids do great with mapping applications and it can really help them get a better understanding of the world around them.  They can also be used to keep kids safe in case of an emergency or other terrible occurance.

These types of location monitoring and tracking applications are going to become more prevalent over the next decade as we experiment with this relatively new technology.  It will be interesting to see how it all pans out.

GPS Tracking Cell Phones and Random Data

The last way that I wanted to talk about was the use of cell phones to communicate random data based upon the location of the user.  What I have in mind for this are apps (like those found on the iPhone) that tell you something specific that you can take action on or find interesting about your location.

If you are on a street and are feeling like Chinese food but don’t know the area you can type “Chinese” into this cell phone tracking app and it will give the location of the 5 closest Chinese restaurants along with some customer reviews and relative price points for the meals.

This idea can have many different applications in areas as diverse as real estate and movie theaters; fishing and ball room dance classes; or finding a replacement part on a car and finding a nanny.  Whatever someone is willing to write an app for the GPS tracking cell phone is going to be able to provide laser-like access to position information that can be used to make life simpler and finding the closest solution to a problem easier.

All of these applications of cell phone GPS tracking have current uses today, but can only be expected to be improved upon with time and advances in personal tracking technology.  You simply cannot underestimate the power of GPS tracking in a cell phone package – it is, in my opinion the future of all things GPS.

Free GPS Cell Phone Tracking

I have compiled a short list of free GPS tracking software and applications, with the majority of the applications working on mobile phones.  Feel free to check out this list and see if your cell phone is already compatible with one of the systems.  If it isn’t, you could always buy a new phone, right?

I also have made some comments on how free free GPS tracking really is – if you are interested in reading those as well.  To sum up I said that if you already have everything that you need (i.e. GPS smartphone and a robust data plan) then it will truly be free.  If you don’t have either of these things then getting free GPS cell phone tracking is going to be anything but free.  You will have to pay the costs associated with getting the new phone and subscribing to the data plan.

GPS Tracking Watches

GPS tracking watches combine the power of GPS tracking technology with the usefulness of personal time pieces. They are small, highly portable, and extremely useful in several different applications. In many cases, these watches can be a bit bulky – but they are still usually lightweight and agile. Some of the latest devices produced by Garmin are the same size as a “normal” sport or fitness watch, even with the GPS device built in.

When you step back and get the big picture about GPS tracking watches you will find the most GPS watches fall within one of two main categories: kids watches and fitness watches.

Contents:

GPS Tracking Watches for Kids

GPS tracking watches for kids are all about one thing: safety. These devices are meant to connect parents to their children in such a way that parents are continually aware of their child’s location and in the unlikely event of an abduction or kidnapping the parent will have enough information to locate their child quickly with the help of the police or other law enforcement agency.

These devices are extremely difficult to find, but there are some available at online retailers. Brickhouse Security, as an example, does have a GPS tracking watch designed for kids that is featured in the picture to the left. This little device is extremely powerful – not only does it provide very precise location information, but it also has a distress Alarm and a built-in cellular speakerphone that will allow your child to contact you, the police, or emergency personnel if the need ever arose.

Not many companies have created such fine watches. One reason why these devices are so difficult to come by is that for them to work effectively at making the GPS information available to parents is that they must find a way to transmit the signal out to a data processing center. The watch must be a data pusher rather than just a data logger (like fitness GPS tracking watches).

Turning a watch into a data pusher is no small feat. The best devices for this are GPS tracking cell phones – mainly because they already have cell phone technology built in and can leverage it to transmit position information to a central processing station (the does use cell phone technology in their wrist watch to push location data out). What would a cell phone look like if it was attached to your wrist? Pretty bulky, my friend. Pretty bulky.

So the technological problem of turning a watch into a cellphone-like device is one major hurdle that GPS manufacturers have had to overcome; and they have done so with very limited success.

Another main reason why GPS tracking watches for kids have not taken off and become extremely popular is that they suffer from some serious detection flaws. What I am talking about here is not GPS signal detection, but bad man detection.

Will someone taking your child really ignore the bulky device on their wrist? Will the locking mechanism really keep the watch from being removed? Won’t someone evil enough to steal a child also be evil enough to remove a hand to remove the watch that will get them caught?

It is nearly impossible for a child to hide the watch, especially if it is locked on to their wrist. This creates some serious safety issues and can essentially negate any benefit that GPS tracking might provide in this terrible situation.

These are the two main issues with kids GPS watches. These issues can be solved by creating smaller, “normal” looking devices that still have all the power of GPS tracking and a cell phone.

GPS Tracking Watches for Fitness

Fitness is a huge industry in the United States where billions of dollars are spent annually on fitness equipment, clothing, gym memberships, and fitness accessories. One small portion of this very big pie are GPS tracking watches.

