Location-tracking app Life360 announced today that it is adding a new notification to its app that lets users know when a friend or a family member doesn’t arrive at a particular location at a designated time. This feature aims to help users from constantly tracking the location of someone to check if they reached a place safely.
Life360 said it is launching the new no-show notification during the back-to-school season to reduce parents’ stress about their children getting to school. The company said this is an alternative to those frequent “where are you?” texts.
To activate this feature, you can go to the circle of the person you want to set an alert for, tap on their profile, and then tap on the “Set a No Show Alert” option.
You can then set a place and a time to get a one-time notification if they don’t reach that place on time. You can also make these alerts recurring by tapping on “Repeat” and selecting days of the week.
The feature allows a grace time of a few minutes from the set time, after which the alert goes off.
“Coordination is generally a top concern for families, but this is especially true during the busy back-to-school season. In fact, new app downloads of Life360 actually peak during the weeks leading up to the first day of school,” Mike Zeman, CMO at Life360, said in a statement.
“No Show Alerts were designed to give parents peace of mind and mitigate the need to constantly check in on their kids’ whereabouts. It’s a tool to encourage trust in their families to get where they need to be, while still having a backup alert if they need to step in and see why someone didn’t make it to where they are supposed to be.”
While Life360 described the parent-children use case, it said that anyone in the family can set alerts for someone else if location sharing is on. The company added that anyone in the family can turn off location sharing at any time.
The new no-show feature will roll out to all members in the U.S. today and will be available to international members in the coming weeks.
We’re always looking to evolve, and by providing some insight into your perspective and feedback into TechCrunch and our coverage and events, you can help us! Fill out this survey to let us know how we’re doing and get the chance to win a prize in return!
