Slashdot Mirror
GPS Wristwatch for Kids
1010011010 writes "A company called 'Wherify Wireless' has created a $400 watch with a built-in pager, GPS unit and wireless data connectivity. It's targeted at families with kids. According to their website, 'Wherify's GPS Personal Locator helps keep loved ones safe by combining Wherify's patented technology with the U.S. Department of Defense's multi-billion dollar Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites plus the largest 100% digital, nationwide PCS wireless network.' It includes a pager, clock, two-button '911' calling (parent can disable this), and remote-control keyfob (to lock and unlock it) for the parents. It is apparently water- and kid-resistant, and can be locked onto the wrist so that it cannot be removed (easily). $400 plus $35 a month... that's a lot more money than those stretchy wrist-leashes I see at the mall." There are so many things wrong with this that I don't even know where to begin.
waterresistant I can believe.. now kid resistant.. THAT I gotta see..
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
I don't think that the locking is intended to stop the child removing the beacon; rather, I think the idea is to ensure that any abductor would not be able to remove it.
e d-by-a-paedophile market, I'd say that the locking makes perfect sense.
Given that most of the market for such gadgets comes from the oh-no-my-child-is-going-to-be-abducted-and-tortur
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
What is wrong with this? There is absolutely nothing more important to a parent than the safety of their child. Of course you're not going to tag your child with it 24/7 but if you're going to say Disneyland, or the beach or some other large public venue, it would be an excellent idea to place this on your child.
Would you want to lose your child because you were too busy being a conspiracy theorist and trying to think up reasons as to why tagging your child is morally wrong? No.. I didn't think so.
"You know why you do not see me styling wit my homies? Because I have no homies!!" -Mojo Jojo
Sure, I've got no problems strapping it to a little kid at the beach (though, frankly, it's hardly necessary - child abduction by strangers is *very* rare). Its use with older children, though, concerns me greatly.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
I'm always losing my watch, so this would be fantastic.. All I need now is one for my keys.
Although the odds are slim of a kidnapped kid actually wearing one of these, but it could work much like the "Lojack" system we use todays in cars. The "locked" watch may look a bit odd but the technology has a great deal of potential. We could even imbed the devices into all us citizens at an early age and give them a unique number to track.. er, nevermind
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
I hope that there also will be a way to let this watch create a logfile of the GPS info. Then I could really use this watch myself for finding out where I was and what I was doing the previous night when I had too much to drink (again). No more 'O my God, where have I been'. Great!
# ping johnny
PING 12.21.87.193 (12.21.87.193) from 12.21.87.194 : 56(84) bytes of data.
From 12.21.87.194: Destination Host Unreachable
From 12.21.87.194: Destination Host Unreachable
From 12.21.87.194: Destination Host Unreachable
Uh oh..
Take life easy: one bit at a time.
I think this is a really marvelous idea. Please don't mod me down as flamebait here, I've heard of some AWFUL things happening to kidnapped children. Out here in SoCal we had thousands and thousands of posters with Danielle Van Damme's picture on it until she was found, dead, and burned, in the boonies. I think the /. eds are too rabid about this with the constant slippery-slope arguments about how the government's going to mandate this on all citizens to enforce the dictatorship. Please. I think this company has a great idea, and if they can get the price down to something reasonable I think it would be great.
And while you're in the rabid dog civil rights mood, think about this. Danielle had every one of her civil rights taken by the creep who murdered her. On your guys' level, she did have all her privacy taken away by all the posters posted looking for her. This wristwatch idea could have _SAVED HER LIFE_. And in fact, _PROTECTED HER PRICACY_. This wristwatch is heavy on the scales of civil rights compared to some paranoid concerns. Accept it for what it is, don't bash it for something it's not.
From their FAQ:
Will it work indoors?
Yes. The Personal Location System incorporates enhanced GPS technology, which enables it to obtain location information indoors as well as outdoors.
Either I've missed out on some pretty impressive new developments with GPS, or this company are talking out of their a***. My experience with the GPS device I bought less than 6 months ago is that the only time it works indoors is when you happen to be leaning out the window and there aren't any tall buildings across the street.
you can rig it to explode if the kid tries to take it off, or gets outside a certain distance from you... just be careful to disable it the next time you go on a business trip! *grin*
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
beep! It's 10pm, do you know where your children are?
Yes, with 1m resolution..
-Where were you last night, Cindy ?
./'s: when you were teens, did you have boy/girlfriends that you didn't want your parents to know ? How would you feel if your parents knew exactly where you are ? I'd feel suffocated.
-I slept at Linda's. mom.
-Don't lie to we saw everything on GPS PERSONAL LOCATOR (TM).
-Ok, I saw Steve again.
-I told you to get rid of that dweeb. We don't like him.
Now the parents are going to know every step of their kids. While it can be good for pre-teens, it can be a hassle to teens.
A question for the other
Well my children are 2 1/2. Trust simply doesn't come into it. I don't distrust them. I do know that they are not old enough to be 100% reliable in their behaviour. Even if you try to keep hold of them and keep an eye on them in a crowd, it is pretty easy for one to slip off. 30 seconds later, and they don't know where they or you are. I lost one boy in a crowd a couple of months ago. He was distraught when I found him. I'd use a device like this.
This wristwatch is much more practical for this use.
I think they will come in handy when trying to find one's self. This may cut down on those pesky time-consuming journeys of self discovery.
I'm currently out trying to find myself. If I should get back before I return, please keep me here.
KM
I know I am not even able to understand how society will evolve in the next years. I have difficulties to fully understand in details the behavior of people 10 years younger than me, so I am sure that I will have difficulties with my childrens.
:)
Which, let me state it, is a good thing. A parent MUST not understand totally his/her childrens. There must be some mis-understanding in families, because otherwise the kid will grow up without enough moral strength to fight against the world, or just survive into it.
Now, I think that a great part of being a children is doing something forbidden. When you do something that's forbidden, being it wathing pr0n or sneaking into a girl house or go explore an abandoned house, you feel like you're adult. Later you realize the dangers you have risked, and at that point you have grown up a little bit.
IMHO growing up is reaching an equilibrium between what you CAN do and what you CANNOT do, and what you SHOULD do.
