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These Shoes Let You Track Your Child's Location With Apple's AirTag
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Thats what an Apple Watch, iPhone, iPad and Homepod is for...Why stop at the shoes and lets add a microphone so we can hear what's going on.
Same, and it's really hard to get them to wear anything extra.
All the kids suddenly remove their shoes...
Skechers recently started selling a line of kids shoes that have a hidden compartment under the insole for inserting Apple's AirTag item tracker.
The idea here is that parents can put an AirTag in the shoes, and then track the location of those shoes (and the child wearing them) in the Find My app, which is available across the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and on the web at iCloud.com.
The shoes can provide parents with peace of mind by allowing them to keep track of their child's location in public. If a child gets lost in a busy shopping mall, for example, the parent could view their location in the Find My app. Or, a parent could double check that their child is where they are supposed to be at a certain time, such as school.
In a YouTube ad shared this week, Skechers said that kids cannot feel the AirTag under their feet while wearing the shoes, making it a discreet solution.
These shoes could also prove invaluable if a child is kidnapped, but one caveat is that the kidnapper would receive an alert on their iPhone or Android smartphone if an unknown AirTag has been following them for a little while. If the kidnapper is unable to find the AirTag, it will eventually start playing a sound. This is a safety feature that is designed to prevent people from using the AirTag for stalking purposes.
Another thing to keep in mind is that if the child does not have a device on them, the AirTag will rely exclusively on the Find My network to send its latest location to iCloud. In other words, the child will need to be around other people with Apple, Android, or other Find My network devices, in an area where there is cellular or Wi-Fi connectivity. If the child is somehow alone in an area without any internet connectivity, the AirTag's location would not update.
On its website, Apple says the AirTag should not be used to track people, but a parent using the accessory to track a young child is justifiable.
Alternatively, parents can give their child a cellular Apple Watch for location tracking purposes. The child does not need to have an iPhone.
The shoes are available for boys and girls in the U.S., Canada, and select other countries. In the U.S., prices start at $52 as of writing (an AirTag is not included). They come in a variety of styles, and they are machine washable, according to Skechers.
Article Link: These Shoes Let You Track Your Child's Location With Apple's AirTag
They have little stickers on Amazon you can put on AirTags that make them look like a flower or a soccer ball or whatever. We used those on our kid's AirTags inside of cases on a keychain on their shoe. It just looked like they had a little cute charm on their shoe. We only did this when they were little. It was great for locating their shoes (although sometimes they were separated) but also great for locating them in busy play areas like City Museum in St. Louis or if we got separated somewhere like an amusement park or the zoo. Fortunately didn't really need to use it much, aside from the play areas, although it can have difficulty triangulating when they are moving. So I told them to stop in place if they hear it beeping, and that worked well. The City Museum is full of all kinds of hidden nooks and crannies and kids can even climb up into the ceiling in places. It's wild.
It was also a good peace of mind to make sure the kids arrived at school safely, as the bus pickup was a third of a mile from our home for a while, near the edge of our neighborhood and we couldn't always wait out there due to work obligations. One of the things that pushed me over the edge to do this was a child sex trafficking ring that was busted up about a mile from my house.
It was also a good peace of mind to make sure the kids arrived at school safely, as the bus pickup was a third of a mile from our home for a while, near the edge of our neighborhood and we couldn't always wait out there due to work obligations. One of the things that pushed me over the edge to do this was a child sex trafficking ring that was busted up about a mile from my house.
NO.
Although the media breathlessly report such numbers, it is based on a child age 1-17 being reported "missing" after one hour (2019 study). Has your kid/teenager ever been an hour late after school or a movie or a game or a job? He or she could be included in that statistic. Separating out child custodial incidents and runaways, the actual missing / stereotypically kidnapped children number: less than 300 (4.1 per million children)--and 92%came home safely.
(National Institute of Justice Office of Justice Programs, funded by the U.S. Department of Justice)
Of course, even one child missing is a potential tragedy. But if my parents called the cops every time me or one of my siblings were an hour later than expected, they would have made us all nuts for no reason.
👆 this is why AirTags have anti-stalking features
(Maybe you're joking, but there are people out there who do stuff like this.)
Tell me you don’t have kids, without telling me you don’t have kids.
