4 Situations When Live Location Sharing Could Save a Life

With modern technology, it’s very easy to share your live location using your mobile phone. You can share your location from your Android, or track your family members by having them share their own location from any mobile device. 

Some people even fake their location just so they can cover up things that they’re up to or protect their privacy.

However, the most useful purpose of live location sharing is protecting your personal security. There are many situations where letting people know your location will help you stay safe and others informed of your immediate surroundings.

1. Walking in Public at Night

Your odds of being victimized while walking in public at night aren’t extremely high, but they may be higher than you expect.

According to the Bureau of Justice, men have a 37% chance and women have a 22% chance of getting robbed at least one or more times in their lifetime. Men have an 82% chance and women have a 62% chance of getting assaulted at least once in their lives.

These odds are even higher at night, when potential thieves feel like they use the cover of darkness.

By highlighting your location, you can get help sent to you much more quickly. Those few extra seconds can make the difference between life and death when you have someone standing in front of you holding a knife or a gun.

There are a few good ways to set up this kind of emergency location sharing.

On an iPhone, you can use the built-in Emergency SOS system to trigger a 911 call. The Emergency SOS app immediately texts all your emergency contacts with your current location. 

The Phone app that comes default on Android phones has a similar feature. When you use it to dial 911, your phone will display your address in text and on a map so you can read your location aloud to the 911 operator.

A couple of other apps that can do this include:

• SMS Text 911 (Android): See your location when you call 911, and automatically send a burst SMS to immediate family members with your GPS location.
• SirenGPS (Phone): Create an emergency profile so when you trigger the emergency call, first responders already know your contact details and your phone will provide your location.

It’s important to install these apps or prepare your phone ahead of time so you’re always ready to act immediately in an emergency any time you’re walking alone at night.

2. Never Go Lost While Hiking

Hiking is a fantastic pastime. It’s a great way to stay healthy, enjoy the great outdoors, and live in a spirit of exploration and adventure.

There’s much to see out in the wilderness. Unfortunately, it’s also one of the most likely places where people get lost.

All it takes is stepping off a trail for just a very short distance, and it’s extremely easy to get turned around. Everything looks the same in every direction, and then the panic sets in.

The sad thing about this is that thanks to modern technology it’s extremely easy to use live location sharing to avoid getting lost or find your way back if you do get lost.

The following live location apps can help you stay on track, even when you feel like you’re completely lost in any forest.

• AllTrails: This app is by far the most useful whenever you’re going out in the wilderness. It’ll help you get information about hikes before you head out, but best of all it also lets you save maps to your phone for offline use. This is handy, especially when you may not have access to any mobile signals.
• FatMap: This app provides global 3D maps designed for outdoor adventurers. It’s one of the best maps for planning outdoor adventures, but best of all it features global offline access wherever you are.
• Hiking Project: This app was created for hikers. See your live location as a blue dot on the map. And even when you have no signal, you’ll still see your actual location. It’s about as close to a guarantee to not get lost as you can ask for.
• ViewRanger: This app offers a unique feature that lets you identify mountain peaks using augmented reality. This is a great way to use landmarks to identify your position. Best of all, it works offline with off-the-grid GPS technology.

The beauty of these and other live location apps is that they can tell you where you are even when you are clueless. They can also help emergency responders find you by letting you give your exact longitude and latitude coordinates if you still can’t find your way out.

3. Live Location Sharing During Business Trips

One of the most useful ways live location sharing comes in handy is putting your family at ease when you’re on a business trip. Help your spouse and children worry less by sharing your live location using the Google Maps app during the duration of your trip.

All they have to do is check their app using the link you’ve sent and they can see your current location at any time.

It can provide tremendous peace of mind for the rest of the family whenever any family member is traveling over a long distance. 

There are a lot of other ways apps can use your live location to help you during a business trip.

• Some receipt management apps integrate with your phone’s GPS sensor to log your location.
• Use mileage tracking apps to keep track of your mileage for your expense reports.
• Use Google Street View to get live and interactive walking navigation, especially if you’re trying to navigate a new city.

4. Keep Your Kids on a Digital Leash

There is nothing quite as terrifying as losing your small children in the middle of a crowd. This scenario is especially likely when you’re at certain locations like a festival or a theme park. It’s not only a scary experience for you, but also for your kids.

Make sure live location sharing is enabled on your children’s phone. You can either enable Google Maps live location sharing for the entire duration of the trip, or you can use one of the many other apps that let you track your children in real time. 

Connect and Protect Yourself

Mobile phones and apps get a lot of blame. But they can also be life saving devices. Making a call to let your loved ones know is an active way to give them peace of mind. You can take it a step further by using live location sharing to keep them in the loop.