GPS tracker recommendations?

11 comments

1. Airtags?

2. At 6 yrs old we got our sons keitai, as they went to soccer practice and games, often on their own. They make simple ones that only allow a certain number of pre-programmed numbers to call. Then when AirTags became a thing we use them on all our house keys and of course we can track their iPhones. Sorry, no experience for an Android-friendly device/solution.

3. Does your kid bring a phone that is connected to the internet?

4. We use ミテネミマモリGPS. It uses a sim card so it’s not crowdsourced.
   Roughly 4000 yen initial payment and 500 yen monthly.
   The device sends a gps location once every minute to your app.
   If it doesn’t move for a few min it’ll go into battery saving mode. Lasts a good couple of weeks before it needs to be charged. It’s not waterproof so we put it in a ziplock.

   The gps signal can be wonky at times, like it suddenly jumps far away, but this only happens maybe once a week, and the signal usually jumps back on the next location update a minute later.

   The best function is that you can circle the school on the map, and the gps will let you know when your kid has left school.

   Edit: works for Android.

5. We use a “KDDI UHA01A Safety Watcher” with our lad, he’s in elementary school.

   There might be a version for the other cellphone providers, this one piggybacks off of our AU account.

   It uses the cellphone network, checking in every few minutes (not real time). The battery lasts about a month. It’s an actual GPS, so doesn’t need iPhones nearby to report in like airtags do, but it obviously needs to be in range of a cellular network.

   Mostly we just use it to see if he’s on the way back from school, to go and meet him.

   It uses an app (iPhone and Android, I think) to show a map. Annoyingly, it logs out at inconvenient times, so one always needs the AU login details ready.

6. I personally use Family Link by Google on android devices.
   We like it so far.

7. To piggy back off of all of the AirTag recommendations, they just stole the idea from Tile, which is what I use. I have them in literally everything. Jackets, keys, my tool bag, my seat bag on my bike… everything. They have ones that use the 2032 coin battery, and ones that are meant to be replaced yearly.

   Tl;dr: Tile.

8. I use this for my kids ([https://www.bsize.com/bot/gps](https://www.bsize.com/bot/gps)). Cheap, small/light, accurate and you can set notifications for when they arrive at the station(s), school, if they are outside of the normal commuting path, etc. Battery only needs to be charged every few weeks.
   Using the newer model now but have been using it for years without a problem.

9. We got mamosearch (まもサーチ). It’s fairly cheap and accurate. Phone app & registration that lets multiple people keep track. You can add more trackers if you have more kids etc. and monitor them all on the app.

   There is no PC or browser app that I know of which is kind of annoying. But as far as having peace of mind of my 6 year old walking to and from school it gets the job done.

   My only real negative experience is that the GPS signal appears to either not reach the inside of his school, or their map is slightly off. When he’s at school the GPS reports him on the other side of the street. But its close enough & is accurate when he starts moving again. And we know that “School” is “between these two houses across the street from school” since its the same location every day anyway.

10. We use the AU one, https://www.au.com/auhome/device/uha01a/

    Works like a charm, updates every 90 seconds, battery lasts for a month.

    Only updates position when it detects movement so it’s pretty clever at its power saving.

11. You may need to check that your elementary school allows these. At my sons elementary in Nagoya, keitai and airtag devices are not allowed and are taken from kids if found.

    If you to use them, you need to apply for permission and usually it can only be for the purpose of going somewhere after school like a sports club or kumon.

    My son goes to soccer school on Wednesday and needs to walk a different direction from school. We were told no to the GPS tracking (privacy and worrying were the reasons given). Thankfully the coach said they would call us if he didn’t arrive for practice.