The personal tracking device: Sci-fi no longer
December 30, 2006 | 12:00am
Lets face it: were in love with the idea of secret location trackers. In The Da Vinci Code, the bad guys slap a location-tracking button onto Tom Hanks clothing. In The Matrix, a location-tracking scorpion robot crawls into Keanu Reeves abdomen. In Total Recall, a tracking device is implanted into Arnold Schwarzeneggers nose.
Many parents may have fleetingly harbored the fantasy of equipping their children with such tracking devices (though perhaps not through their noses or navels). You could find out instantly where your teenager was, or find out that your middle-schooler didnt come home after school because of a rendezvous you forgot about.
But this is one sci-fi gadget thats no longer fiction, thanks to advanced satellite-based tracking based on Global Positioning System (GPS) technology. At least five US companies Wherify Wireless, Guardian Angel Technology, Disney Mobile, Verizon Wireless and Sprint have built GPS tracking into something children carry voluntarily: cellphones.
The super-simplified Wherifone ($100), for example, is intended for very young or old customers. Because it has no number pad, its probably the smallest cellphone youve ever seen about the size of a Fig Newton. On the companys website, wherifywireless.com, you can program three of its four speed-dial buttons to dial Mom, Dad and Gramps, for example; the fourth summons an address book containing 20 more numbers. The phone can receive calls from any number, although you, the wise parent, can restrict incoming calls using the website.
The phone comes in five colors. The plans range from $20 a month (60 minutes of talking) to $47 (200 minutes); checking a phones location counts as one minute of calling.
To pinpoint the phones location, you call up the website, enter your password, click "locate," and presto: An icon appears on a map either a street map or actual satellite photo. In the photo view, you can zoom in enough to see individual buildings. These are existing satellite photos you wont actually see your child standing there but this feature is still creepy and awesome.
You can even watch "bread crumbs" appear on the map as the phone moves around (cost: one talk-time minute apiece). That could be helpful if youre trying to assist someone whos lost on the road, or in the kinds of emergencies that you encounter primarily in your nightmares.
The Wherifone is not, however, a full-blown cellphone. It looks and acts more like a Star Trek communicator. Its screen is crude, tiny and black-and-white. Theres no Internet, ringtone downloads, games, camera or text messaging, though some parents might consider that a bonus. The phone has a hissy quality that makes all calls sound as if theyre coming from the seashore.
The phone from Guardian Angel Technology (guardianangeltech.com) is quite a collaboration; the company makes neither the phone (Motorola), the cellular network (Nextel), nor even the billing plan (Boost Mobile).
Instead, what this company brings to the table is the GPS software. The company offers three phone models, none of which are cutting-edge, and one of which (the $75 base model) looks as if its from 1994. You can also buy any phone from the greater selection at boostmobile.com, and send it to Guardian Angel for GPS enhancement. Many of these phones offer Nextels walkie-talkie feature.
On the upside, the GPS tracking on the Guardian Angel phones is more sophisticated than its rivals. For example, you can see a full 30 days worth of "bread crumbs," which could settle the occasional argument about your teenagers whereabouts the last few weekends. And you can opt to have street names superimposed on the satellite-photo view (just as in Google Maps, which powers this feature).
The downside is the pricing: $30 a month just for the tracking. You can start and stop this service as needed, but its still much more expensive than its rivals.
Then again, the Guardian Angel phone is prepaid, so theres no annual contract, monthly bill or credit check. You buy minutes in advance. This kind of plan makes a lot of sense for many young consumers, although the minutes are pricey (20 cents each, 10 cents at night and weekends).
If youre worried that classmates will make fun of the weird-looking Wherifone and Guardian Angel phones, consider Disney Mobile. Its flagship phone ($50 each after rebates and with a two-year commitment), looks like a cutting-edge, sleek flip-phone because it is one. This phone, made by LG and dressed in red and silver, has a camera, video capture, text messaging, Bluetooth, speakerphone and voice dialing, plus Disney-themed ringtones, wallpaper options and phone themes.
You get five free location checks a month; additional checks cost 50 cents each. No breadcrumb feature is available, and you see only street maps not aerial photos.
You can make a location check from a website (disneymobile.com) or, better yet, from your other Disney cellphone. (Most people get two Disney phones, since the monthly plans include two phone numbers.)
Your own phones screen might say, for example, "Caseys Phone. Near 18 Whippoorwill Ln, Chicago, IL 60609; accurate within 20 yards" and you can summon a map right on your phones screen.
Performing location checks from your phone is a huge benefit not available to the Wherifone; you can do it with Guardian Angel phones only if your own phone has a full-blown built-in Web browser.
Disney also offers the best parental controls. You can establish allowances for calls, text messages and downloads, for example, and you can limit calling by time period. You can set up whitelists (lists of approved phone numbers) or blacklists (not permitted). You can also blast "family alerts" to the screens of all of your familys phones at once; a handy menu offers ready-made phrases like "Running late. Be there soon!"