As you grow more, you start understanding the reasons that pushed your parents to act like they did, and by now you'll probably be a parent yourself.
I'm making it a LOT more simple than it is, bare with me - there's no "Kid How-To" out there, and those who are available are wrong because there cannot be a Kid How-To, except in dictatorships (but I digress).
So, back into topic: if a kid is afraid of doing something because he KNOWS his parents knows where he is (and probably will know what he's doing..with the next generation of such watches) his maturity will suffer. He will never become an adult capable of making reasonable decisions; he has grown up with 'someone else' making decisions for him and HE COULD NOT EVEN HAVE A CHANCE to disobey, and be proven right.
Such watches will endanger the grown up of such kids. Another point in favor of kids could be their popularity in schools.. think about people making fun of you because your parents don't trust you.. and forced you to have a gps watch.. enough here).
Sure they/we will get used to it. Sure next generations will get used to it and either
1. develop new ways to avoid such system (as right now fake ID cards are)
2. suffer from it and become morons that are used to to what is told them to do, being it from parents or government
So we will all become either criminals or perfect citizens. Cool. Now I understand the leading trend in society! (I'm joking here, this is a provocative sentence. That said just to avoid those of you that love not understanding sentences and waste time for a 'fun' phrase writing paragraphs trying to prove wrong a sentence that was ironic at the beginning).
Just thought about it.
Oh well of course I'm not even thinking about raising a children in the US. But that's another topic. Anyone would like to go colonize Mars with me and raise kids there?
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
It seems that this device is difficult to remove from wrist, which is obiviously a danger itself. It isn't a great danger, but I'd like to see this unit to break loose when twisted before the bones break.
You're either not a parent or forgotton how easy it is for a 2 or 3 year old to get lost. I have not yet met a parent who has NEVER lost sight of a child for a few seconds, even on reins they can wriggle out, or remove it when your attention is elsewhere - shopping is a classic example.
If you're in the UK, you'll remember Jamie Bulger? Do you suppose his parents would have had this device if they could?
Perhaps if you do have kids, and do momentarily lose sight of him/her and they tyhen go missing, you might change your mind. I sincerely hope it never happens to you.
We had a child wander off, took us 5 minutes to find him, i have never been so panic-struck in my life. It happens, even to the very best parents.
And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour Isaiah 3:5
Gee.. just one more step closer to barcoding people.. Kidproof? thats a barcode.. only 10 dollars a month and you have a network of phones that when in use by anybody will scan barcodes in the vicnity of the phone and will help triangulate barcoded inviduals for the location database? Lost your kid? no problem..
I hope I'm not being stupid, but there seems to be a serious flaw to this system.
How do the parents go about the process of finding their lost child? I'd imagine the parents would call up the company requesting the geographical location of their child? But how do the parents (or the company) know their own geographical location? Directions are always relative to the start point (in this place the parents), so it seems to me that you're really going to need two sets of GPS systems.
When you add the variable of the child moving about, this is going to add extra problems. It may well be useful near your home, where the company can give you a street name, but what about when you're away from home?
> that I don't even know where to begin.
As mentioned in the comments there are some "practical" uses for this. And, as a disabled single father of a 5 year old son, I can definitely see some serious advantages in this product.
That being said, this device still makes me very uncomfortable. It worries me on many levels, too. I honestly can't decide if this would be a Good Thing<tm> or not.
There is one little niggle I have, too. It's $400 a pop and $35/mo for this. I can see people buying it for their young children and I can't shake the feeling that this is just exploiting the fears of parents to make a proffit.
--
If I actually could spell I'd have spelled it right in the first place.
I'd give a thousand dead children a year to protect the basic liberties of the other hundred million.
Don't tell my girlfriend!! :-)
My leash is short enough as it is...
No sig to see here. Move along.
Here in Finland we give our kids a cell phone. If they need to call home, they call home. If the parents need to call their kids, they can call their kids.
A friend of mind, father of a teenager, has a deal with his kid. He provides the phone + pays the bills (you can set a limit to that as well), as long as the kid promises to answer the phone when his father calls. If not rightaway --nobody should be forcedly tied to the phone-- then within reasonable time.
Even a one-or-two-character SMS message will do;
. = yes
! = sure! or, look behind you! i'm already here
1. Keep track of employees
2. Keep track of your boyfriend(for gurls)
3. Keep track of multiple gurlfriends(this way you can tell if one is coming towards your place when you are with another one)
4. Keep track of your boss(just wait for the multicasting version & every employee will tracking software running on his/her machine)
5. Attach one to every cop car in your town(small towns) so you know how far the cops are from ya.
6. Lock it on your bag of weed so when yer friends misplace it you can find it easily
7th and best reason!
Attach it to the Senator from Disney so we can catch him meeting with church of velenti all the time(this one needs the 4+ hours of recordable media on it)(with content protection scheme so he can't erase it)
:)
That they haven't advertised these foremost for pet tags, most folks care more about their pets' safety than their kids...
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
does it also count down from 24 hours, so your kid always knows exactly how long he's got to get the President out of New York?
~Philly
A lot of folks are saying positive things about this because protects children against abduction.
This system offers a means for someone to totally track every movement of a child. While the parent is intended to receive the data, what prevents someone else from hijacking this data? Wouldn't it become easier than for a potential abductor to observe the habits of the child and choose a time when the band was known to be off?
Let's say that an abductor abducts a child with one of these things. What's to stop him from just wrapping something around the device to block the signal?!? It surely wouldn't be too difficult.
int func(int a);
func((b += 3, b));
> I have not yet met a parent who has NEVER lost sight of a child for a few seconds
Fair enough. You're a parent, you're out shopping, your kid suddenly disappears. Do you:
a) Call his/her name;
b) Find the nearest assistant and tell them you've lost your child;
c) Look for him/her, heading first towards the toy department;
d) Go find the nearest Internet cafe, log on, type in your account number, wait a few minutes for them to tell you that they can't locate the device because it's inside a large building...
Responsible parents wouldn't pick (d), even if their child did happen to be wearing one of these things. On top of which, I don't think the company would stay solvent very long if every parent who loses sight of their child for thirty seconds starts ringing them up demanding that they be found immediately. Unfortunately, I think the majority of parents who would buy these contraptions in the first place are the kind of people who would do exactly that.
