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.

Comments

kidresistant??

[radja]

waterresistant I can believe.. now kid resistant.. THAT I gotta see..

//rdj

Re:kidresistant??

[Anonymous Coward]

The real danger with a device like this is parents believing that someone else is looking after their child and not watching them correctly. These things can be useful, in fact in some amusement parks you can rent them for the afternoon. It doesn't absolve the parent of their responsiblity to watch their kids. I can just see these parents crying on the 6:00 news "but we had the GPS device, we can't understand. We only let little Billy outside for 8 hours without watching him. We're going to sue the company."

To be fair...

[cperciva]

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.

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.

Re:To be fair...

[Chelloveck]

[...] they also don't want their three year old to take such an expensive little piece of equipment off and toss it in the street.

Precisely! Actually, an abductor wouldn't care about the value of the device and would probably cut the band immediately and toss the thing out the window. A small kid, on the other hand, may remove it simply because he/she can. You'd want to prevent that. (Although, it'd be easy to find if it did get lost!)

This device is not a bad thing. I wouldn't force it on an older child who didn't want it, but it sounds like a great thing for small children. Case in point -- We spend about a week each summer camping in the north woods. My wife is terrified that our 4yo will wander off. (Not that he's really prone to doing this, but moms are good at irrational fear. :-) Getting lost at a shopping mall is one thing -- The kid will eventually be seen wandering without parents and be taken to the mall office or some-such. Getting lost in the woods literally miles from the nearest houses is quite different.

Those Garmin FRS radios with the GPS features are also wonderfully attractive, for the same reasons. They're all a bit too pricey, but once something like this hits the $100 price-point we'll probably get a few.

These things shouldn't be used to check up on a kid you don't trust. I wouldn't want to use one to keep them honest. But don't discount them as "evil tools of Da Man". Like any tool, they can be used for good or bad.

What is Wrong?

[Deltan]

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.

Re:What is Wrong?

[khuber]

I did actually get separated from my mother at a store once when I was very young. I found an employee and they paged my mom over the intercom. I didn't like that and presumably I paid more attention in the future so that I didn't get lost.

Parents today operate under a media-fueled safety paranoia frenzy. More to the point, there's too much irrational worrying about children. It's rather sad to me because I think it _harms_ the children psychologically and propagates the paranoia.

Even though I don't have or want children, I don't want to live in a paranoid society where irrational laws are enacted "to protect the children" that don't actually do any good. This watch is a symptom of the paranoia, and of the oppression of the nanny state. "you can't afford $400 to protect your child????" Yeah, whatever. Put it in a college fund and your child will reap greater rewards.

When I was a child, I didn't need a pager for my parents to locate me. I never got kidnapped and thrown into a trunk without an internal release. I didn't get corrupted by our TV's lack of "parental control" (what an oxymoron). My family never got crushed because we weren't driving around the mall in an armored SUV. Hell, I got through my childhood without a bicycle helmet and I didn't even crack my head open once!

-Kevin

Re:What is Wrong?

[Chanc_Gorkon]

I agree with this thinking. Making laws "for the children" is not needed. What I think SHOULD be done, is a parental responsibility law. Make the PARENT responsible for the actions of their kid. Now some might think that this would entail all sorts of tech, but it doesn't have to. All it takes is you to SPEND TIME WITH YOUR KIDS! That's it! NO vacations to Hawaii without the kids, NO vacations to anywhere without the kids and for god's sake do something, ANYTHING special with your kids at least once a week. They will thank you for it in the end.

Re:What is Wrong?

[delcielo]

You obviously don't have kids. Some of what you say is right on the mark. "SPEND TIME" is exactly right. "...do something, ANYTHING special with your kids at least once a week" is another great point.

But "...NO vacations to anywhere without the kids..." is a HORRIBLE idea.

You have absolutely no concept of what 24/7 means until you have a baby, that grows into a toddler, etc. What are you doing to the child in the long run if you just give up your marriage and only do things as a whole family unit? A family starts with a marriage. Mom and Dad, they make the family work. The child can contribute love and enjoyment beyond belief; but not much actual work. To keep the family together requires the parents. And for the parents to be "THE PARENTS" requires that they stay together... be married... be a couple. You NEED, sometimes desparately to remember that.
If your family is going to stay as a single and complete unit, it needs a good marriage at the top of it. And that means spending some time alone once in a while.

It's this

[Goonie]

On /., there are some fairly common beliefs about children that aren't as common in the general community:

• Children, particularly as they get a little older, deserve some privacy.
  
• Parents are overprotective.
  
• That once parents get a hold of this kind of technology and use it with 4-year-olds, to track them down if they wander offthey're going to want to use it to monitor where their 15-year-olds go when they go out (which, IMHO, is a gross abuse of the technology).
  
• More generally, it's the thin end of the wedge.

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.

Re:It's this

[B'Trey]

OK, so the argument is that this is a Bad Thing because, although it has legitimate uses, some parent might abuse it. Isn't that like arguing that DeCSS should be illegal because somegody might abuse it to pirate a movie?