In order to get a piece of this pie, several major players have arisen in the GPS watch market. There is one GPS manufacturer that has taken their product and converted it into GPS tracking watches as well as a few watch companies that have incorporated GPS in their design. The major players are Garmin, Suunto, Timex, and Polar.

There are two major methods of translating GPS tracking into fitness watched: integrating the GPS directly into the watch or using a GPS pod to collect that location data.

Garmin and Suunto have watch models that integrate the GPS receiver directly into the watch. The most recent Garmin model is the GARMIN Forerunner 405 Black GPS Enabled Sports Watch/ HRM. This is a fully integrated GPS watch that also sports a heart rate monitor (HRM). Many reviews of this device have been particularly favorable as it has a sleek, “normal” design that actually looks like a wrist watch might (unlike some of the previous Garmin Forerunner models). It is relatively lightweight at 2.1 ounces, making it easy to use during a long run or other outdoor activity.

The heart rate monitor is another great benefit to using a fitness GPS tracking watch like the Garmin Forerunner 405. This small add on will give you immediate feedback on how hard your body is working and if you are getting a good workout while you are on your run. But the benefit doesn’t end there. Once you are home you will be able to sit down in front of your computer and get a bird’s eye view of your workout, giving you a better understanding of what you need to work on to continue to improve your fitness level.

The other way that companies have made GPS available or fitness watches is via a GPS pod that you attach to your shoe or waist. These devices then capture the GPS signal and transmit it up to the watch which then takes the information and stores and displays it to you, the user. Many of these watches also come with a heart rate monitor.

Here is a robust list of fitness GPS tracking watches found at Amazon.com divided up by their brand:

Buy A GPS Tracking Watch

Buying a GPS tracking watch is certainly not a necessary purchase – not for child safety nor for physical fitness. However, these devices can be extremely fun and enjoyable if you want to know more precise information about your fitness routine or you feel a need to know your child’s location on demand. Make sure you consider all your options carefully before buying a GPS tracking watch.

GPS Tracking For Teens

For some reason, once our children hit their teenage years they can become rebellious and obstinate, rejecting the care and oversight of their parents. Not all teens fall into this trap of our culture, but even the most well behaved teen is going to get into some trouble now and then as they experiment with their new found freedom and grow into mature adults. We all make mistakes on our road to maturity.

GPS tracking can be a useful tool in the hands of a concerned or watchful parent – and it doesn’t have to be used only to monitor the behavioral issues a teenager may be expressing. These devices can help empower parents to give their teens even more freedom once they become aware of how careful, law abiding, and respectful their teenagers are. The information gathered by a device could also aid a parent in making an informed decision about about dangers presented by poor driving habits, skipping school, or the neighborhoods that life can take their kids into. Despite their larger size, high mental capabilities, and maturing bodies, teenagers are still children in many respects and parents still feel a degree of responsibility to keep their child safe.

If you have a teen with behavioral problems or you just like to know where your child is for safety’s sake then there are some real solutions for you and your family that can included GPS tracking. A solution’s success for your situation will undoubtedly depend on your own specific needs and desires, so be sure that you think about your solution carefully before purchasing a device. These things can be expensive and you don’t want to waste money on something when other relational steps could be taken to solve the problem.

In general, there are three main categories that any tracking device will fall into – car tracking, cell phone tracking, and covert tracking.

Tracking Your Teen’s Car With GPS


Learning to drive has long been a “coming of age” event for teens and driving represents a significant portion of their travel time. If your teen is anything like the one’s I’ve met then as soon as they are able they are hounding their parents for the keys at every opportunity.  They want to drive to and from school; to drive to their friends house; to go out to the movies.  They want to go out on dates. They even want you to pay for gas!

What they are essentially after is the freedom to do what they want when they want to.  This is a pretty normal thing for teenagers to experience since they are just at the beginning stages of becoming an adult and will try to emulate many of the things adults can do with their freedoms.

Many teens even have their own car these days; given to them by parents who enjoy the freedom that having a driving, mobile teen provides.  There is nothing inherently wrong with this, but it can create some challenges in keeping tabs on your kid if they are (secretly) rebellious.  In some ways, when a teen has a car it becomes much harder to know where they are, even if they are obedient and well behaved, and can create a safety nightmare for parents prone to worry.

How Does GPS Tracking A Car Work?

Tracking a car is fundamentally no different from tracking anything else with GPS, except that there are devices that have been manufactured and marketed specifically for this purpose. These devices are sometimes referred to as data pushers or real-time tracking devices. They work by gathering and calculating location data from the Global Positioning Satellites orbiting the earth and transmitting that data via radio or cellular frequencies. Your tracking provider takes this data, makes it look pretty, and makes it available to you from a (generally) web-based interface.

Your GPS device will be able to report the vector of the vehicle (both speed and direction). Many companies will also keep the data sent to it by the tracker and organize it into a useful “history” report. A driving “history” can be very helpful to a parent trying to verify a teen’s story about their whereabouts or driving practices. They won’t be able to so much as speed without you knowing it!  And that is a big deal when it comes to keeping them safe.