The real use intended for this is locating children who have actually gone missing (i.e. who are feared abducted). In that scenario, I do not doubt for a minute that serious crimes could be prevented. But my personal feeling towards this company is one of revulsion - they are preying on the fears of parents for commercial gain.
Your child is hunreds of times more likely to die while crossing the street than be abducted and killed. So does that mean you're an irresponsible parent because you don't make your child wear luminous clothing and head-to-toe padding whenever they leave the house? Please.
</rant>
These sigs are more interesting tha
Thousands of kids die every year in car accidents. If we locked them up in their respective houses, they would not die in car accidents.
So, all that happens now, is that the kid *does* get abducted, and one of three things happens:
....
1. The abductor is an idiot and doesn't discover the 'watch'
2. The abductor manages to defeat the lock.
3. The abductor removes the kids hand *and* watch.
Either way, a determined abductor is not going to be concerned
gus
.. if only.
...and five or ten or twenty years from now they'll be able to implant one of these into your skull at birth. Just think! You'll never have to worry about being "lost" again!
... other purposes ... scare the hell out of anyone else?
Does the thought of this technology being used for
"Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"
Having raised 2 kids of my own, I understand the paranoia that parents can go through. When they were about 3, they managed to let themselves out of the apartment (kids can be very resourceful). Of course we imagined the worst. A gadget like this would have helped us find them and eased our minds. Given the price, we would never have been able to afford it though. Living in the real world the worst wasn't what happened of course. We found them exploring the stair well a few floors up on the far side of the building. I see technology used for things like this (Young kids) as a non-issue. If you can afford it, and it gives you some piece of mind, then nothing is lost, and it sure a lot better than registering you kids fingerprints with police.
Actually, I think it is less about controlling what your kids can and not do, and more about protecting them if they were kidnapped or something. Now, the problem is, they say it is difficult to remove, but is it difficult enough to keep a kidnapper from removing it? It may be overkill, but it is not without justification. I don't think this product is aimed at people with teenage children, but more for children under 8 or 9, when they care less about privacy. Since this thing has the unfortunate side effect of violating the child's privacy, it wouldn't be as likely to be used on, say, a teenager, both because the parents should respect the wishes of their kid, and because by the time a person grows to want privacy, they have probably figured out how to disable the device on the wrist.
I don't know how this can be done fairly, except I think before 8 or 9 children for the most part could care less about privacy, and about 10-12 start to desire privacy to be more independent of their parents. I know if this had been around when I was a teenager, my parents certainly wouldn't have forced me to wear this...
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Is your kid the friggin' Bubbleboy?
I wouldn't be surprised that if kids' lives were severely restricted/controlled, they would be more inclined to commit suicide.
I wonder if they wander too far away if their wrists will explode.
now pedifiles and perverts with some technological know-how can scan where their victoms are so its not hard to find them alone! trust your children to technology! eric.
adventure-today.com
There's a HUGE problem with this device that the creators obviously didnt put any research or thought into....
GPS does not work inside or in a metal car. so unless little johhny is kept outside and long enough with the GPS antenna in the unit pointing skyward for 2 minutes while the GPS reciever get's a lock it is 100% worthless.
The idea is great, and as a parent I would love for one of these things (actually a two way pair!) for places like cedar point,disney,the Cape, the beach, the park etc... anything that will allow me to give my 10 yuear old some freedom that I enjoyed in the 70's that you cannot do now because the ratio of sickos/idiots to normal has over tripled (and we are more socially accepting of the sickos now too... Mr, dan is just exercizing his freedom to do ritualistic killings of children, how dare we opress his beliefs!)
but gps sucks giant potatoes anywhere that is not a clear open sky with high quality equipment... and I highly doubt they use a 12 channel GPS reciever with a high gain antenna and top quality reciever section.. (which cost me $1200.00 for my boat) in a $400.00 RETAIL device.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
In that case, to prevent removal, maybe the kid should shove it up his/her nose.
Bill Keane, the writer/artist of Family Circus simply wants all of our children to wear these watches so that he can hack in, use a specially modified tracking program that follows the path of your children with a dotted line and then use that dotted line in his next "what did Billy do on his way home from school" strip. Boycott this device...the pseudo-hilarity must end.
I don't understand what Michael thinks is wrong with this (other than the astronomical pricetag).
Using GPS to protect your children is a great idea. If your child is abducted, having a GPS on them would make it more likely that they can be located before anything happens, and makes it easier to prosecute the abductor. As a father, I can imagine the anguish parents whose children have been abducted must go through. It must be absolutely horrible to not know what happened to your child. Even in the worst case scenario where something bad does happen to the child, this technology would at least give the parents some small comfort by locating them quickly, instead of putting them through days, months, or years of anguish and worry.
Some people may argue that this is an invasion of privacy, but I don't see it that way. Does a 6 year old really have a right to go anywhere she wants without her parents knowing about it? Absolutely not. Certainly older kids (say teenagers) should be given a certain amount of privacy, but kids of that age could probably easily disable or cut off a GPS wristwatch. So, I really see no problem with this technology at all. Except that subscription price. Ouch.
I saw a story on the local news about this product and it does work indoors. They have their own PCS network that works with the GPS to track the location even without a clear view of the sky. If you dig into the web site far enough the information is there as well.
This thing is actually a 2-way device like a cell phone. We all know it doesn't take GPS to find the location of a transmitter. If your phone will work there, this thing can be located.
GPS receivers CAN (in theory) work indoors, despite what the usual handsets do.
> The Personal Location System incorporates
> enhanced GPS technology, which enables it to
> obtain location information indoors as well as
> outdoors.