Excellent

[Captain Large Face]

I'm always losing my watch, so this would be fantastic.. All I need now is one for my keys.

How about TCP/IP?

[kars]

# 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..

Re:How about TCP/IP?

[AndroidCat]

I don't know if ping would be that interesting, but traceroute would be kind of funky!

"Billy, you know were supposed to come straight home from school, but the logs show that you were playing by the creek again." "Aww MOM!"

A third use...

[nordicfrost]

People here have mentioned kidnapping and elderly as groups with need for this watch. I also believe that victims of violent crimes will benefit from these watches. Here in Norway, some people with a special need to stay in contact with the cops, like women with abusive exes and imigrant women with psycho families get the "Voldsalarm" device. This device automatically connect to the police by pressing two buttons and sends out a homing signal.

This wristwatch is much more practical for this use.

Re:Paranoia ?

[CProgrammer98]

would say that if you feel your child has to wear one of these awful devices, then you've probably failed as a parent already

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.

Re:The worst effect of this is...

[khuber]

When YOUR 8yr old daughter is abducted,...

Yes, that happens all the time...not. Why do you think that stuff makes big news? It's extremely rare. Your child will not be safe with this watch or the shock collar or the leash, or ... There is just no 100% safety and you have to accept that.

Statistically, children are most often abducted by someone they know. Kidnapping is very very rare according to crime statistics:

2000 Juvenile Justice report on kidnapping

1,214 kidnapping cases in the U.S. in 1997. That is a miniscule number and if you think big brother wrist watches are going to prevent them, you're deluding yourself into a false sense of safety.

I understand that parents want to protect their children, but in "the real world", abductions are exceedingly rare. "One tenth of one percent of all the crimes against individuals".

There are real problems that affect children and imiginary problems borne of paranoia. I believe that children are better served by targetting more statistically significant problems like poverty, drug abuse, parental abuse, and so on. And finally, don't forget that it's my neighborhood too when you whip out the "if it was your child!!!" bullshit. It's not that I don't care; I care very much. It's just that I'm realistic and concerned with more important problems that can actually be addressed. I find it ridiculous that I have to shoulder the burden of child paranoia by funding TV controls, CD labelling, and all that stuff, that does nothing. Get those kids out of that dysfunctional family with the alcoholic father that beats them or the drug-addicted mother that can barely afford food. I mean, really, _that_ is more reality than the kidnapping silliness.

-Kevin

Re:I agree with the technology

[ewhac]

Okay, fine, having such a gadget on her person might possibly have saved her life. (We'll never know for sure, since we can't fork() a copy of the Universe and test both cases.)

But in all likelihood, it wouldn't have done a damn bit of good. Some possible countermeasures include:

• Whack the kid over the head from behind; remove watch at leisure.
• Use chloroform/ether/other drug to incapacitate child; remove watch at leisure.
• Seize child's wrist, squirt Krazy Glue into controls; 911 call now inoperable.
• Seize child's wrist, cut watch off with tin snips (easily concealed, available at any hardware store).

And that's just off the top of my head. Safety is not significantly enhanced by this product.

Now, consider the possible abuses, not by law enforcement, but by psychotic parents. 13-year-old Melissa wakes up one morning to find one of these locked on to her wrist. Her mother, played by Joan Crawford, informs her that she may now go only where Mommy Dearest permits her, and that her movements will be tracked and reviewed daily on the computer. Deviation from the set Plan will be severely punished. Dawdling on the way home from school will be severely punished. Going to the library without permission (hey, there's subversive, Godless trash in there) will be severely punished. Removing the watch will be severely punished.

One day, Melissa comes home to a stern lecture from Mom, who is standing in front of the home PC displaying the tracking log map:

"What were you doing in the school bathroom near the auditorium at 14:37?"
"I was peeing. Duh."
"Don't you dare take that tone with me, young lady. You were fraternizing with those disgusting scum you call friends, weren't you?"
"No, I wasn't. And the Drama club aren't scum."
"No daughter of mine is going to be caught dead around those homosexual freaks."
"None of them is gay, mom..."
"As long as you're living under my roof, you'll obey my rules. You're grounded for a week for lying to me, and you stay away from those Godless freaks."

Yeah, great idea. Instead of one Big Brother, we'll create a million little brothers, all of them unencumbered with such trivialities as regulations and public scrutiny.

Oh, and as for that tired aphorism that goes something like, "Even if it saves the life of just one child, isn't it worth it?" No. No it isn't, because the world that child will grow up in will be a perfectly dreadful place to live.

Schwab

Re:To be fair... Maybe

[MasterBlaster]

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.

The Great Outdoors on one's own

[RTHeath]

First, I'm suprised /. is just picking up on this now -- Whereify's been around for a long time, working on this for a couple years.

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.

Don't Know Much About...

[virg_mattes]

...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

A Better and Cheaper Idea.

[evilviper]

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.

Low-tech solution

[waldeaux]

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.

RTFM Please

[Dirk Pitt]

Before spreading silly uninformed FUD, you might go read the website.

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.

so begin anyway

[aozilla]

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.