Unfortunately, these premium services command a premium price. Plans range from $60 a month (450 minutes) to $250 (4,500 minutes). Thats much more expensive than, say, Sprint, which provides Disneys service. With Sprint, you get twice as many minutes for the same $60. No text messages are included in Disney plans, and calls to Disney phones outside your family arent free, either.
Each specialty-phone candidate offers something unique: Wherifones four-button simplicity; the pay-as-you-go feature of Guardian Angel; Disneys parental controls.
Each entails some compromise, though like inflated rates, a microscopic selection of phones and, perhaps, the necessity to switch carriers.
For many people, two newcomers to the track-your-kid market may offer less severe tradeoffs: Verizon Wireless and Sprint.
For $10 a month, you can add either companys tracking feature to any regular calling plan. Sprints Family Locator feature offers 58 trackable phone models for your kids; Verizons Chaperone plan offers four phones, including the Wherifone-like, four-button Migo for younger children. You, the parent, can perform unlimited location checks either from a website or your own Sprint or Verizon phone (30 models from Sprint, 12 from Verizon). Sprints map webpage is far more sophisticated than Verizons it offers aerial views, reports of past locations and the ability to add your own landmarks to the map (like "Robins house"), but its incompatible with Safari, the Macintosh browser).
Sprint also allows you to limit Web access on the childs phone, although only one Sprint phone can restrict individual phone numbers.
Verizon offers, for yet another $10 monthly, another equation-changing feature called Child Zone, in which a text message notifies you every time your child strays beyond geographical boundaries that youve set up. Its like a more humane version of the electric doggie fence.
With all of these phones, your main frustration is likely to be coverage. Guardian Angels phone, for example, uses the Nextel network, which is smaller than the major carriers.
The Wherifone switches among GSM networks like Cingular and T-Mobile as necessary. Even so, the tracking feature depends on those companies cellular Internet networks, which cover smaller areas than the voice signals.
Fortunately, the tracking usually works even when the phone is indoors or in a car. Unlike, say, car GPS units, these phones dont require a direct line of sight to the sky, although you may be out of luck when theyre in concrete rooms or the middle of office buildings.
In every case, consult the companies coverage maps before you buy.
Its also worth pondering the moral implications of this technical advance. What these companies are selling you is, in effect, a spying tool. How comfortable are you playing Big Brother or, rather, Big Momma or Big Daddy?
Only Sprint informs your youngster, by text message, each time you perform a location check, so you cant snoop around undetected. The other companies permit spying with total stealth; the Guardian Angel phones packaging and manuals dont even mention the tracking feature.
Maybe thats a good thing. After all, remember what always happens in the movies once the hero discovers the tracking device. Arnold Schwarzenegger extracts the circuit from his nose, Carrie-Anne Moss sucks the scorpion from Keanu Reeves belly button, and Tom Hanks confuses his pursuers by tossing his GPS button into a passing truck.
Many parents may have fleetingly harbored the fantasy of equipping their children with such tracking devices (though perhaps not through their noses or navels). You could find out instantly where your teenager was, or find out that your middle-schooler didnt come home after school because of a rendezvous you forgot about.
But this is one sci-fi gadget thats no longer fiction, thanks to advanced satellite-based tracking based on Global Positioning System (GPS) technology. At least five US companies Wherify Wireless, Guardian Angel Technology, Disney Mobile, Verizon Wireless and Sprint have built GPS tracking into something children carry voluntarily: cellphones.
The super-simplified Wherifone ($100), for example, is intended for very young or old customers. Because it has no number pad, its probably the smallest cellphone youve ever seen about the size of a Fig Newton. On the companys website, wherifywireless.com, you can program three of its four speed-dial buttons to dial Mom, Dad and Gramps, for example; the fourth summons an address book containing 20 more numbers. The phone can receive calls from any number, although you, the wise parent, can restrict incoming calls using the website.
The phone comes in five colors. The plans range from $20 a month (60 minutes of talking) to $47 (200 minutes); checking a phones location counts as one minute of calling.
To pinpoint the phones location, you call up the website, enter your password, click "locate," and presto: An icon appears on a map either a street map or actual satellite photo. In the photo view, you can zoom in enough to see individual buildings. These are existing satellite photos you wont actually see your child standing there but this feature is still creepy and awesome.
You can even watch "bread crumbs" appear on the map as the phone moves around (cost: one talk-time minute apiece). That could be helpful if youre trying to assist someone whos lost on the road, or in the kinds of emergencies that you encounter primarily in your nightmares.
The Wherifone is not, however, a full-blown cellphone. It looks and acts more like a Star Trek communicator. Its screen is crude, tiny and black-and-white. Theres no Internet, ringtone downloads, games, camera or text messaging, though some parents might consider that a bonus. The phone has a hissy quality that makes all calls sound as if theyre coming from the seashore.
The phone from Guardian Angel Technology (guardianangeltech.com) is quite a collaboration; the company makes neither the phone (Motorola), the cellular network (Nextel), nor even the billing plan (Boost Mobile).
Instead, what this company brings to the table is the GPS software. The company offers three phone models, none of which are cutting-edge, and one of which (the $75 base model) looks as if its from 1994. You can also buy any phone from the greater selection at boostmobile.com, and send it to Guardian Angel for GPS enhancement. Many of these phones offer Nextels walkie-talkie feature.