(from the FAQ)
Having worked in the GPS handset industry previously I can tell you there are three methods to achieve this:
a) Receivers are getting better - more effective, steeper-edged filters and lower noise mixers means better SNR, so that you can pick up a weaker GPS signal. This is the usual claim of 'enhanced GPS' from Snaptrack etc. and I'm doubtful this has been employed.
b) If you let it be known to the receiver that you are remaining in the same place for a while then it will just increase the 'integration time'. Essentially the GPS signal received repeats every millisecond and you pick out the signal from the back ground noise by averaging chunks of 1ms. The longer you do the averaging, the more you lose the noise. This relies on the signal not changing (you must be stationery of the order of a couple of centimetres). But the theory goes that if you stay still for a few minutes, you can pick out them signals from inside a normal office building. I've never seen it done, but is certainly feasible. Maybe these guys have done it.
c) Cell phone location systems are widely available (e.g. Cambridge Positioning Systems) but only work in areas of high population (lots of base stations to triangulate from). Luckily this is exactly complementary to GPS which tends to work best away from buildings. Maybe cell phone location is also used here - but then they would have probably claimed that since it would be pretty novel.
And you're being one of those accursed objectivists. Safety is hardly ever free. There is always some cost. A seatbelt can be uncomfortable but I wear one for safety. I could cook a steak to be well-done [but tough] but I prefer to take the risk and eat it rare [and juicy].
The essence of life is taking calculated risks.
If these things catch on, how long before we start to see a company marketing a cheaper version that doesn't have all of the same functionality as the real watch, but looks exactly the same and includes a sticker that says, "this watch monitored by ChildWatchGroup".... you know, as a deterrent.
Its the same theory as putting security system signs in your front yard, it makes it more likely that a burglar will go somewhere else.
::Remove tounge from cheek::
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
When will someone come up with a chip I can implant in junior's head that will do all this stuff?
/sarcasm
I guess the question comes down to a cost/benefit analysis. Sounds cold doesn't it? But really, this seems like a company that is trying to make a profit on fear. Trotting out the Jamie Bulger case only helps them in the fear-mongering.
Let's look at what they're offering for a service and the average scenario where you'd need it. A lot of lost/wandering children occur in large busy places. They get turned around or distracted by something and then they can't see their parent in the sea of people surrounding them. (To get an idea, walk into the local department store, get on your knees and then try to spot someone, then try this at Christmas time.)
So, kind wanders off, gets lost. Parents rightfully panic. Turn on the old homing beacon. Interesting, GPS doesn't work too good in that three story department building does it?
So, the big question is, does the product that is being offerred actually work? Looking at their web site they're offering a web lookup and a 800 number that will allow them to "give you the nearest street address". Wow, they give you the address of the mall. THAT was worth the $400 up front plus $35/month.
So, all that money spent. You're a good parent. But would it have done anything to decrease that 5 minutes of complete terror?
BTW, I'll be joining the parenting crowd in a few months myself so I'll try to see how much my attitudes about things like this change.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
I want one for my wife! God knows where she ends up and it's a bear trying to tack her down. Now if only it worked internationally.
"Wherify's GPS Personal Locator helps keep loved ones safe"
OK, so how exactly do they back this claim up? It does nothing to PREVENT something from happening to the wearer. Just another after-the-fact tool to help find the (hopefully alive) body and build a case against the criminal. Like unwatched security cameras.
Not that I don't see uses for it, but the marketing is WAY off. This thing would be great for people like hikers in remote regions, or skiers and the like. It'd be much more helpful in locating those who are simply LOST, perhaps victims of accidental injury or foul weather, than as an anti-crime device.
Here's my 2 cents -- while I agree with the privacy advocates that there limits (at some point kid's old enough to take care of himself, deserving of privacy, etc), I also think that for younger kids this device is very useful. When I was two, I followed my grandfather's beagle into the woods when he turned his back for a second. I was gone all afternoon, and luckily was found before dark.
I now live on the same property. It backs up to a huge state forest and mountains, and I hope my son (coming up on his first birthday now) will someday enjoy the same hiking, exploring, climbing and wandering that I did growing up (/. will be for rainy days!). A device like this would make me feel a LOT more secure about letting him ramble solo. Looking back, I did a lot of stupid things when I was 8 or 10, playing soldiers and running & jumping from rock to rock, climbing too high by myself in trees, not watching out for snakes on sunny rocks, etc. It's easy for a kid to get hurt and immobilized, and when you're talking about a couple thousand acres, finding them is not easy. Hell, this is exactly the kind of device that serious climbers, hikers and backpackers wear on purpose for exactly that reason - they want to be found if they're injured!
I want my kid to grow up competent and able to handle himself outdoors, and to feel that I trust him to go out exploring on his own (at an appropriate age), but at the same time, if you can ameliorate some of the risk through technology, why not? It's not like this device is going to be permanently implanted; at some point, they'll outgrow it.
My wife and I are expecting our first child in about three months. It'll be a couple of years before we have to worry about the wandering problem, but I, for one, am willing to give this product a long, serious look when that time comes. In fact, I had talked (half-jokingly) with a friend of mine about building something similar a few years ago.
Why am I interested? It's not that I need to know where he'll be 24/7. It's not because I want to track him as a teenager. It's because children disappear just often enough that it's something I'll worry about in the back of my mind until the day he leaves for college. And a device like this is something that might help prevent that from happening. I really see it as something where, if I used it, it would be during the toddler years - when he could wander off on his own in a flash without thinking twice about it. I'm more worried about his getting lost than I am about someone snatching him, and the odds are much better that he'll get harmlessly lost. But it's still a nice way to let child's first watch increase his mom and dad's comfort level.
Start putting them in adult watches, and then I'll worry about privacy issues. When my child is old enough to be aware of privacy, it's time to give him a regular watch.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
If you had read the original article, you would have noticed that the device has PCS connectivity so it can call out and let its information be known.
And I'm sure the kids will quickly learn that a sufficiently strong magnetic field or electric shock will permanently addle the electronics of this thing. When I was young, I had a magnet capable of picking up a man hole cover (We tried it once.) You can create a static charge capable of frying any electronics I personally have run across with the zapper from one of those static-electric cigarette lighters.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Your child is hunreds of times more likely to die while crossing the street than be abducted and killed. So does that mean you're an irresponsible parent because you don't make your child wear luminous clothing and head-to-toe padding whenever they leave the house? And even then, it is stupid, 'cauz most personnal accidents happen at home...
