Best Children's GPS Tracker for 2019

Lead: This may be a heartbreaking question for parents: Where is my child? Your child can wander in the park, on the beach or in any public place. But the technology can provide some peace of mind in the form of a lightweight GPS tracker that can last for a day or two to recharge and provide frequent and reliable updates to your child's whereabouts, some are watches and some are backpacks. This article will tell you some of the best children's GPS trackers to help you understand where your child is.

Trax Play GPS Tracker: An updated version of Trax Play is a simple, concise device that helps you understand your child's location. Its most powerful feature is the Geofence feature, which alerts you when your child is outside the area you specify. You won't be able to communicate with your child, but Trax Play offers many other compelling features that make it an attractive option, especially if you are a parent of a child who is too young to wear a GPS watch or carry smart phone.

Trax Play is protected by a flexible sleeve with a belt clip and is slightly wider than the Matchbox, although it doesn't look as cool as a child. When it is actively tracking someone and staying stable while charging, it flashes an LED, and when Trax Play needs to be charged, the color changes from red to green to alert you. When you use the companion app, your device may lack the functionality of flash. In addition, the Trax Play app allows you to set up geofences where you can specify specific boundaries. If your child enters or leaves the designated area with Trax Play, you will be notified via the app.

The strength of Trax's tracking capabilities depends on where you use your device. When I was outside, the tracker worked very well in areas where there weren't too many buildings nearby, showing me my child's path, including my child's detour to the nearby deli. When I tested the equipment from the Tom Guide Office in the Flatiron District of Manhattan, the results were not so good, and the office was blocked by tall buildings.

Some of the features in the Trax app should appeal to parents who want to keep an eye on their children. The app provides a history feature that lets you view the location of the tracker over the past 24 hours. This means you can look back at the trips you might have missed, such as detouring to the candy store on your way home. The Trax app also retains an augmented reality view to find your child on the map. Point your phone at the direction of your smart device, its location and distance will be displayed on your smartphone's screen to easily find your child in a crowded environment.

To see where your child is on the map, you have three viewing options: Pure Google Maps, Google Satellite Maps, or a mix of both. Currently, you can choose to receive a location update every 10, 15, 30, and 60 seconds, but I find that every 30 or 60 seconds of updates prove too much, causing the graffiti on the entire map to be from the room in my apartment to the room. Upcoming firmware updates will allow for fewer location updates: every 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 30 minutes or 60 minutes.

Even without a firmware update, Trax Play is a compelling choice for parents who want to keep an eye on young children, as long as they are willing to put up with the limitations of the device. With built-in features such as AR viewer and geofence, Trax Play is a great choice if you want to see the location of toddlers.

Jiobit: The Jiobit is small and light, about 2 x 1.5 x 0.5 inches, with a loop that lets you attach it to a backpack, shoe, belt loop, key chain or necklace. After stuffing it into a storage bag in my son's backpack, I had to pick it up every five days or so and charge it on the USB charging stand. For parents, the best part is how the iOS and Android Jiobit apps let you know not only where your child is, but also who she is with. If your child has multiple caregivers and they all use the Jiobit app, the tracker and caregiver's phone will connect to Bluetooth as long as they are within range. This way, you can see your son leaving the school at 3 pm in the app, accompanied by his father, his stepmother, his nanny or anyone who should pick him up.

Even better, you won't be notified when your child arrives or leaves a trusted place. After all, you don't need a push notification to tell you that you just picked up your child from school. But if she leaves school alone or leaves school with someone else, you do need to be notified. Reliable places are easy to set up in the app, and you can choose to be notified when the tracker enters, leaves, or both.

You can add other caregivers to the care team by phone number, they will receive a link to download the Jiobit app via SMS, and when they set up their account, they will enter their own phone number. Care team members can choose to be notified when Jiobit enters and leaves the trusted location you set up, and they can see Jiobit and which caregiver are on the map. They just can't set up other trusted places or change any Jiobit settings.

Through a combination of Bluetooth, GPS/GLONASS and Wi-Fi, Jiobit gets good signals both indoors and outdoors, and the app always finds it on the second or second launch. Click on the top of the smartphone screen to enter the tracking mode. When the tracker moves, the map is updated on the map, leaving a trail between the points. Long-term real-time tracking will drain Jiobit's battery, so the app will ask you if you want to continue tracking or returning to the map after 2 minutes. If the tracker is moving, the map will still refresh every few seconds, but it will not be created. track.

Although the Jiobit app looks great, it may have more features. No history can show the position of the tracker during the day. If there is a problem, Jiobit does not have the SOS button that your child can press. PocketFinder is another GPS tracker that is similar to Gigabit but slightly larger. It has an SOS button, and a long-lasting but powerful application can replay its actions from any point in time. In addition, PocketFinder has a web application and Jiobit is lacking.

If you're trying to find Jiobit, there's no Augmented Reality view to guide you to where it is, the features we're enjoying on the Trax Play GPS Tracker. But when you pair via Bluetooth, you'll find a small strip in the app that connects your photos to your child's photo and represents them. Depending on your distance, the bar will become longer or shorter, which will help you get back home. You can then click on the small bell icon and the Jiobit will make a noise and flash its LEDs in case you lose it under the bed.

Lil Tracker: Lil Tracker is a full-featured GPS watch for kids, but once you look at the app, it may be a bit too full. You must provide your own SIM card, but this enables GPS tracking, as well as two-way voice calls, text and one-way calls where you can listen to what is going on. The location of the child.

Lil Tracker stands out from other trackers with its two-way and one-way calls. For two-way conversations, you can call your watch from the app on your smartphone, and the watch only accepts calls from the number you authorize in the app. Children can also call those approved contacts by swiping and tapping the touch screen. Press and hold the SOS button on the side of the watch to recall up to three pre-programmed numbers in sequence until someone answers. The call between the watch and the app is quickly connected in my test. The sound quality is just average, but it is enough to check in quickly.

One-way calls called "Sound Guardian" in the application menu are a bit like the Drop In feature on Amazon Echo devices. Parents use the app to call the watch, they can hear what's going on around, but the watch doesn't ring, or there is no indication that someone is listening.

Unfortunately, the app is full of misspellings and meaningless messages. The time zone selection is confusing because you have to calculate how far you are from Greenwich Mean Time. The app's home screen has a decorative banner above the map that flips five images that don't add anything to the app, they are just distracting. Worse, the app usually displays the actual full-screen ad at startup, even if you launch it by clicking on the push notification. Bring your own SIM card mode means you can buy a cheap service. Your carrier may add a SIM card to your family plan, so please contact them first.

These three children's GPS trackers can help you quickly find your child's location and let you know your child's whereabouts so you can feel at ease.