The number of people in these comments who don't distinguish between "child" as a 2nd grader vs "child" as tween/teen is WILD.
Children at different levels of responsibility and independence will have different expectations of privacy and supervision - I agree that even a young child should be informed what is going on, but I don't think the intention here is to monitor older children who actively want to be not tracked.
There is a world of difference between "let's check that Sam isn't behind the gas station smoking weed with the other middle-schoolers" and "Sam was distracted while looking at a balloon and wandered away at the county fair"
That's why they end up on Missing posters.
This being said, is there a weight limit on these before the AirTag succumbs to physics?
Fear mongering BS that "only parents would understand" the need to track their kids with airtag's 24/7 else they'll disappear and end up on missing posters.
No, a shoe company made a new product they want to fob off, thats it.
No, a shoe company made a new product they want to fob off, thats it.
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More BS about kids and privacy in this thread. Kids absolutely have a right to privacy, no matter the age. They have a right not to have their pics blasted all over social media by parents. They have a right not to be tracked by whatever new tech product happens to come out on the market this week.
As parents you should be teaching them about privacy in world thats so set on taking it away from them. You shouldn't be teaching them to be complicit tools for tech giants else they might be kidnapped!
Put AirTag's on adults because they are dumb as rocks. I feels sorry for the kids attached to all this crap.
As parents you should be teaching them about privacy in world thats so set on taking it away from them. You shouldn't be teaching them to be complicit tools for tech giants else they might be kidnapped!
Put AirTag's on adults because they are dumb as rocks. I feels sorry for the kids attached to all this crap.
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Everyone has a measure of privacy in terms of their own thoughts (we're not mind readers), but how much more than that where their parents are concerned?
On what basis do you claim this alleged 'right?' Other than because you say so.
Granted, this product is aimed for young kids, but even the older ones are minors not fully responsible for themselves, they are the parents' responsibility, in the case of older ones they are notorious for unplanned pregnancies and illegal drug use, their brains aren't neurodevelopment ally fully mature yet and on top of that some have various behavioral disorders (e.g.: oppositional defiant disorder, conduct disorder).
And it's the parents who will get left holding a big part of the bag when there's a need for bail money, or Junior has a car wreck, etc...
The idea these kids all have some sort of blanket basic human right to slip around, doing the sorts of things a person would need to slip around in order to be able to do, sounds like a bit of a stretch.
We're not talking about invisible fences around the yard with shock collars. We're talking not talking about tech companies tracking children to exploit them by selling their data. We're talking about parents having the option to locate their kids.
My wife and kid can check my location most any time, and I don't care, because I'm nowhere I'd fear them knowing I'm at.
Im a parent and would not treat my kids like pets pretending AirTags are going to save them from unplanned pregnancies and illegal drug use.
Of course its about tech companies! To pretend they don't factor into the conversation is ludicrous. Some new product comes out and all the sudden its essential for parents to bolt one onto their child else they might get kidnapped. We know these companies collect this data, we know its never deleted once its up in the cloud.
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Every couple of months just in the local area there's stories of toddlers or special needs kids wandering off and falling into ponds or creeks near their houses and things, no foul play suspected, and I don't see why people are begrudging parents having this tool as a better chance to intercept those fatal excursions.
If it's built in the shoe company has to worry about packaging the electronics, testing each individual unit, and warrantying it all, not to mention all the people who won't buy the shoes because they think the government wants to control them. All that and the shoe would probably end up costing you more than buying this shoe and a commodity priced air tag. I'm sure there's probably (currently) EPA rules about air tag disposal, too, that would be a headache when it comes time to proper disposal of the shoes.
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Pets we'd spay or neuter and the drug thing would be a non-issue. No, AirTags aren't necessarily going to save your kids from unplanned pregnancy or illegal drug use, but the principle of location monitoring at will more broadly (e.g.: Find My via their iPhones) can tip you off to them going places they aren't supposed to be, etc... Depending on what they're doing, how astute you are and how you intervene, you might be able to substantially mitigate that risk. So no, an AirTag (or even an iPhone) is no 'chastity belt,' but tracking some kids might make a difference. It's not an iron clad guarantee, but might tip you off to trouble preemptively.
Some kids live very low risk lifestyles, some aren't even around bad influences much, some avoid temptation quite well and some...don't fit those profiles.