...psychopathology, do you? Since most abusers don't choose their victims at random (more than 90 percent of victims know their attackers), this logic is badly flawed and is a good reason why this device is a bad idea, since it fosters a false sense of security.
Virg
This technology would be great for the people who have Alzheimers and other related illnesses, where they wander off.
The best way to protect your child or yourself is to give them a de-activated cell-phone.
Go out and but a cell-phone (can be damn cheap) and use it for the first month or whatever they require. After that, cancel the service. Far too few people realize that even an unserviced cell-phone MUST be able to call 911. Older cellphones might be difficult to locate, but newer ones come with GPS with the very intent that emergency personell may locate the origin of the emergency call.
Now, that may not be an option for extremely young children, but after they can talk, the first thing every kid has hammered into his head is how to call 911.
So, you have a much less potentially intrusive option, which just happens to not cost you anything per month.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
So, why can't the abductor (who is overwhelmingly a non-custodial parent, other relative, or boyfriend/girlfriend[*]) just cut the thing off with a pair
of snippers?
Even if it's the classic melodrama of seedy pervert hanging around the mall looking for the random abductee, it's a case of 1) find person; 2) grab person; 3) snip off watch; 4) toss in garbage.
Meanwhile the idiotic parents, completely self-absorbed in their deluded state of irresponsibility, just think that Johnnie is taking an awfully long time at Sbarro's...
[*] in this situation the kidnapped has run away or eloped, and the parents attempt to stop it from happening by filing charges of kidnapping on the other party.
If there server is ever compromised it would be the ultimate tool for someone looking to abduct a child. For someone in the know, I don't think the 'locked wristband' would put up much resistance to a pair of wire cutters.
Kind thoughts do not change the world
Amen. I don't give a shit if you're 16 or 61, if you live in MY house you live by MY rules. If you pay me rent SOME of the rules are negotiable. That's why its MY house and not YOUR house.
Now Im not saying the tech isn't possible, or that you will not see devices like this in the future, along with the moral and social implecations of such technology blah blah blah.
Rather that it sounds close enough to that scam to insure that one should run to the hills as fast as you can. Just as you would if they were trying to sell you broadband over powerlines or tiled LCD screens.
Pianist : Some jerk whos taught themselves how to type in rhythm
when i have kids they will be wearing this or something like this, when they get older i wont lock it on their arm but they still can use it or carry it around if they want the security
-- botsex is {grep;touch;strip;unzip;head;mount}
Given that most of the market for such gadgets comes from the oh-no-my-child-is-going-to-be-abducted-and-torture d-by-a-paedophile market, I'd say that the locking makes perfect sense.
Yes, but look at the facts. Parents are SO worried about strangers abducting their kids, but it would appear that parents and other adults they are in regular contact with are a FAR greater threat to kids than strangers are.
I don't have any stats to quote yet, but most of the time you read about a court case involving sexual abuse or abduction, it is a parent or trusted adult who is the culprit. THAT is the real tragedy.
We warn kids about strangers, we want to "street-proof" our kids, but the most dangerous people are the ones they know.
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
Not that I think this would actually work, mind you.
sPh
This right here is a perfect example of why so many good kids go bad. You can't rule your house with an iron fist .. that sort of extreme is just as likely to result in rebellion as giving them 'too much' privacy.
A parent-child relationship should be built on trust. Just like a husband-wife relationship. Do you think it's a great idea to invest in a bunch of technology to constantly check up on your wife to make sure she remains faithful?
When I was a kid, if my parents had imposed this sort of restriction on me, it would have sent the clear message that they don't trust me one damn bit. Maybe other people would become submissive to this sort of thing, but I'd be more of the type to reflexively trust my parents as little as they trusted me.
Sure, you should know what your kid(s) is/are up to, and of course you have the right as the owner of the house to know what is going on under your roof. But to enforce things in this fashion is asking for disaster just as much as being a lazy, uncaring parent. There is no peace of mind in extremes. Building a trusting family is the only answer.
One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.
My $100 Garmin eTrex works beautifully in my car. It also works in my backpack when I go running, or from the inside of my apartment or single-story office building.
To deactivate without removing, simply wrap watch in a small piece of lead foil while wearing. This should effectively shield both GPS reception and PCS transmission of your location. Heck, aluminum foil may be good enough by itself.
"if you are living with the parent then your[sic] subject to their rules."
As soon as you phrase the relationship that way, you've converted it into a confrontation. It's not that what you say is false, but that resting on it does a huge disservice to everyone involved. As other posters have already stated, the child gets a clear message that they are expected to do "the wrong thing". Some of them will translate that into "I am a bad kid." It does a disservice to the parents because they have to be on guard at all times now that they've put it up. It also puts up a wall between, not around, the members of the family.
This is true of any relationship. Overprotective boyfriends and girlfriends scare healthy lovers off. Overdefensive companies (how many stables did you use?) frustrate and drive off their best employees. Churches, clubs, and governments are all the same. Relationships built on mutal respect are FAR stronger and more effective than those built on fear or force. The age and genetic relationship of the individuals involved is of minor importance in the analysis.
Any parent who straps a GPS locator on a child over 10 has probably already failed to build the trust which should come naturally from being trustworthy and ever-present.
[Disclaimer: My parents didn't watch me closely, but I ran away to live with my (then 28yo) sister when I was 16 anyway. I'm 28 and have no children of my own yet. My view is clearly biased.]
How about one for parents instead? It seems to me there are a lot more parents AWOL than there are kids. Kids/teens need to be able to go off with their friends and do stuff their parents don't know about. Didn't you? How else will they ever grow up if they don't get a chance to try things on their own? A good parent will instill some sense of right and wrong, some common sense, and some mutual trust and respect. About the only good thing I can see coming out of this is encouraging little minds to figure out ways to thwart/disable/remove the device.
...cannot do now because the ratio of sickos/idiots to normal has over tripled...
I doubt that this ratio has ever changed. But I do believe that our paranoia about sickos/idiots has probably tripled since the 70's.
