Jim worked in a high email, heavily dead-lined position. Even now, years after he retired, he’s still attached to his phone as is his life depends on it. Which has it’s good and bad points.
It keeps him engaged. He’s found a video stream that plays old school music and he spends a lot of time reminiscing and tapping his toes to old songs.
Because Jim always has his cell phone and is still able drive, I researched GPS apps. Even though Jim is still a good driver, with the worsening of his short term memory, I’m worried that he may get himself lost someday.
I’ve put the Live 360 GPS app on his phone (available through Google Play). There are paid versions of this app as well as a free version. Since Jim won’t be driving much longer, I am using the free version.
Jim isn’t very tech savvy, so I was able to leave the app icon with the others in the app listing. I didn’t need to take additional steps to hide it. I just made sure it wasn’t on his home page where he would notice it. As per the app instructions, I made sure the battery saver function wasn’t enabled.
The app sends me notifications when he leaves the house and it shows me a map of where he’s gone in real time. Occasionally there is a slight delay of 1-2 minutes but they doesn’t interfere with it’s effectiveness for my needs. It shows me his average speed and also shows me how much charge is left on his battery. Which is handy in case he ever does get lost we’ll know how much time we have before the app goes dead.
Jim’s not good with learning new software, so while this app requires me to pair our phones, it also gives me the option to make myself invisible. This prevents him from being bombarded with notifications of my whereabouts which would only confuse him.
The paid app seems to have been designed for new drivers. It gives a lot more information including crash detection and whether the person is texting and driving. The free app purges the driving log after 3 days. If you need to have a longer record, either do a screen capture or use the paid app.
For now, I’m still working full time so having Jim’s phone GPS’d gives me peace of mind that he has kept to his schedule and hasn’t become lost.