What Are The Limitations On Tracking A Teen By Car?

There are some limitations to this method of tracking.  The first is that it only works on teenagers who are legally eligible to drive.  In most states this is at the age of 16 1/2 while in others it can be as old as 18.  By the time they are 18 most teens should be sufficiently mature to make good decisions about how fast they drive, who they hang out with, and what activities they participate in without their parent’s watchful eye hanging over them.

However, that does not mean that a GPS tracking device installed in the car is not going to be useful – it just might be less of a parenting tool and more and an emergency tool.  It can still help you locate a stolen car.  It can still help you find the location of the car in case of a medical emergency.  It will still help you find the scene of a crash or a lost vehicle.  It just might not be used to make sure your teen isn’t speeding.

The second limitation is that it only works when your teen is using the car.  This is probably a much bigger limitation than most people realize.  Cars can easily be ditched by savvy teens or sinister assailants, negating the effectiveness of the tracker for the purpose that you intended.

Imagine for a second that the teen you want to track is aware that their car has a GPS unit installed in it.  They tell you that they are going over to a friend’s to hang out and watch some teen flick like Epic Movie.  However, what they tell you is not really what they are going to do.  They have really planned on going to a drinking party with this friend in the friend’s automobile, leaving the car with the GPS tracking unit safely at the friend’s house.

When you check up on your teen in your web-based account that provides real-time data on their whereabouts you find that the car is at the friend’s house.  You breathe a sigh of relief, but your teen is out making some bad peer-to-teen choice behaviors at the drinking party and you will be none the wiser.  That is where the next teen tracking device comes into play – the cell phone.

Tracking Your Teen’s Cell Phone


This is probably going to be the most useful and the most widely used method of using tracking a position of a teenager with GPS.  Unlike cars, cell phones appear to be in the hands of 99% of teenagers.  This is an unprecedented proliferation, but is not surprising given how useful they are for communicating between family members and for entertaining their users.

Most teens will use their phones to text friends, others will use it to take pictures, others to chat, and still others to browse the internet or update their Facebook page.  But now parents can use the same cell phones that are already in their teen’s hands to track their whereabouts and keep them safe.

Tapping Into To The Power of Cell Phones To Track Your Teen

Because cellar phones are everywhere, big wigs in the telecommunications industry decided that they wanted to compete with GPS companies like Garmin, TomTom, and Magellan in the navigation market with their cell phones.  They have since made some pretty significant inroads here because GPS technology and the radio positioning technology that cell phones use works off the same basic mathematical principle – trilateration.

Once that market was penetrated, cell phone providers realized that they could leverage the technology that they produced for GPS navigation for GPS tracking.  This birthed specialized phones designed specifically for kids that would enable parents and law enforcement to recover missing children by tracking their cell phone.

Many cell phone providers now offer plans that let you begin to track your child’s position information.  These planes also record vector information (speed and location), fulfilling one of the most important features of a car tracking device discussed above.  Cell phones are generally going to be with your child at all times, thus avoiding some of the limitations of car based tracking.  Cell phones have the added feature of allowing parents to verify that your child is with their phone simply by calling them up – their voice on the other end of the line is the proof.

Another great benefit is that your teen has every incentive to keep their cell phone charged and ready for use – they want to use it to talk to their friends!  This means you won’t have to change the tracking device’s battery because your teenager has a very large incentive to do it for you.  Its a win-win for both of you.

Cell Phone Tracking Limitations

Despite cell phone tracking’s relative superiority over car based tracking there are still some serious limitations to tracking your child in this fashion.  The first is that in some circumstances – like abduction – your child is probably going to get their cell phone taken away by their abductor.  This is probably the most dire of situations where you would want the tracking device to work perfectly, but because of the knowledge that cell phones can be used by the authorities to locate individuals it is probably going to be the first thing searched for and gotten ride of by an assailant.

The other limitation is that cell phones do not always receive signals from cell towers.  This is particularly problematic in remote areas where cell phone penetration is less established.  If a phone is unable to make a connection to its network then any location data gathered by the phone cannot be communicated to you, the parent. The data may be still be stored on the phone, but it does not do you any good until you can get your hands on it.

In the end though, the cell phone is probably the cheapest, easiest, and most reliable of all the tracking options available to parents on the market today.  It should definitely be a strong contender in your quest to use GPS tracking for your teen.

Tracking Your Teen With Covert GPS


The last method I am aware of is using more covert methods of tracking your teen.  This is different than tracking the car they use or utilizing their cell phone to keep tabs on them.  While you may track them in these ways without them knowing (i.e. in a covert way) I like to think of covert tracking as something rather different.

It is more spy-like in my mind and has more to do with sticking a GPS tracker in a shoe, or a bag, or an iPod.  These types of trackers are designed specifically to avoid detection – by the person who the device is tracking or by someone who would steal the asset or abduct the assets bearer.