Whack the kid over the head from behind; remove watch at leisure. [etc]
The website clearly says that interfering with the device automatically initiates a tracking of the last location of the device and informs the parents.
possible abuses, not by law enforcement, but by psychotic parents
Again, RTFM. The parents must specifically request for the child to be tracked--I don't think they're going to sit in front of their computer and on the phone, constantly requesting for child tracking. No doubt this is only used for stress situations, like an alarm company does--my 10 year old was supposed to walk to my neighbor's house, and is nowhere to be found, etc. I don't think any parent's going to be locking these Pikachu-looking devices on a 17 year old's wrist. And if they are, the kid definately has bigger problems to worry about than privacy.
Look, all doubters who love to flame based on Michael's half-baked criticism, just read the damn web pages for these stories before you go on an orgy of digital/children's rights protesting.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
" so we should stop using stairgates?"
Well, duh! Allowing your child to venture off-world without your permission could lead to all sorts of bad mojo, not least of which is kidnapping or murder by Goa'uld forces...
graspee
Obviously you don't have kids. If you have ever lost a child of your own you would know the absolute fear a parent goes through. I think this is a great idea for people who live in cities or go to packed malls a lot. It can help reduce worry and stifle the panic attack that comes when you turn around for 1 second and your child is gone. I think of it as Lo-jak for kids. I am sure you will see a lot more on this device the day it actually stops a kidnapping at the mall.
> He sees the wristband and moves on to another potential victim.
That's a really comforting thought, but the facts do not agree with you. Firstly, most (over 90 percent of ) abductions are committed by someone the child knows. The whole idea of the dangerous pedophile trolling the playground for someone to snatch at random is dangerously inaccurate, and this device could very well lead to overcomplacency in a situation where the child can be in real danger.
So, in short, there is almost always a "complex premedicated reason to go for that particular child." (assuming, of course, that you mean "premeditated", not "premedicated").
Also, you're assuming that the only way to disable it is to remove it. How's this? Grab the kid, jump in the van, crush the device with a pair of pliers, pour on some water, and drive off. Now, how is this going to protect my child?
Virg
There are so many things wrong with this that I don't even know where to begin.
Yeah, why spend your time adding information and opinions to the topic when you can spend it looking for more redundant writeups contributed by unpaid volunteers.
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
Scary movies? All you gotta watch is the news. Hate to say it, but from what I've seen, if your kid is gone for more than a day and you don't know where he or she is, they're probably dead.
Okay, then fall back to my favorite. Crush it with a pair of pliers. You don't even need to remove it first. How strong a signal does pulverized silicon put out? And, can you initate repairs by remote?
So munch for that.
Virg
As for not getting the device off....hmm. There are creative ways to hack things off when someone needs to. In fact, I head a story on the radio about some company that made arm armor for Japanese couriers. Apparently there is too much traffic in Japan to drive armored cars around and pick up cash from businesses. So they send couriers. Then they have these ninja crooks that walk up behind them and hack the arm off with the case of money that is padlocked to their wrist clean off. Ouch.
Also, it reminds me of the recent case of a little girl here in San Diego, CA. Someone abducted her in the middle of the night. It was probably the closet pedophile neighbor who apparently took off to the desert in his RV the next morning. They might have found her in time if she had one of these on. I guess if it was also fireproof, they might have found her body a lot sooner too.
Or in this case, tin foil wristband...
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
As always, someone like you comes along and decided that because we don't agree with your assessment of the situation, we're (A) immature asses who need to open our eyes and see the Truth that is so obvious to you and (B) anyone who disagrees with this must not have kids because they can't see the aforementioned Truth that must be obvious to all.
You're a myopic nitwit, and here's why. Few people are arguing that abductions don't happen. The argument is that this device would be a very ineffective way to prevent abductions, and that the abuses are far riskier than the danger it's meant to prevent. The kids on the side of your milk carton are (more than 90 percent) taken by someone they know, like a non-custodial parent or other relative. In those cases, it's very likely that the abductor knows about the device, and since knowledge of the device eliminates its effectiveness (crushing it would prevent it from calling home, so don't tell me it'll call home even if it's tampered with), it's no hindrance. Also, from my point of view, this device can easily convince someone who doesn't understand its limitations that their child is safe when in fact he's not, so it could very well be endangering the child more by its presence than its absence. This is the real danger in these devices, not the lunatic-parent-tracking-the-kid's-every-move danger.
Perhaps you should realize that growing up entails understanding that you're not always right, and that those who disagree with you are not always wrong. But then, you'll learn that as you grow up, I suppose.
Virg
P.S. Yes, I do have children, and no, I don't intend to use this device unless I take them camping in the wilderness.
Actually, in a controlled environment like these parks, you can do a lot better and easier. Since you control the environment, its cost effective to put more money into the infrastructure (hard to have stolen) and less into the actual braclets (easy to break)...
Here's my idea.. Have each kid transmitter just be a simple beacon, sending out a message cdma-style every couple of seconds. Power can be small. Use triangulation to find the kids. Give them a "I'm lost" button/switch, so they can page their parents. Of course, since the parents are paying for the service and are really the ones in need of comfort, they get a receiver, too. Like a pager that beeps when the kid switches the "lost" button. They can find the kid(s) position (multiple kids!!) with either a phone call, have the nearest landmark read out on the pager, or a directional finder.
At the exits, you can use this technology to make sure noone walks out with the tracker - limiting the park's risks even more.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
Argument ad absurdum. Clearly the argument is not that all safety measures should be ignored, and even more so that unsafe activities should be encouraged (playing with knives?), but you try to extend the argument to these ludicrous extremes to, by association, make the original argument seem ludicrous.
Though your own argument, complete with captial ANYTHING, is by itself ludicrous. It seems clear that not ANYTHING that reduces risk of injury is good is your argument, as you would probably not advocate locking your child in a small steel box (with padded interior and air holes), despite the obvious safety advantage of doing so. But since you present an argument without limits, it is impossible to determine where your true limit actual lies.
For the previous poster, and myself, the limit would be where the alleged safety improvement hinders liberty. For a small child -- the age at which stair gates are used -- this is not much of a concern. Once the stair gate comes off, it's time to start considering the GPS watch as well. The fear is that many parents in this increasingly paranoid world will not make a reasonable decision, and the alleged safety device will turn into an oppression device.
Have a nice day.
