Hi guys, its pain in ass again lol, want some advice, is there plugin out there or could someone design one, that tracks consensual people form within an app, someone has asked me to do a parenting app for them, i realize that i may need some outside help, but i was wondering if i could use an existing tracking app within my app, is than feasible, comments and advice would be much appreciated Thanks Sean

I sometimes do location services in the form of tracking. Usually for a fleet of vehicles, but my supplier also includes watches, and pendants with tracking devices on them. (think "I've fallen, and I can't get up") Usually for young children and older alzheimer candidates, they are based on a Cellular and GPS module combined in various units. You can find many types of these kinds of units on Amazon or if you want a bunch, Alibaba. But they have nothing to do with 'apps', they are standalone hardware with specific functions and capabilities, and that's kind of all they do. (Although I've been doing 'some' custom app work for the fleet tracking...) For 'apps' I've done a little fooling around with 'Traccar', because it is open source, has both iOS and Android clients, but it didn't completely do what I need (SMS), so I haven't pursued it further. (I now utilize GPSGate) It really depends on the 'type' of parenting. Many parents of younger children sometimes employ wearable 'beacon' technology. When the beacon (child) gets too far from the device (parents phone) the device will start beeping (or other configured alert) to let the parent know the child is leaving the 'authorized' zone. I can't say for other manufacturers, but BluVision (StickNFind) beacons have an app already in the store with that kind of capability. I know this because I recently became a BluVision beacon dealer, so take my opinion with a grain of salt; I'm biased ;) But if you want to make sure the Teenagers are at the movies and not driving to Cancun, you'll want some other kind of solution; beacons are near field only. And their phone would need a generous data plan to use a network tracker. The chances of me building a tracking plugin 'for the public' is pretty slim. Apple makes it pretty difficult for you to 'sneak one past' the user, so unless you're building both the front and back end and using network communications to do it, privacy issues may haunt you when it comes to submission time. Good luck though, and let us know what happens; I'm always interested to hear how someone solved their challenges. Cheers! -- Smug

Thanks for you advice smug, what im considering, is more of your 2nd suggestion, ie keeping a child safe, with various alert functions ie call guardian or 911, showing parents or guardian where they are, but this side would be completely consensual, and the user could uninstall if they wanted, there are loads of these apps that track in America, but fewer here,only need upto 5 other people to be connected to the main app, which could be approved by the user, at no stage would i need the user to not know there being tracked, its more of a safety aspect rather than snooping, Thanks Sean

If that's the case, you may want to look at Traccar a little further... It has sample iOS and Android clients, which can be modified to suit particular tastes. https://www.traccar.org Beacons have inherent limitations in that they don't respond with 'coordinates', just 'here I am' and a signal level, giving you a rough idea of distance (very rough), with no real knowledge of 'direction'. So, the distance could be 20 meters, but you don't know whether that is north, south, etc... https://www.sticknfind.com Good luck in your endeavors! :) Cheers! -- Smug

Thanks smug, Will check Traccar out Sean

Smug's got some serious experience and now-how in this regard. It goes without saying (especially after all the details provided here) that it's nearly impossible to "track" a device unless the app is running and the device owner / user (the kid) has specifically allowed it. However, I've seen a few "features" like this added to apps over the years that do lots of what you're talking about but combined with the honesty, understanding idea. In other words, both the parent and the kid know the tracking is being done. Not really spying on the kid, just making sure he / she's where they claim to be. Most of these "simple approaches" work in one of two ways. One approach is to just have the app "always" running in the background. The kid knows it, the parent knows it. The device checks in on a regular basis, or when it leaves a geo-fence boundary or whatever. Not complicated, not fool proof but for sure provides some peace of mind for both parties. The other way, that doesn't depend on the app running in the background all the time is to send a scheduled push notification (say every :15 mins or so) that's silent. It doens't show an alert and it doesn't show bother the user. It simple "wakes up" the app, asks it for the devices location, then does nothing else. The differences between these two approaches are small but can be important. There's tons of room for creativity in terms of entering / existing known areas, timed check-ins, etc. But, both are fully dependent on both parties being aware of how it's all working. Good luck.

Thanks David, that's great advice, I want the app to be completely transparent as you said and both parties willingly set it up, its purely safe keeping for both and a slight peace of mind for both as well. I have looked at couple of api,s for tracking but i think implementing them is way out of my skill set at the moment but will give it a try. I like your idea of the push update side, so i will look at that method today and see if i can do that. When my clinet asked me I did explain that is was out of my coding skills and i might have to hire someone to design the tracking side, so i will attempt to implement these suggestions and maybe ask someone to help with that on here. Thanks for your advice Smug and David, it has helped a lot :) Sean

Small question Smug, im trying out your message location plugin in xcode, Im getting the world map but its not showing my position, i have turned on gps in the plugin, I know its something im not doing right,can you tell me what im doing wrong. Sorry to bother you dude, Thanks Sean ps the coordinates showing in the message when i try and sms are 0.00000000 and 0.00000000

Update= fixed it, even though i set the gps to on in core settings, wasnt getting the gps screen on launch, had to go into settings and set location services on for the app, Thanks Sean

I've used Traccar before - great piece of kit, and easy enough to use. If you run into any problems, let me know... might not be the quickest response ever but here if you need me :)