Nov 09 2009

Jack’s first Camelback climb, GPS Tracking to document it

Category: Arizona, EZ-1000, GPS Insight Employees, Google Earth, People Tracking, Running — rdonat @ 10:00 am

I decided to take my 9 year old, Jack, to Camelback mountain yesterday. I was curious how much longer it would take than the last time I went.

I brought an EZ-1000 & here is a picture of our hike, which was 1:30 up, & :56 down:

Camelback Hike with a GPS Insight EZ-1000 Tracking device

Camelback Hike with a GPS Insight EZ-1000 Tracking device

Here is a picture of Jack at the bottom:

Camelback Hike with a GPS Insight EZ-1000 Tracking device

Camelback Hike with a GPS Insight EZ-1000 Tracking device

Here was our location, courtesy of the iPhone (blue dot) and the EZ-1000 which had reported just a few seconds earlier:

Camelback Hike with a GPS Insight EZ-1000 Tracking device

Camelback Hike with a GPS Insight EZ-1000 Tracking device

And 1:20 later, at the top:

Camelback Hike with a GPS Insight EZ-1000 Tracking device

Camelback Hike with a GPS Insight EZ-1000 Tracking device

With sweaty Dad:

Camelback Hike with a GPS Insight EZ-1000 Tracking device

Camelback Hike with a GPS Insight EZ-1000 Tracking device

And one of Jack’s shady cave — he found a few of them on the way up & down to rest in:

Camelback Hike with a GPS Insight EZ-1000 Tracking device

Camelback Hike with a GPS Insight EZ-1000 Tracking device

It took a little longer this time (last time 1 1/2 hours, this time 2 1/2 hours). But my heart didn’t feel like exploding as much as when I was in a hurry. Plus I had some company. Much better this way.

Rob.

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Oct 30 2009

Panic in Disneyland!

Category: Alerts, California, EZ-1000, New Features, Safety — rdonat @ 8:59 am

We added 10 second panic capabilities to our EZ-1000 devices yesterday. They have a “panic button” which can be pressed to send a message.

My boys have EZ-1000’s here in Disneyland so I thought I would configure an alert straight to my cell phone if they ever pressed the button (not that they ever were somewhere without us).

Within 20-30 seconds on average, it would “page” me that either “Mickey” or “Chip” (the 2 devices) had pressed the panic button.

This is NOT something we sell to people for their kids — but security firms do use them for their foot and bike/Segway mounted security guards.

Here is the alert:

Panic alert on a GPS Insight EZ-1000 GPS Tracking device

Panic alert on a GPS Insight EZ-1000 GPS Tracking device

And here was the SMS text message I got when “Chip” pressed the panic button:

Panic alert on a GPS Insight EZ-1000 GPS Tracking device

Panic alert on a GPS Insight EZ-1000 GPS Tracking device

Then a map shows you their location and using the iPhone, I can walk to them using the “blue” dot which is me (well, if you look at the time, I had actually done this earlier to figure out where they were at beforehand…):

GPS Tracking my kids on Tom Sawyer's Island

GPS Tracking my kids on Tom Sawyer's Island

This is what might happen to a kid at Disneyland if they get lost on Tom Sawyer’s Island without a Panic Alarm capable EZ-1000:

Jack in Tom Sawyer's jail at Disneyland

Jack in Tom Sawyer's jail at Disneyland

Rob.

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