On the upside, the GPS tracking on the Guardian Angel phones is more sophisticated than its rivals. For example, you can see a full 30 days worth of "bread crumbs," which could settle the occasional argument about your teenagers whereabouts the last few weekends. And you can opt to have street names superimposed on the satellite-photo view (just as in Google Maps, which powers this feature).
The downside is the pricing: $30 a month just for the tracking. You can start and stop this service as needed, but its still much more expensive than its rivals.
Then again, the Guardian Angel phone is prepaid, so theres no annual contract, monthly bill or credit check. You buy minutes in advance. This kind of plan makes a lot of sense for many young consumers, although the minutes are pricey (20 cents each, 10 cents at night and weekends).
If youre worried that classmates will make fun of the weird-looking Wherifone and Guardian Angel phones, consider Disney Mobile. Its flagship phone ($50 each after rebates and with a two-year commitment), looks like a cutting-edge, sleek flip-phone because it is one. This phone, made by LG and dressed in red and silver, has a camera, video capture, text messaging, Bluetooth, speakerphone and voice dialing, plus Disney-themed ringtones, wallpaper options and phone themes.
You get five free location checks a month; additional checks cost 50 cents each. No breadcrumb feature is available, and you see only street maps not aerial photos.
You can make a location check from a website (disneymobile.com) or, better yet, from your other Disney cellphone. (Most people get two Disney phones, since the monthly plans include two phone numbers.)
Your own phones screen might say, for example, "Caseys Phone. Near 18 Whippoorwill Ln, Chicago, IL 60609; accurate within 20 yards" and you can summon a map right on your phones screen.
Performing location checks from your phone is a huge benefit not available to the Wherifone; you can do it with Guardian Angel phones only if your own phone has a full-blown built-in Web browser.
Disney also offers the best parental controls. You can establish allowances for calls, text messages and downloads, for example, and you can limit calling by time period. You can set up whitelists (lists of approved phone numbers) or blacklists (not permitted). You can also blast "family alerts" to the screens of all of your familys phones at once; a handy menu offers ready-made phrases like "Running late. Be there soon!"
Unfortunately, these premium services command a premium price. Plans range from $60 a month (450 minutes) to $250 (4,500 minutes). Thats much more expensive than, say, Sprint, which provides Disneys service. With Sprint, you get twice as many minutes for the same $60. No text messages are included in Disney plans, and calls to Disney phones outside your family arent free, either.
Each specialty-phone candidate offers something unique: Wherifones four-button simplicity; the pay-as-you-go feature of Guardian Angel; Disneys parental controls.
Each entails some compromise, though like inflated rates, a microscopic selection of phones and, perhaps, the necessity to switch carriers.
For many people, two newcomers to the track-your-kid market may offer less severe tradeoffs: Verizon Wireless and Sprint.
For $10 a month, you can add either companys tracking feature to any regular calling plan. Sprints Family Locator feature offers 58 trackable phone models for your kids; Verizons Chaperone plan offers four phones, including the Wherifone-like, four-button Migo for younger children. You, the parent, can perform unlimited location checks either from a website or your own Sprint or Verizon phone (30 models from Sprint, 12 from Verizon). Sprints map webpage is far more sophisticated than Verizons it offers aerial views, reports of past locations and the ability to add your own landmarks to the map (like "Robins house"), but its incompatible with Safari, the Macintosh browser).
Sprint also allows you to limit Web access on the childs phone, although only one Sprint phone can restrict individual phone numbers.
Verizon offers, for yet another $10 monthly, another equation-changing feature called Child Zone, in which a text message notifies you every time your child strays beyond geographical boundaries that youve set up. Its like a more humane version of the electric doggie fence.
With all of these phones, your main frustration is likely to be coverage. Guardian Angels phone, for example, uses the Nextel network, which is smaller than the major carriers.
The Wherifone switches among GSM networks like Cingular and T-Mobile as necessary. Even so, the tracking feature depends on those companies cellular Internet networks, which cover smaller areas than the voice signals.
Fortunately, the tracking usually works even when the phone is indoors or in a car. Unlike, say, car GPS units, these phones dont require a direct line of sight to the sky, although you may be out of luck when theyre in concrete rooms or the middle of office buildings.
In every case, consult the companies coverage maps before you buy.
Its also worth pondering the moral implications of this technical advance. What these companies are selling you is, in effect, a spying tool. How comfortable are you playing Big Brother or, rather, Big Momma or Big Daddy?
Only Sprint informs your youngster, by text message, each time you perform a location check, so you cant snoop around undetected. The other companies permit spying with total stealth; the Guardian Angel phones packaging and manuals dont even mention the tracking feature.
Maybe thats a good thing. After all, remember what always happens in the movies once the hero discovers the tracking device. Arnold Schwarzenegger extracts the circuit from his nose, Carrie-Anne Moss sucks the scorpion from Keanu Reeves belly button, and Tom Hanks confuses his pursuers by tossing his GPS button into a passing truck.
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