Best GPS tracking app

When the freedom of Summer has come to an end for millions of students starting School, kids fret about what a new year brings, but parents, rejoice! However worry at the same time because despite their best preparation to ready kids to start the year - it’s just part of being a parent to be concerned about everything, especially knowing the location of their kids.

People hate being GPS tracked, but watch this video

Let’s be real here, no one likes to feel spied on. Thinking that someone can see my location at any time, just feels like a complete breach of privacy. But the truth is, the privacy of your location went away the day the first cell phone connected to a cellular tower. Here’s some history.

Cell phones connecting to cell towers is very similar to when you connect to a wifi network. That network gives you an address so you can connect, in turn - the know just about everything about you because your cell phone number is authorized to access the network that tower provides. And by physically knowing where the cell tower is, plus your radius of connection from that tower - bam, you and your location are being tracked. Combine that mechanism across multiple cell towers as you travel,  and the accuracy can get down to a few feet of your actual location. Something else to thing about is your location information can be Subpoenaed by a court of law, and the cell carriers must turn it over. There have been many court battles decided with cellular location data.

If you or your kids need more convincing, just watch this "Why Chirp GPS" video.

But I turn off my GPS, and do not connect to the Internet with my phone

Smartphones today like the iPhone 6, 7, 8, and X, or the Android Pixels, Nexus, and others - all have a large swath of high quality sensors built in that you carry around in your pocket, each one offering up their own bit of information about your location. Those sensors when combined with simple algorithms can report back to mobile operating systems and mobile apps that are listening, all sorts of things like the temperature, any networks you are connected to or have connected to, atmospheric conditions, your compass direction, your movements (walking, driving, etc.), time zone, and many more. Even if you are in airplane mode, even if you disable many of the sensors, it can still be determined where you are most of the time.

Best GPS tracking each other the smart way

Since we are already offering our location data to complete strangers, why not give it to people we care about too? 
That’s where the app Chirp GPS (Find my Friends, Family, Events) comes in, and how smart the app is will surprise you.

Chirp GPS, developed by Moonbeam Development, offers the ability to send your location data to anyone you are paired with, in real time, using location-smart technology that’s unique only to Chirp GPS.

There are a lot of GPS tracking apps in the app stores, but none of them come close to the accuracy, and passive mode tracking Chirp GPS offers. Not only does Chirp GPS share location data, but it reports area crime, weather, distance from you, direction, speed, and much more - all with only using less than 10% battery of the device.

Setting up Chirp GPS tracking app for kids

Chirp has provided a great getting started video, but if you need a step by step written out here you go.

• First download Chirp GPS for your device from either the Apple app store, or the Google Play store. Install, and register.
   
• Next, download, install, and register Chirp GPS on your kids phone as well.
   
• Finally, with both devices in front of you, tap “Pair” on your device, and tap “Pair” on their device. Then tap their device name when it appears on your screen, and accept the connection request on their screen - viola! You just enabled real time GPS tracking of your kid.

How to know when my kid leaves school or anywhere else?

Now that you have GPS tracking enabled through Chirp GPS, you can setup boundaries or “geo-fences” as they are sometimes called from within the Chirp GPS interface. To do that, tap “Boundaries and Pins” from the app menu, and search for the name of their school in the search box, when you find it tap “Go” or “Return”, and you will be centered to that location on the map above and a new boundary alert box appears. Simply name the boundary “School” for example, and tap how big to make the boundary - say, 1/4 mile.
So now anytime your child comes or goes from that boundary you will be alerted.

What if my kid turn Chirp GPS off?

In the unfortunate event that a child keep turning Chirp GPS off, and you need to lower the iron fist of discipline, you have the ability to lock the app and turn their device into a dedicated “black box” of sorts that they can’t shut down. Even if they reboot their phone - Chirp GPS will come right back online and keep tracking. And even if they go into airplane mode, or disappear into an area where there is no signal, Chirp GPS keeps tracking then reports all of the history to you when they come online again.
To lock Chirp GPS on someones phone so it can’t be turned off, just tap the menu inside the app, then settings, and lock app. Type a 4 digit ping code, and you are done.

How to preserve battery when GPS tracking with Chirp GPS

The tracking and location sharing inside of Chirp GPS is automatically tuned to preserve the maximum amount of battery, but giving you real-time reports of someones location. By default, the tracking is set to 25 meters, and Chirp GPS will only use less than 10% of a device battery in a 24 hour time period. If you want to lessen the impact even more, just go into the app settings, tap “Location heartbeat” on the device you are tracking. You can set the app to only report in all the way down to 1 meter, or up to 1 mile. The farther away to track, the more battery will be preserved. This settings essentially means “only report in over XX meters of movement.

How can I view my child’s location history?

The Chirp GPS app gives you unlimited history reports. To see anyones location history just tap their name from your paired list on the home screen, and tap “now”, “today”, “last 24 hours”, and so forth.

Why it’s a good thing to share your location all of the time

Sharing your location with others, and letting them sharing their location with you shouldn’t feel like you’re stalking each other, or that someone is watching your every move. Once you commit to location sharing with your friends and family, it’s actually a brilliant way of staying connected to people, and on the contrary to stalking, most people only take their phone out and find where someone is if they’re expecting them to meet up somewhere, or if they’re wondering how much time they have until someone gets to their location.

The benefits of having your children to always share their location with you is obvious. The safety advantages of locating your child at any given minute, plus knowing where they have been can be a peace of mind that far outweighs their complaints about being tracked. In a moment of panic, or concern, Chirp GPS is a complete life-saver.

The amount of kidnappings, murders, rapes, and crime involving a single person as the victim is alarming. Anyone ignoring the trend should turn on the news and take in the latest statistics. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, and the FBI, every 40 seconds a child goes missing somewhere in the United States. There are more than 460,000 missing children each year. Of those missing children, almost 1,500 of them are kidnapped.

Download the GPS location sharing ad tracking app here to get started