Covert GPS devices are small, compact, battery operated, and extremely powerful.

What Types of Covert GPS Are Available?

You’d be surprised at the large number of GPS tracking devices that fall into this category.  They can range from stuffed animals to watches to shoes to jackets.   Almost anything a teenager carries can be turned into a set of watchful eyes.

When thinking about where you want to install a covert device it is important that you pick items that your teen uses every day, like shoes or a winter jacket, since these devices will have the highest probability of staying on your child no matter what happens to them.

Why Choose Covert GPS Tracking For Teens?

The only reason to go with covert devices is if your teenager they are at high risk for abduction and you want to be able to locate them quickly and efficiently.  This is the situation when cell phones simply won’t do since they will be quickly destroyed by attackers.

Another good reason to use covert devices is that they can go without detection for longer periods of time – but they do suffer from battery life limitations so be careful how you use them.  The last thing you want to do it so get caught while you change the tracker’s battery!

Should I Be Secret Or Open About Tracking My Teen?

Now that we have discussed some of the options that can help you keep track of your teen it is really important that we evaluate any moral problems with using GPS tracking on a teenager.  Is it wrong to track them at all?  If I think it is right, do I need to tell them that I am doing it or can I ‘keep it secret?’

I think that each person is going to end up answering this question differently, but my take on it is this – it is okay to track a teen without their knowledge.  This is also my answer when thinking about tracking a child.  It is an okay and acceptable practice given certain circumstances.

My reasons for this is threefold:

  1. Parents have a responsibility to ensure the safety of their child.  It is even my opinion that parents are supposed to protect their children even if the child expresses a desire not to be protected.  If a teen is going to engage in activity that directly affects their safety – such as speeding, drinking, doing drugs, having sex before marriage – then it is a parents obligation to take measures that help them ensure their teenager’s safety.
  2. Teens are still under the care of their parents.  The main source of the parents obligation to their teen is that the teen still lives under the care and provision of the parent.  If the teen was self-sufficient I could definitely see an argument for restricting a parents right to know the location of a child at all times.  However, this is often not the case for children between the ages of 13 and 18 – and is often not even the case for kids between 18 and 22.  They often still rely heavily on their parents for financial and moral support.
  3. Many teens do not own their cell phones and cars.  At the very least you have to give parents the right to track their assets, right?  The car is the property of the parents so they should know where it is and how it is being driven.  The cell phone is paid for and provided by the parents, so they have a stake in where it is and how it is treated.  The fact that they are also able to track their teen’s location is merely a consequence of the teen using something that the parent owns.  If they want to avoid this type of tracking then they should buy their own phone and car.

With all that said, I don’t think it is always in the parent’s or the teen’s best interest to keep the GPS tracking a secret.  In many, many instances it will work out much better for both parties if the device is clearly explained and accounted for.  Tracking teen with GPS is just a tool in the hands of parents and teenagers to make life safer for everyone – communication should always be clear and honest where appropriate.  Without that, no amount of GPS tracking is going to do teens or parents any good.

GPS Tracking For Kids

Check out one of the smallest and most powerful GPS trackers for children: AmberAlert GPS

If you have ever found yourself wishing that you knew at any moment where your child was with an accuracy of up to 3 meters, then GPS tracking for kids might be something that you want to take a look at.  GPS has been around since the 80s when it was released for public use (before the Global Positioning Satellite system had been reserved solely for the military), but has only recently been made available for use by private persons for the tracking of the people closest to them – their children.

Before GPS tracking devices were simply too bulky to be of much use on a child – they were either too heavy to be safely and continuously carried, too large to be of much use for covert, safety oriented tracking, or they were too inaccurate to be of much help to consumers or their kids.  All this has changed in the last 5-10 years as technology has become increasingly smaller and more efficient.

Let me explain this with a similar bit of technological breakthrough that we have had in the same amount of time – namely that of computer storage. 10 years ago it would have a pipe dream to have a desktop computer with 160 GB of storage space – now iPods come with that much memory.  In the same way that computer technology in general has advanced so rapidly, GPS tracking technology has made leaps and bounds as well – becoming increasingly smaller, more power, more efficient, and more accurate.

All of these changes have been good for parents looking to keep tabs on their children with a technological solution.  But this begs the question, why should any child be tracked with GPS?

Reasons to Choose GPS Tracking For Kids

As far as I can tell, there are three main reasons to use GPS tracking for your kids: safety concerns, behavior problems, and paranoia.

Safety is probably the main reason most parents are going to want to use GPS to keep tabs on their children.  They want something that will quickly and accurately locate their child at a moments notice.  Is the child supposed to be at home but hasn’t been heard from in over an hour?  Are they supposed to be at Tim’s house to hang out after school and do some homework but a call to Tim’s parents reveals that your child never arrived?  Do you worry that something could happen to your child as they wait for you after baseball practice in the park by the canyon?  If any of these situations have happened to you then you know that you wish there was some way to find out where you child is right away.  GPS tracking for kids can provide accurate and reliable information for you in a way that is actionable and useful.

