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>When Elliot doesn’t show up at the coffee shop, Thelma starts to worry. Because Trusted Contacts works even if a phone is offline, Thelma requests Elliot’s loc

>When Elliot doesn’t show up at the coffee shop, Thelma starts to worry. Because Trusted Contacts works even if a phone is offline, Thelma requests Elliot’s location and in five minutes can see that his last known location was in the middle of the canyon. Thelma calls the nearest ranger station, they send out a rescue party, and find Elliot in a few hours. Yeah because that has totally been a problem I've been needing a solution for.

dudus 10y ago
until you do and your life depends on it
twr 10y ago
I don't need it either, but it's uncaring to imagine that millions of people don't. A young woman was abducted recently on a local trail. I don't believe she's been found yet. Perhaps this would have made some difference.
- SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
  But cant police use the tracking info already once you report someone missing? This just seems like a way for busybody and manipulative people to stir up drama.
  - twr 10y ago
    It can take many hours to surmise that someone has been kidnapped. Getting people to pay direct attention to someone's whereabouts, without having to constantly nag the person, is a huge win. Anyone who has ever expected an at-risk person to make contact at an estimated time can relate how worrying it is when that person is delayed.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > But cant police use the tracking info already once you report someone missing? 1. Police can, but won't until they consider it a missing person scenario, which oftdn involves considerable delay, at least for an adult -- and that's even if the police happen to prioritize that case. 2. For many people in various places for a variety of reasons, even aside from delay issues, the police aren't the first people they'd want to rely on. Or even on that list at all. > This just seems like a way for busybody and manipulative people to stir up drama There is some risk of that, but there's also empowerment of people to create their own effective support networks of real, personal trust.
    - SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
      Late reply: there are 800,000 missing persons cases in the US each year, but 12,000,000 victims of intimate partner violence. I just suspect that your solution to the smaller problem will make something that's a much larger problem (as in, more than an order of magnitude larger) worse.
GavinMcG 10y ago
I use Amazon Prime quite a bit, but it turns out there's also a huge market made up of people who leave their houses.
davidbanham 10y ago
I have that use case. I often go bushwalking and always text my wife from the trailhead to let her know which track I'm going to be on. This product is a much better version of that system. It's impervious to me forgetting to send the text and gives an accurate location rather than "somewhere in the general area served by this trailhead".
- literallycancer 10y ago
  I'm often hiking too and my battery almost always dies halfway through. If my family members were to initiate a rescue effort anytime they can't reach me, I'd probably have to stop doing anything. Then again, I'm in Europe, so crime rates are virtually zero, and the only risk is spraining an ankle or something.
  - int_19h 10y ago
    I like convenience of having the GPS, so I carry a battery pack for the phone. I'm also paranoid, so I carry a Cospas-Sarsat PLB as well. But you need to be conscious, and have at least one arm working, to activate that. Hikes can still be dangerous, especially in the mountains. Hereabouts, pretty much every year several people get seriously injured on one of the trails, usually by tripping and falling down the slope; and in most years, there's at least one fatality. Usually it's because people veer off the trail or do something similarly dangerous, but sometimes it's just dangerous conditions (e.g. ice) on regular, well-maintained trails that are normally safe, or just bad luck. Better safe than sorry.
applecrazy 10y ago
I see your point and agree with you. Their PR department should have come up with a better example. However, they didn't want to offend or scare anyone with a more realistic application of this feature (to prevent abductions and missing people), so I understand where they're coming from.
philip1209 10y ago
North of SF in Marin this past Saturday, one of the competitors in the North Face Endurance Challenge 50 mile race decided to give up and go home without telling anybody. His parents were at the finish line waiting and, apparently out of shame, he did not tell them, nor did he answer any calls. So, the organizers sent out an emergency search and rescue team. It was not for another two and a half hours that they realized that the competitor was sitting at home and choosing not to answer his phone.

dudus 10y ago

until you do and your life depends on it

twr 10y ago

I don't need it either, but it's uncaring to imagine that millions of people don't. A young woman was abducted recently on a local trail. I don't believe she's been found yet. Perhaps this would have made some difference.

SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
But cant police use the tracking info already once you report someone missing? This just seems like a way for busybody and manipulative people to stir up drama.
- twr 10y ago
  It can take many hours to surmise that someone has been kidnapped. Getting people to pay direct attention to someone's whereabouts, without having to constantly nag the person, is a huge win. Anyone who has ever expected an at-risk person to make contact at an estimated time can relate how worrying it is when that person is delayed.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > But cant police use the tracking info already once you report someone missing? 1. Police can, but won't until they consider it a missing person scenario, which oftdn involves considerable delay, at least for an adult -- and that's even if the police happen to prioritize that case. 2. For many people in various places for a variety of reasons, even aside from delay issues, the police aren't the first people they'd want to rely on. Or even on that list at all. > This just seems like a way for busybody and manipulative people to stir up drama There is some risk of that, but there's also empowerment of people to create their own effective support networks of real, personal trust.
  - SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
    Late reply: there are 800,000 missing persons cases in the US each year, but 12,000,000 victims of intimate partner violence. I just suspect that your solution to the smaller problem will make something that's a much larger problem (as in, more than an order of magnitude larger) worse.

GavinMcG 10y ago

I use Amazon Prime quite a bit, but it turns out there's also a huge market made up of people who leave their houses.

davidbanham 10y ago

I have that use case. I often go bushwalking and always text my wife from the trailhead to let her know which track I'm going to be on. This product is a much better version of that system. It's impervious to me forgetting to send the text and gives an accurate location rather than "somewhere in the general area served by this trailhead".

literallycancer 10y ago
I'm often hiking too and my battery almost always dies halfway through. If my family members were to initiate a rescue effort anytime they can't reach me, I'd probably have to stop doing anything. Then again, I'm in Europe, so crime rates are virtually zero, and the only risk is spraining an ankle or something.
- int_19h 10y ago
  I like convenience of having the GPS, so I carry a battery pack for the phone. I'm also paranoid, so I carry a Cospas-Sarsat PLB as well. But you need to be conscious, and have at least one arm working, to activate that. Hikes can still be dangerous, especially in the mountains. Hereabouts, pretty much every year several people get seriously injured on one of the trails, usually by tripping and falling down the slope; and in most years, there's at least one fatality. Usually it's because people veer off the trail or do something similarly dangerous, but sometimes it's just dangerous conditions (e.g. ice) on regular, well-maintained trails that are normally safe, or just bad luck. Better safe than sorry.

applecrazy 10y ago

I see your point and agree with you. Their PR department should have come up with a better example. However, they didn't want to offend or scare anyone with a more realistic application of this feature (to prevent abductions and missing people), so I understand where they're coming from.

philip1209 10y ago

North of SF in Marin this past Saturday, one of the competitors in the North Face Endurance Challenge 50 mile race decided to give up and go home without telling anybody. His parents were at the finish line waiting and, apparently out of shame, he did not tell them, nor did he answer any calls. So, the organizers sent out an emergency search and rescue team. It was not for another two and a half hours that they realized that the competitor was sitting at home and choosing not to answer his phone.