The enemies of Democracy are
> Scary movies? All you gotta watch is the news. Hate to say it, but from what I've seen, if your
>kid is gone for more than a day and you don't know where he or she is, they're probably dead.
>--It's a joke, laugh.--
Y'know, if you're going to make posts like that, you *really* oughta consider changing your sig...
Chris Mattern
And as Dennis Miller says, "the human herd has always found a way to thin itself". Parents that are overprotective used to produce children that couldn't survive on their own, who subsequently [fell from cliffs|abducted by local pervert|abducted by local lion|didn't realize that passing out was natures way of saying 'stop drinking'] and didn't reproduce.
Devices such as these reduce selection pressure on humans and as such are a bad long term thing.
--Rob
It's the way of children and teenagers to protect themselves by being tougher than the next guy. In the adult world however, the only place that this will do you any good is in prison. Grownups instead use the power of the state and society, because that power is much much greater than any individual ever could be, and it is used in a way that is civilized, orderly and (usually)fair.
:)
A device like this where the GPS function would be activated if and only if the user requests assistance puts the power of the state at your fingertips, and would be a great tool for those who need such close protection. It would be like having a police officer within earshot when you scream for help.
Of course, there is the potential for abuse. How would we know that the GPS is not on *all* the time? Because people are smart occasionally, and should someone find out that these devices are being abused, there'd be hell to pay for the state, believe me!
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
Think about this.. The CIA, undercover as a journalist, presents an enemy, we'll say Osama, a nice gold watch. They then can track where he goes and in fact target a cruise missile at the GPS signal. Nice huh?
_______________________________
"I'm not Conceited...I'm just a realist..."
Of course they need a version for wireless palm devices so that you can walk around while locating a "misplaced" child.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Once the pager industry gets onto this, it should cost about $99 plus $5 per month. The proposed pricing is about 5x too high.
The standard version of ping uses ICMP echo requests.
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc792.html
</nitpick>
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
It was called SA. The Gvmt turned SA off a couple of years ago - there was even a story about it here. But even without SA, the GPS signal isn't good enough to get better than about 5-10m. Enter differential GPS. These are an additional set of sattelites that know their position exactly. They monitor the GPS network and then send out separate corrections to the GPS signals. This allows for much greater vertical accuracy, and gives a 1-5m accuracy.
Cheers!
...from a few years ago represented themselves as trying to develop this technology, although the article seemed to imply that the real purpose of the enterprise was to skin the investors. I presume this wasn't Whereify, because this sounds reassuringly on the up-and-up. Anybody remember that article?
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
But the implementation is a little lacking... Just from thinking back to being a kid myself, the child wearing the watch has a whole lot more use for his location then the parent. (who has to be at a computer... the 1-800 service is of dubious use if the parent doesn't know their own coordinates).
If you gave the kid a GPS watch that they could use to figure out range and direction to, say, their home, their parents (also wearing these things), or preprogrammed "waypoints", they could find their own way back, and the adults don't have to worry about the kid wandering off and getting lost.
Get rid of the useless big-brother function and only have it broadcast the location when the panic button is hit, and you won't have to make it so that the kid can't take it off (that'll be the day)
If they weren't so butt-ugly and oversized, i'd probably want one myself, for that matter... are there GPS watches for adults out there?
--
Benjamin Coates
I'd like to see it also monitor and transmit the pulse rate of my teen-aged daughter. It's already on the wrist so it's an easy modification. And if she is baby sitting and her pulse rate goes through the roof (presumably because the make-out session has started), I can quickly arrive with my low-tech boy-friend removal device (read: shotgun). Much like the chastity belt from Scary Movie!
GPS does not work inside or in a metal car.
You've obviously never used a handheld GPS. My Garmin eTrex works fine in my metal car. It works fine in my house, even in the center of my house away from the windows it still gets a decent lock on the satellites. Now, when I put it in my pocket and hopped in the car, it lost it's link, but I can leave it on the seat or even on the floor of the car and it stays up just fine.
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
Car: yes
Upside down in car: yes
Center of office building: no
Edge of office building: yes
I also frequently take it in a backpack on long runs through the in the national forest here, and it works fine there, too.
The Garmin eTrex units do not have an external antenna. You make a good point about the antenna, though-- whatever internal patch antenna they are using is probably larger than the wristwatch model. But don't forget that that device can use the PCS network for positioning also.
Of course, this wouldn't be very good for people who like to use the answering machine for screening calls: "Hello, John Smith isn't in right now. He's six feet away from the phone. At the tone..." Hmm... Maybe an access code for this feature would be a good idea! (As well as a Lie option.)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
There have been well publisized reports of parents being made to serve jail time because their kids (repeatedly) skipped school.
Sounds like you need a new community. No way in hell would I serve jail time because my teenager did something wrong - especially something as trivial as skipping school. I can't believe the legal system in this country has come to that! I can understand if the parents left their guns sitting around and the kid shot someone, sure, throw the parents in jail. But skipping school? You've got to be kidding me.
I personally would like to beat the living hell out of whomever pushed that law through the system...
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
Sorry, that's an old sig, maybe I should change it. I'm being serious and the statistics bear it out.
What I wonder about is the battery life. It's running a pager and GPS locator, oh and a watch 7/24 off of a .. watch battery? What's the battery life? (Or did they forget to mention the battery backpack?)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Lose the watch and kid protection features, and I'll bet you could get the basic features a lot cheaper. (Although packaged as a watch with full Dick Tracey cell phone features...)
I still think battery life is the kicker.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Okay--let's get all the usual comments out of the way. This is a bad idea, it is the embodiment of Big Brother, it shows how silly and paranoid parents are, it is a crutch to let bad parents ignore their children, yadda yadda yadda....
I've been waiting for something like this for years.
Daughter #3 is 10 years old--and she has Down syndrome. There are a lot of features about Down syndrome--two of them are stubbornness and a complete absence of fear. Which frequently means that Downs kids will wander off. Or, if they're stopped, they'll very carefully sneak off. And we live adjacent to an 1100-acre state park.
Yup--I should keep an eye on Daughter #3. And yes, technology is no substitute for an alert parent. Yes--we have a fence, and yes--we work hard to make sure she stays in the yard. And she does stay in the yard. Most of the time.
