Imagine being able to strap a watch on to your 10 year olds wrist and it will tell you exactly where he is at all times. A remarkable new device does just that in today's Technogadget report. This amazing watch uses global positioning satellites to determine its exact location and sends that information back to parents. The company is called Wherify Wireless and its CEO is Timothy Neher. "The GPS personal locator is definitely peace of mind for parents and it’s your child’s first communications device," says Neher. We took the GPS watch to Navy Pier with a boy and his dog. The boy is 11-year-old Scott Friedrich and that's Ed Curran’s dog, Ricky. Scott put on the locator watch and they set out for a run around Navy Pier while a computer back at CBS 2 captured their every move. The accuracy of the watch was amazing. We could zoom in on an aerial photo of the pier and see exactly where they were. Halfway down the north side of the pier the GPS system had them placed flawlessly. We did another check on their location after they disappeared from sight and found they were on the end of the pier. If you are out at Navy Pier, without a computer to know where Scott is, by calling the Wherify operator on a cell phone she'll look at an aerial map and tell us exactly where he is located. We picked them up again as came down the south side of the pier, tracking them on our choice of a map or a photo, as they caught their breath and finally returned to the north side of Navy Pier. The watch has some powerful features. It can be locked to the child’s wrist and unlocked, over the internet, by the parent. The child can press a two buttons to get 911 help. A parent can even send a page to the watch. How much does this high-tech tracking technology cost? It's not cheap. About $200 for the Wherify GPS Watch and about $20 for basic monthly service. It's something interesting for parents to know about. There are also other applications. For example, caretakers could use it to keep track of a confused Alzheimer’s patient. Down the road, we would not be surprised to see it used by law enforcement. |