Can’t sell telematics to your clients? Tell them to take it for a test drive when the kiddies go trick-or-treating Halloween night.
A free iPhone app Track n Treat will allow parents to keep tabs on their little ghouls and goblins through a time-limited link of their location via a phone number or email. For about four hours, parents can track their bundles of joy and their bags of candy via a web browser.
“Kids are out and about and their parents want to know where they are, so Halloween is a great use of a temporary location-sharing technology,” said Bryan Trussel, CEO of Seattle-based Glympse, which specializes in person-to-person location sharing technologies.
Although not exactly telematics, the GPS tracking technology for children’s cell phones does provide a glimpse as to the benefits of tracking devices. Especially when those little monsters grow up to be teenagers and the addition of telematics technology can offer parents paying the insurance bills a discount of as much as 15 per cent.
Another free app, Family GPS Tracker for iPhone and Android, not only allows parents see where their children are in real-time, but also sends alerts when a child strays outside of a set area. (continued.)
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“With the app you can always be aware of where your children are located,” said Michal Štencl, the CEO of Sygic, based in Slovakia, “and you can call them immediately if they venture outside of the safe zone.”
Life360, another free app for iPhone and Android – Life360 – allows family members to view each other’s location on a map and keep in touch via group messaging.
“A twelve-year-old might be too young to go out completely on their own,” said Chris Hulls, CEO of San Francisco-based Life360, “but an app can give them more freedom.”
Aside from the benefits for children out on the prowl for Halloween, the app allows users to set up zones and notifications showing, for example, when a child arrives at school, or when a spouse leaves work or gets home.
“We're trying to build a family graph,” Hulls said. “You have Facebook for your friends and LinkedIn for your work contacts, but what is the equivalent for your family life?”