Except the time last year when she turned up in a neighbor's swimming pool. And the time the summer before when she turned up in a different neighbor's bathtub. If she's good and faithful and safe 99.3% of the time, that still means she wanders off 1 day per year. And if she wanders into the park, we'll have to call out the National Guard.
Literally
In fact, Annie is featured prominently in the park's emergency plan. There's a search-and-rescue group that trains in the park, and they routinely exercise their plans for finding a mentally-retarded child in dense woods. A GPS tracking device could (and let me emphasize could) be enormously helpful.
BUT...
There are a few problems. First, and probably hardest, you have to have the device on the child when he or she decides to wander off. "Locking" it on a wrist strikes me as a surefire way to pick a fight--or make a fortune selling replacements. All Annie has to do is wear that GPS unit into the bathtub--or her wading pool outside. Or she can find out if it works better with peanut butter (which she's stuffed into 2 CD-ROM drives) or popcorn. Then there is the problem of location: GPS is meant for open air use. Any GPS chipset includes logic to store the last "locked" position (when the unit had 4 or more satellites in view)--so finding her inside a house won't be an issue. But how to report it?
There are two competing telemetry providers using the cellular telephone spectrum, Aeris and Cellemetry. Both depend upon radio units having enough signal strength to set up a call (Cellemetry doesn't actually set up the call--it just validates a ficticious phone number). Despite all the cell tower construction, there are still lots of places in the U.S., to say nothing of elsewhere, that do not have coverage. If you're looking for a truck (which is what Aeris and Cellemetry are used for) you can wait for the unit to report in a few minutes when it finds coverage. But a system to track a child has to have a substantially higher level of reliability.
A doctor in South Carolina (can't find the link anymore--the company may have gone bust) tried to market this kind of concept before. He hid the GPS unit and the radio in a pair of sneakers--and he had a remarkable success with a buy with autism who was rescued while walking on railroad tracks in Chicago. Hiding a unit like this in sneakers is brilliant--but getting and keeping GPS lock was an issue, as was connecting to the back end over the cell system.
I wish this would work
But this is probably yet another almost, sorta, kinda, almost....
I'd love to write more--but Daughter #3 has appeared in her coat, with six cents in her hand and a page of coupons from Domino's Pizza. I think she wants supper....
Hi!
You mentioned in your reply to me that you'd like to have GPS/cellular tracking in your car. As it happens, there's a company that does precisely this (they're a client of mine):
The vehicle position is tracked anywhere in the U.S., giving you vehicle location (including reverse-geocoding, so you get the street, town, and state) at stated intervals. You can also "pulse" the vehicle (akin to sending a page) to ask it to report at other times. Most users use the "bread crumbs" feature to see where a vehicle has been over a given period of time. We've used the system to retrieve a couple of stolen cars so far, and it's also being used to track tractor-trailers, garbage trucks, and (in Sarasota, FL) school buses. It's a very cool project.
And--knowing as much about the technology as I do, its all the more frustrating that I can't hang a unit on Annie. I have--literally--the entire MapQuest database and mapping engine sitting here in my office, and I can't use it.
1.) "There are a lot of people talking about privacy issues. "
Very true, and I agree that privacy isn't the problem.
2.) "A lot of posters who don't have children really can't fathom the depth of emotion a parent feels for their child, and thus the lengths a parent is willing to go to in order to protect that child."
Agreed, and you have just touched on the big diverter in this argument. As I (and a number of others) argued, its effectiveness is what's at issue here, not its marketability. Plenty of people buy snake oil in whatever form it's offered, and I have no doubt that there are plenty of suckers out there willing to shell out money for this particular panacea. What bothers me is that this very marketability could be a hazard in itself, just like psychic surgeons who convince people to forgo necessary medical treatments in favor of their charlatanry.
3.) "I saw a lot of "Parents must be lazy, just watch your kid" type of posts. As a parent yourself I don't think I need to explain the shortcomings of this type of statement."
Again, I'm with you on this. See back to my answer to #2 above, though, and understand that my concern is that anything that convinces a parent that he can be less vigilant is dangerous.
4.) "A lot of folks talk about how easy it would be to defeat the device. Well, it's pretty darn easy to defeat a home alarm system too."
There's a functional difference, in that burglars often look for the easiest steal for the effort, as they're driven by the profit motive. This means that someone advertises they have an alarm system and the thief moves on to an easier mark, since one house is very much like another. Kidnappers, on the other hand, are driven either by target motive or psychology. That is, they will almost always want a particular child, for a variety of reasons (a non-custodial parent or relative will want that child only, a kidnapper for profit will choose a target for the grab, a pedophile will rarely pick a child at random but will target a particular child or group of children). Therefore, the deterrent force necessary to prevent the abduction needs to be far greater, and this device isn't going to be enough.
So, in conclusion, my take is that this device would be very handy for tracking a child where getting lost is a problem (my camping in the woods scenario), but is actually worse than nothing for protection from abduction because of the false sense of security that it fosters.
Virg
My father was the same way -- he always knew where I was, because I told him where I was going, because he demanded that I do so.
The difference between responsible parenting and opression is the difference between wanting to know where your kid is, and attaching a device that constantly -tells- you.
The enemies of Democracy are
Amazing. Only if I could moderate...
... there'd be bad moderation in the world?
I have a motion-detecting laptop lock that will blast 70dB if the lock wire is cut. (Once it went off and I forgot the code, and some moron suggested cutting the lock, like that was going to silence the alarm.)
Isn't the point of a laptop that you can move it around? How can your oh-so-wonderful device tell the difference between you carrying it somewhere, or someone trying to rip it off? Please don't tell me that you shut it off when you're carrying it around...
How is it not obvious to people that products such as these do not get dime one of VC funding without first addressing concerns like these?
Lack of naivete? Two words: car alarms. How often do you jump out of your seat and run outside to prevent the burglar from stealing your or your neighbor's car when the alarm goes off? What? You don't even notice it anymore because it's never really a burglary attempt, and in fact hearing the damned thing go off "yet again" ticks you off?
How many times will the thing go off falsely and cause problems before it gets tossed. I'm betting 3 to 5...