Take a moment and imagine that your child did not come home on time like you were expecting, fear is gripping you as you wait by the window for their arrival.  It could be that they simply hung around too long after school playing tether ball with their friends or took too long in the park as they cut across it on their way home.  You want to find out where your daughter is right now.  You run to your computer and you log in to your child’s GPS tracking watch provider to get a look at their position.  Your heart breathes a sigh of relief as you see that they are on their way home traveling at 2 mph about 2 blocks from home – they must have lingered too long at the park.

Now imagine that same situation where you find that your child is traveling 65 mph on a major highway heading away from home?  You’d dial 911 in an instant and you could be able to give the police some seriously useful information that would likely lead to the recovery of your child – all thanks to a GPS tracking device in your child’s backpack.

Another important reason to use GPS tracking for kids in some circumstance is behavioral problems or mental disabilities.  A child that is prone to wander because they suffer from some sort of behavioral or mental disorder is someone that you want to find and find quickly.  Short trips to the supermarket, or family vacations, or even simple trips to the park can become living nightmares as you search frantically for the child that has wandered off and slipped out of your site.  Child locators, a certain type of GPS tracking device, work great in this situation where quick feedback without the use of computer is necessary.  They are not always the best solution for families since they do have some issues and cell phones are becoming internet capable in a big way – making the obstacle of internet access to use location information much smaller.

And the final reason to get a GPS device to track your child is because you are paranoid and need to find someway to calm your own fears just a little bit.  The fact is that the vast majority of children have no need for GPS tracking.  They will go through their lives and never need the safety of always having their location just a moment away from being known by their parent.  Running a little late, being alone at a park after baseball practice, and playing hooky with a friend instead of being where they are supposed to be are all  normal activities for kids to be doing at some point in their life.  You probably did the same thing and your parents didn’t need a GPS device to keep tabs on you.

However, if you are person who works in Mexico City or some other place that routinely has kidnappings then it might be a good idea to get a GPS tracking device for your children so that when Man on Fire happens to you and your family, your Denzel Washington will be able to kick the crap out of the bad kidnappers who stole your Dakota Fanning.

Now that we have established three legitimate reasons to go out and purchase some sort of GPS tracking device for your child, it  begs the question, “What devices can I get that will provide GPS tracking for kids?”

Device That Use GPS Tracking For Kids

There are three main devices that you are going to find around the web and in stores that will assist you in keeping tabs on your child: gps tracking watches, covert GPS trackers, and kids GPS phones.

GPS tracking watches are a small, reliable, and kid friendly option for parents seeking to use GPS tracking with their children.  These devices are exactly what their name sounds like – they are a GPS tracking device that fits on the wrist of your child.  There are a couple of different brands available, but none of them are household names (certainly not Garmin, TomTom, or Magellan if that is what you were hoping for – though Garmin does offer a fitness GPS watch).  Some of the watches look a little funky, but in general they do provide you with what you are expecting.

In general, a GPS watch for kids is going to look a little bulky on their wrist, have some extravagantly ugly colors, and will probably throw up warning signals to any would be villain to get rid of the watch ASAP.  These devices are probably not as easy at GPS phones to get your child to use, but being attached at the wrist may make them less likely to be randomly lost.

The next option for parents to consider is covert GPS tracking for kids.  Again, there are a variety of different implementations to consider when going the covert route.  Do I go with a GPS in the shoe, teddy bear, coat, or backpack?  Do I go with a build in device or do I find something that I sew or attach myself?  How you answer these questions will determine what product you purchase.

The amount of information that you are going to get with a more covert approach to tracking is the same as what you would find with a a tracking watch, but the idea is that these covert trackers will escape detection for a very significant period of time.  If the device is hidden well enough in a “necessary” piece of equipment or apparel then you are almost certain that you will be able to find your child in any and all circumstances.

And finally, we have kids GPS phones.  These are kids cell phones that have integrated GPS technology so that they can get an accurate read on the phones position under almost any circumstance provided that the phone is on.

This combination of cell phone and GPS technology is very powerful.  A GPS signal will be able to give position information if the phone cannot use cell towers to establish a location, and cell towers can establish a location when a direct line of site with the sky has been obstructed by a car trunk, cement wall, or mound of dirt.  The cell phones power is in its usability in almost every circumstance.

This power is also its greatest weakness when considering it as a GPS tracking device for kids.  Everyone and there mother knows that cell phones can be used to communicate position information to the authorities.  This means that it is often the first thing to go if your child is in an emergency situation.  Kids GPS cell phones must be kept quiet and used very wisely by your child if it is to be effective at recovering them from something horrible.

