This year, we decided to live life on the edge and went to Walmart for Black Friday. The store was crowded, lines of people snaked through the aisles, and we kept my son in the shopping cart (rather than letting him walk) to avoid getting separated. As a parent, you always have that fear of losing your child in a crowd, whether it is a trip to the mall, a visit to a theme park, or an outing to a zoo.
AT&T has a new, high tech way of keeping parents connected with their children. Called FiLIP, the kid friendly watch uses a combo of GPS, cell tower signals, and wifi signals to track your child’s location. At the touch of a button, you can use your phone to call your child and FiLIP will work its magic like something out of a Dick Tracey cartoon. The watch has a built in speaker phone, so your child can pretend to be a superhero while they talk with mom and dad.
I read about FiLIP when it was released and AT&T was nice enough to let me try one out. The watch was easy to set up. There is an app that you install on your smartphone, which gives you access to all sorts of options. FiLIP only has two buttons, which makes it easy for your child to operate. The watch has a rubber coating that helps it survive mud pies, dog slobber, and anything else your child might encounter.
The FiLIP watch doesn’t have a buckle like a traditional watch. The curved rubber band comes in two sizes and holds onto your child’s wrist securely. I personally would have preferred to see a traditional watch band, but I can see the advantage of this simplified design. My son is still learning to tie his shoes, so a no fuss watch band makes sense in his case.
I read that FiLIP was invented by Sten Kirkbak after his three-year-old son Filip went missing for 30 minutes in a restaurant in Norway. When he got home, Kirkbak tried to find a location-tracking device his son could wear in future and, when he couldn’t find one, he decided to make it himself. As my family pushed our way through the Black Friday crowds, I felt a bit of comfort knowing my son had the FiLIP watch on his wrist. My worst fear would be having to search for my son in a sea of people in a congested store.
I worked at Disneyland for many years and lost children were a common occurrence. We even had the saying that there are no lost children at Disneyland, just lost parents. It would be great if you could rent something like the FiLIP for use during a family vacation. It seems that families tend to get separated when traveling through crowded, unfamiliar places.
There is a practical side to having a FiLIP for everyday use as well. Most parents debate when it is appropriate to give their child their first cell phone. The biggest issue is how the child will use the phone when mom and dad aren’t around. With FiLIP, the functions are very limited. You can preset up to five numbers that the child can call from the watch. You can determine which numbers can call the watch (sorry telemarketers). And you don’t have to worry about your child playing games on it. FiLIP is simply a child-friendly way for families to stay in contact, without all the hassle of a regular cell phone.
There are two trade offs with FiLIP that are worth noting: cost and battery life. The FiLIP watch and service will roughly cost you the same as if you bought a regular cell phone for your child. Of course, the benefit of FiLIP is its simplicity over a traditional phone. So if you were already planning to pay for a monthly cell phone, FiLIP won’t give you sticker shock. The other consideration is that you need to charge FiLIP regularly, just like a cell phone. The charger was easy to connect on the back of the watch and the charge lasted all day. But if the battery dies, you lose any benefit to having your child wearing FiLIP.
If you want more advanced tracking options, the FiLIP app lets you designate multiple safe zones (your neighborhood, child’s school, etc) and you can get an alert if your child leaves these zones. The zones were easy to set up and to change on the fly. I found that this would be a practical way to set alerts while you were traveling during the holidays or to just keep tabs on your child throughout the day. For some, this might be overkill. But for others, this type of tracking and monitoring might be the peace of mind you need.
When you have a young child, you want to do everything you can to protect them. It is gut wrenching as a parent to be separated from your child. Every minute feels like a lifetime and you can’t help but to panic. A high-tech gadget like FiLIP from AT&T is a practical way to stay in touch with your child and could be that lifeline to reconnect if you are ever accidentally separated.
