For parents worried about their children’s safety, location tracking devices can be of help. If your child goes to school and you’re sitting in office worrying about whether he or she reached safely, or is on the way back home, these devices might appeal to you. The obvious answer is to give children a smartphone, and use an app such as Google’s Trusted Contacts to track their location. But giving a child a smartphone isn’t always an option. It’s possible that smartphones aren’t allowed in your child’s school, or you don’t want him or her to be distracted by the device. Wearables such as watches that can track your kid’s location can help solve this problem. Several companies have made such devices and here are some that you might want to choose from.
1. Leaf Wearables Safer Kids
Leaf Wearables is a startup that makes location tracking devices for adults and children. Safer Kids is the company’s wrist wearable for children. It lets them make and receive calls from seven pre-programmed numbers and features an emergency button that enables live location tracking at any time. You can add numbers via the companion app and the watch has two buttons – one to let you scroll and make calls, and the other to cancel calls. The watch can alert you about incoming calls through a ringtone or just a vibration, which can be configured through the app.
It costs Rs. 5,000, and has no subscription charges because you need to use your own SIM card with the watch. This does mean that you’ll have to get a SIM and make sure it has balance, of course.
2. Letstrack Kido
Letstrack is a UK-based startup that sells location tracking based devices in India as well. The company’s primary focus is on selling tracking devices in the enterprise sector, but it claims that its personal tracking devices are quite popular in India.
Letstrack Kido is a GPS-tracker watch for kids that lets parents or family members track children in realtime via the app. It sends alerts when the kid reaches school or home and even alerts you if the child’s vehicle exceeds its speed limit. The Letstrack Kido costs Rs. 5,999, with one year’s subscription, and after that has a subscription fee of Rs. 99 per month. You can’t use it for calls – it’s only for tracking-related usage.
3. Alcatel MoveTime
Alcatel MoveTime is cheaper than the two other watches for kids mentioned above. It costs Rs. 3,999 and doesn’t have a monthly subscription fee. It lets you make and receive calls to and from up to 10 numbers. It lets you listen to audio around the child even if they don’t accept your call, which can be helpful in case you believe the kid is in danger. The watch sends alerts if the kid leaves a particular location too.
You can set up numbers on the MoveTime via the companion app, and the app lets you track location and set the watch on vibrate mode too. It also requires a separate SIM card if you want to make and receive calls on the watch. That’s an additional cost you’ll have to factor in.
There are several other smartwatches for kids in this space, but those were from relatively unknown brands. You can search for these on stores such as Flipkart and Amazon, but the ones we’ve picked appear to have all the features you’ll need, and are from brands we’re familiar with. If there are any location tracking devices you use, let us know about your experience via the comments.