In most normal conditions, kids GPS phones are great because they also let you talk directly with your child.  If they are late coming home, simply call them and ask them where they are – if what they tell you is different from what you computer is saying then you can deal with your child as you see fit.  The power to do so is now in your hands.

A Final Word On GPS Tracking For Kids

One thing that I haven’t mentioned yet but is very pertinent to our discussion here is the GPS tracking for kids costs money.  You are going to have to go in up front for a tracking device (whether it is a GPS tracking watch, covert GPS tracking device, or a kids GPS phone) and you are probably going to be hit with a reoccurring service charge every month to be able to use the tracking capability on the device.  This can add up to big money for a family already strapped for cash.

My advice is to think very carefully about using GPS tracking for kids and to only use it if it makes real sense given your family’s unique set of circumstances.

GPS Tracking In Cell Phone Recovers Missing Child

The other day I was reading some news and stumbled upon a story that had a lot to do with what I talk about here – GPS for kids. On January 3, 2009 Natalie Maltais, a 9-year-old, was abducted. Four days later, with the assistance of GPS, a cell phone, and Google Maps little Natalie was found by authorities who returned her safe and sound to her legal guardians.

There were a lot of interesting things about this article that can teach of some pretty significant things about the use of GPS tracking in recovering out missing children. Some of the more interesting quotes from the article include:

Since the end of 2005, cell phone carriers have been required to provide some way to trace calls to 100 meters or less. To accomplish this, global positioning technology has been integrated in cell phone handsets.

and

Officer Neale … contacted the child’s cell phone provider seeking a way to trace the call.

The company provided him with GPS coordinates every time the phone was activated.

If you want to read the full story you can find it at the following url:

http://www.telegram.com/article/20090107/NEWS/901070289/1116

Lessons About Kids and GPS

This story clearly demonstrates a few key elements of GPS use in abduction situations that should be mentioned.  The first is this – teach your child how to use their cell phone properly in an emergency situation like an abduction.  You can do this by telling your child to do the following:

  1. Keep the cell phone in a secure, hidden location at all times.  Letting an abductor know about the location of a phone is a sure fire way to get in taken away or destroyed.  When in danger, the phone will provide a very safe connect to the outside world.  It will let the police and parents know where a child is – possibly saving their life.
  2. Keep the cell phone quiet.  Again, avoiding detection is the most important thing you can do with your cell phone.  If your ringer goes off or your phone beeps every few minutes because you got a voice mail your phone is going to be found out and taken away.  At the first sign of danger, put the phone on mute and secure it.
  3. Keep the cell phone on. This is very important because this is the only way that the police can use the mobile phone to hone in on your location and to set you free.  An “on” phone is key to your continued safety.

In addition to these proactive steps, you might also want to give your child the following advice:

  1. If there is any doubt if it is safe enough to use the phone, don’t use it.  Wait until you are very certain that you will not be discovered.
  2. Call the police before you call anyone else.  They are best equipped to help you get out of your situation safely.

In addition to these tips on how to use a kids GPS phone successfully, I also noticed some interesting information about child abductions in general.  In this instance, the child was taken by someone they knew – their grandmother.  In the majority of child abductions, children are taken by a close relative.

I am not sure about this particular family’s history, but it sounds like the legal guardians of little Natalie Maltais were not her biological parents.  There must have been some sort of row between the guardians and Natalie’s biological grandmother about how Natalie was being raised.  This argument must have then resulted in the kidnapping of the girl to “save her” from her situation.

In the end, what we really learn from this is that GPS for kids only really works if the children themselves are educated in the use of their tracking devices.  Without the child being an active participant devices can be easily discovered and destroyed by unscrupulous individuals.  It doesn’t matter if it is a GPS tracking watch, a kids GPS phone, or a child locator – if the device is found it is going to be taken.

If you are looking for what program you can download for free onto your child’s cell phone then please take a look at some of the free cell phone trackers that are available for a wide range of mobile phones. There are new apps coming out all the time that could be leveraged to keep your family safe with something as terrible as this were to ever happen to you. Just remember that keeping safe is the number one priority for you child in this situation so keeping the phone on and hidden as long as possible is key.

Child Locators

Child locators are devices that contain GPS or radio technology that can communicate a child’s location to their parent.  Generally speaking, devices that work over short distances use radio technology while devices that work over long distances make use of GPS.  The short range tracking devices often have a receiver that will provide the parent with instant feedback on their child’s location while the longer range devices often require some sort of interface to access the GPS tracking information.

There are obvious pros and cons to each device type that parents should consider before deciding which one will best fit their child’s needs.

Short Range Child Locators

Brickhouse Security Child LocatorShort range child locators are excellent because they provide instant feedback for parents.  The device to the right is from Brickhouse Security, the company featured in a Duracell commercial found on cable television.  This child tracker provides parents holding the unit in the center with the general direction and distance of their son or daughter who is equipped with the device pictured on the left.

