Life360 Protects Your Family & Property Via Web, Mobile, & More
Life360 is often described as an "OnStar for life," providing its users with tools to track and protect people and things through a variety of interfaces.
The company offers IRL services such as child identification paraphernalia, medical IDs, and credit and identity protection; but they also have a cool suite of features that revolve around Internet and mobile tracking of people, objects, and even pets. Their Android application for tracking and securely messaging people even netted them a seed round from Google
The concept for the company, which was founded in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, revolves around disaster preparedness and emergency messaging. Currently, the available features include an emergency messenger that uses email, web, SMS, and phone to get messages through to emergency contacts; a thorough, web-enabled ID service that gives first responders instant access to critical information; a service for cataloging and tracking valuable items via coded tags; and identity protection services.
The mobile tracking feature - which got the company a $300,000 investment from Google - allows users to locate family members using the web interface or the mobile application. Custom privacy settings allow users to find loved ones in an emergency, check their locations, see their statuses, and retrace their previous locations. While the company states this will not make family members feel stalked, we see this app as Cheaters fodder as well as a great way to keep track of the ones you care about most during times of crisis.
The Android app allows users to access all their Life360 services from their phones. Right now, Android devices are supported, with a BlackBerry app coming soon and an iPhone app stuck in App Store purgatory.
Another "coming soon" service we thought was cool - and also excellent Cheaters fodder - is a GPS-enabled tracking dongle that can be thrown in a bag, duct-taped to the underside of a car, tossed onto a pet's collar, stapled to a child - you name it. Life360 founder Chris Hulls told us in an email that he hopes to roll out the hardware within the next six months. "There will be an additional fee, probably in the neighborhood of $100 for the device and $10 per month for each tracked person," he said.
Some other GPS- and mobile-enabled features Hulls plans to release within the next year are a Curfew 2.0 app, a check-in system for "distributed" families to touch base, and customized alerts for emergency notifications in a user's specific location.
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While it seems great for emergency times I doubt a bit the usefulness outside of those. Here in Australia we are concerned with bushfires every so often (more often in recent years) and it could be a great device for those times. If the signals are transmitted via mobile phone towers it makes me wonder though what happens if there an overload on these towers due to stress and what happens when they burn down (obvious question). Also, many areas in Australia outside the metropolitan areas have either no 3G or no mobile phone coverage at all. That comes with a big land with few people in it.
With the first mobile devices running Google’s Android coming shortly, the development community at large seems apprehensive about the platform. After all, why develop for something that may or may not work when there is already a hot, new mobile platform out there, Apple’s iPhone that has proven to be extremely successful? Well, the team behind the life update and emergency messaging application Life360 took the opposite approach. But Life360 may be better suited for such tasks, because that would be a primary focus. But it’s not all about emergencies — the team is working on ways for families to keep track of one another more easily. For example, you could send your child out and know where they are and that they are safe. That starts to create privacy questions, but many parents would like such functionality. This is why people are rushing to have their payday loans right away so that they can purchase this gadget.