These devices can be great for use at parks or other very public, very crowded locations where kids of all ages can easily get lost in the mass of people. All it takes is a split second for you to get distracted and your child to step through a crowd and be out of view. Most times children are simply looking at something interesting, but the feeling in your chest is one of complete panic.

Short range child locators are designed specifically to help parents find their children in this type of circumstance. The child is within a few hundred feet of the parent, they are in some way obstructed from view by terrain or crowds, and the chances of being separated from your child for a long period of time is relatively low – all of which lends itself to quick location information that points you in the right direction immediately.

These types of child locators do have some drawbacks. Most of these kid tracking devices are limited in range. According to the specifications on the child locator mentioned above provided by BrickHouse Security, the child tracking device is only effective up to ranges of 600 feet outdoors and 250 indoors. While this is more than sufficient for a wandering child who slips out of sight momentarily, it is frighteningly insufficient for tracking your child while you are at work or while they are at a friends house.

Another potential drawback is the fact that you need to keep the monitor with you at all times if you want to check in with your kid’s location. This probably will not bother too many parents, but you already have a camera, a phone, keys, a wallet, a purse, etc. carrying an extra thing around can be a little inconvenient.

When it comes down to it though short range child locators do a great job at giving concerned parents a quick and accurate vector on their child’s location.

Long Range Child Locators

When you think of a long range child locator it is best to think of GPS. This is not always the case (see kids GPS phones), but in these instances the child locator acts just like it had GPS technology in it in the sense that you can estimate the location of your son or daughter to within a few meters.

Long range child locators provide exactly what you might expect from them – the ability to track your kid from one end of town to the next.  By using GPS or cell phone technology these devices provide very accurate and very useful information to parents such as the direction of your child.  They can also allow parents to track a teen while driving (this is good for making sure the teen’s driving habits  are good and that they don’t speed).  This could be the key in determining if your child is as safe as you would want them to be.

These type of locators generally work the following way –

  1. The GPS unit receives signals from the Global Positioning Satellites orbit the sky over head
  2. The device then takes that information and “pushes” it out via radio signals to a central processing station (this is why these devices are called data pushers)
  3. The central processing station interprets this data and makes it available to you through some sort of application – usually an online interface (a website where you can get the information)

The benefit to this type of system is that you can access the information anywhere you have access to the internet.  Your home, office, local library, a coffee shop, or any place you can get cell reception if you have a cell phone with internet access can provide you information on your child’s location.

This is particularly powerful in those emergency situations that no parent ever wants to find themselves in.  If something terrible were to happened at your kid’s school, or a natural disaster strike while your child is at a friends house, or your teen doesn’t show up to the house at curfew all you would need to do is get to a internet enable device and you could see exactly where they are in the time it takes to get on the internet.  In some cases, that lightening quick information could be the difference between life and death.

It is also one of the biggest drawbacks of these long range devices.

Situations where the short range child locators flourish are terribly impractical for the longer range counterparts.  A kids GPS cell phone or even a GPS kids watch simply will not do at a crowded amusement park if you have to go back to the hotel room to get on the internet.  You want to find your child and you want to find them now.

It seems hard to imagine loosing sight of your child in a crowded place and taking out your cell phone, getting on the internet, entering your login credentials for your child locator subscription, finding out that your child is somewhere at Disneyland, trying to find out exactly where at Disneyland they are, and then heading off in that direction to hope to find them.  What you need in that instance is to know exactly which direction to start looking right away.

Child Locators in Summary

As you can see, there are different uses for and different benefits received from child locator devices.  Here is a quick reference chart of the various pros and cons associated with each type of device:

ProsCons
Short Range Child Locator
  • Great for public, open spaces
  • Instant feedback on child’s location
  • One time purchase fee
  • Limited Range
  • Another device to carry around
  • Most require batteries
Long Range Child Locator
  • Excellent for long range, from a distance tracking
  • Tracking information accessible from anywhere with an internet connection
  • Monthly fee in the range of a cell phone subscription
  • Inefficient for quick, short range information

It is important to note that one device isn’t necessarily better than the other – it all depends on the way you want to use the locator.  In some family circumstances, a long range, GPS device is going to best fit the needs of parent and child.  In others the shorter range child locator is going to be what is best for everyone.

In the end, only you can make the decision on what type of chid locator works best for your family.

Kids GPS Phone: A Brief Introduction

We all know cell phones are here to stay. You can’t walk 10 feet in any public place without seeing some parent, child, or teen talking on their cell phone. You can even go to ‘poor’ countries and find that many people have access to this type of wireless communication. But have you ever heard of a kids GPS phone that is designed specifically to help parents keep tabs on their children?

A few years ago, cellular phone companies found out that busy parents needed a solution to their business problem. With the pressures of work and the need to get things done around the house, get kids to their activities, make dinner, and be sure that they have money for their future parents realized that they weren’t giving their children the time that they deserved. As a result of this they developed types of cell phones that have been labeled ‘kid phones’ for the functionality made specific for children of a young age.

Kids GPS Cell PhoneThese phones generally have certain features that make them particularly useful for small children.  One of them is that they often have the regular number pad removed.  This is replaced by a speed dial pad.  This helps your child on two levels:

  1. They do not have to memorize telephone numbers at all. While most children are very good at memorization as early as the age of 4, so you are not having them memorize your cell phone number because they are not able too. But in the heat of an emergency a child’s brain might not be able to hand the recalling the seven digits that make up your phone number. By reducing it to a simple speed dial you are giving your child’s mind the ability to remember that “One equals Mommy” or that “The red button equals the police man.”
  2. By keeping your child’s phone to the simple speed dial options you reduce the risk of them using the cellular device for non-necessary reasons. You don’t your child to have access to all the internet, text messaging, and camera features that a regular cell phone might have. They simply don’t need all of that. You want them to be able to give you call in case of an emergency or if they need to be picked up from school. That is all.

The speed dial feature on kids phone seems to be the focal point of most the phone design.  The screens are often just big enough to display who you are calling and if the call is connecting or not.  Then there is the are the ‘send’ and ‘end’ buttons.  These are generally large and obvious for your child.

For many years these types of devices have been being utilized by parents to help ‘keep in touch’ with their children while parents go about their busy lives.  During this same period of time, we have also seen an explosion in GPS technology in consumer electronics.  The trickle down effect has finally made its way into cell phones and specifically created a new class of phone: the kids GPS phone.

Understanding Kids GPS Phones

Cell phones and GPS technology are very similar in nature.  With GPS, a signal containing relevant position information is transmitted from a satellite in geosynchronous orbit. As more and more signals reach a GPS receiver, the computer inside the device is able to calculate the position of the receiver using the information provided by the satellites and a mathematical process called trilateration. (For more information see our article on how GPS tracking watches work.)

Cell phones are very similar. They receive signals from cell towers that often dot the urban landscape in a type honeycomb pattern. These signals tell the cell phone that they are in service, how strong that cellular service is (i.e. how many ‘bars’ do you have?), and whether or not you are accepting calls at the moment (is the phone on or off?). When you talk with your phone, it is really acting like a very complex walkie-talkie where what you hear is being transmitted to you on one channel while what you say is being broadcast over another channel.

One interesting side effect that this has is that phones can be used as a tracking device even if they don’t have GPS enabled. This is because the cell towers can measure how long it takes to get a response back from your cell phone between the different towers in your area. Once it has this information, it can use it in conjunction with the known position of all the cell towers to find your general location. Now this is probably not as accurate as a GPS phone, but it is still pretty accurate.

This similarity between the workings of GPS and cell phones made them obvious candidates for integration into a single device: thus the GPS phone was born.  The most common application of this type of phone is found in the ubiquitously necessary navigation system.  Turn by turn direction and road maps seem to be all the rave these days and cell phone companies saw a market that they wanted to tap into.  This was definitely the first use of GPS in cell phones.  (Though it is important to note that not all phones with navigation capabilities have GPS enabled on them – the simply might have it available because of the location information available from cell towers.)

Eventually some executive or engineer decided to implement the GPS feature on the kids phones that they were already developing.  Perhaps it could be a good way to upsell some parents and get them to subscribe to more services while offering them an improved experience and more functionality.  Either way, parents might want it and cell phone providers were going to give them kids GPS phones.

These devices take advantage of both the cell phone and GPS technology that their small plastic cases contain.   Unlike a kids GPS tracking watch, kids GPS phones are able to penetrate areas that can often be hidden from the watchful eye of the Global Positioning Satellites orbiting overhead.  These areas often have some type of obstructed view of the sky overhead – such as a heavily wooded area or building – but can have access to a cell signal.  While the location information is significantly less accurate when based on information provided from the cell portion of the kids GPS cell phone, it is still better than nothing all.

Another key feature of these GPS devices is that they are also cell phones.  While some GPS watches for children also have this capability as well, many child locators do not.  There is something powerful in knowing that you can reach out and call your child whenever you are concerned about their whereabouts or safety.  It is also nice to know that they can turn around and call you as well if ever they are worried or concerned.  You are never more than a phone call away.

Plans and prices for the kids GPS cell phone are fairly reasonable if you are serious about having this type of capability in something that you already have your child using anyway.  You probably will not have to use it very often (most parents never need to), but if you feel like it will give you some peace of mind and supplement the safety of your family there is certainly some quality providers out there who can provide a kids GPS phone to meet your needs.

Parents also have the option of leveraging current cell phones and turning them into tracking devices for free. Just download one of the many cell phone trackers out on the market and you can instantly turn a normal cell phone into a power tracking device. Just be sure that you have the data plan to cover it since this type of activity can be data heavy. But if you are already paying for a data plan why not make the most of it and install a tracker on your kids cell phone?