Life360 is one of those apps I’d heard mentioned plenty of times without ever really knowing much about it. I knew it had something to do with sharing your location, but beyond that I wasn’t completely sure what it did or why families were choosing to use it.
Then something happened today that made me realise exactly why it can be useful and it’s impacted me so much that I’ve stopped what i was doing to write this post.
Earlier in the day, I got a Sky News notification about a horrific crash that had killed seven people, including two police officers. I get Sky News alerts fairly often throughout the day and I remember thinking, “Oh, that’s awful,” but I didn’t click through to read the story. I rarely do unless it’s something I particularly want to know more about.
About an hour or so later, I was scrolling through Facebook and saw another post about the crash. This time, I realised it wasn’t somewhere miles away. It was close to home, on a road that both of my children use frequently — to and from work, to get to the shops and to come and see me. It’s a road we’re all very familiar with.
And I panicked.
We have something in our family WhatsApp group that we jokingly call an “alive check”. Every now and again, if something makes me worry or I can’t get hold of one of them when I normally would, I’ll simply type those two words into the group.
They both know exactly what it means. It doesn’t mean I want a conversation or an explanation of where they are. It just means, “I’m worrying. Please tell me you’re OK as soon as you possibly can.”
So that’s exactly what I did today.
My eldest replied within about 30 seconds to tell me she was fine. Around 15 seconds later, another message came through from her telling me that her brother was showing as being at home on Life360, so he was fine too.
And honestly, the relief I felt when those two messages came through was immense.
I’m actually feeling quite emotional and a bit teary writing this now because the panic in that moment was very real. I know they’re grown-ups. I know they’re both sensible — or at least as sensible as young adults generally are — and I know I can’t spend my life worrying every time I hear about something awful happening nearby.
But none of that mattered in that moment. That feeling just completely took over.
My son was probably in bed and absolutely nothing wakes him, so there’s every chance he wouldn’t have seen my message for ages. I could quite easily have spent all that time worrying while I waited for him to reply, whereas within less than a minute of sending my alive check, I knew they were both safe.
That second message from my daughter was the one that really made me appreciate why they use Life360.
The interesting thing is that I don’t actually have Life360 myself. My two grown-up children use it with each other, so they can see where the other one is, but I’m not part of their Life360 Circle and I can’t see either of their locations.
For us, it isn’t about me tracking my adult children. It’s about them choosing to share their locations with each other so they can look out for one another — and every now and again, that gives me a bit of reassurance too.
So, if you’ve heard of Life360 but aren’t quite sure what it is, how it works or whether it’s safe for children and teenagers, here’s what you need to know.
What is Life360?
Life360 is a location-sharing and family safety app. You create a private group, which Life360 calls a Circle, and the people in that Circle can choose to share their location with each other.
That means you can open the app and see where other Circle members are on a map. Depending on your settings and which version of Life360 you’re using, you can also see things like recent location history, journey information and notifications when somebody arrives at or leaves a particular place.
It was originally the location-sharing side of Life360 that I’d heard most about, but there’s actually quite a bit more to it than simply showing somebody as a dot on a map.
What is a Life360 Circle?
A Circle is basically your private group within Life360.
You could have a Circle made up of your immediate family, for example, or you could have one with just your partner or your grown-up children. Everyone in the Circle can choose how they share their location and who they share it with.
That’s how my children use it. They’re both in a Circle together, but I’m not.
They’re 23 and 20 now and I genuinely don’t need to know where they are every minute of the day. They have their own lives and I don’t want or need to track them. Half the time, knowing where they are would probably cause me more concern than not knowing but I like knowing that they know where each other is at any time. I also love that they have that kind of friendship – they really do look out for each other.
Life360 is something they’ve chosen to have between themselves because they like being able to see that the other one has arrived somewhere safely or check where they are if there’s ever a genuine reason to worry.
What can you see on Life360?
The main feature is real-time location sharing. Open the app and, if somebody is sharing their location with your Circle, you can see their position on the map.
Life360 can also show recent location history, although how much history you can see depends on the membership you’re using.
There are also driving features that can show information about journeys. Depending on the settings and plan, that can include things such as speed, hard braking, rapid acceleration and phone use during a drive.
For families with teenagers who are just starting to drive, I can imagine some of those features being particularly reassuring, although I’d definitely want everyone involved to know exactly what was being shared.
What are Life360 Place Alerts?
Place Alerts let you save particular locations and receive a notification when someone in your Circle arrives at or leaves one of them.
That could be home, school, work or somewhere else that somebody regularly travels to.
I can see how useful that could be with children who are starting to become more independent. Rather than asking them to remember to message every time they arrive somewhere, the app can potentially do that part for them.
It could also save quite a few of those “Are you there yet?” messages that most parents are probably guilty of sending. 😂
Is Life360 free?
Yes, there is a free version of Life360.
The basic version gives you the main location-sharing features, while paid memberships offer additional features such as more location history, additional Place Alerts and extra driving or safety features.
I’d always check what’s currently included before paying because apps change their plans and features over time, and you may find that the free version already does everything you actually want it to do.
For the way my children use Life360, it’s the simple ability to see that the other one is safe that’s important rather than having loads of extra features.
Is Life360 safe for younger kids?
I think Life360 can be a really useful extra safety tool for younger children, but I’d want to be very clear about how it was being used.
For a child who’s starting to walk to school independently, go out with friends or travel short distances without you, being able to see that they’ve arrived where they’re supposed to be could give both of you some reassurance.
The important thing for me would be making sure they understood that their location was being shared and exactly who could see it.
I’d keep their Circle small and only include people I completely trusted. I wouldn’t add extended family members, friends or anyone else just because it was possible to do so.
I also wouldn’t rely on Life360 as a replacement for teaching children what to do if something goes wrong. They still need to know how to contact you, where they can go for help and what to do if their phone runs out of battery, gets lost or has no signal.
I’d see it as an extra layer of reassurance rather than a substitute for all the normal safety conversations.
Is Life360 suitable for teenagers?
Teenagers are probably where Life360 becomes both really useful and potentially a bit controversial.
They’re naturally starting to want more independence. They might be going into town with friends, getting buses or trains without you, staying out later or learning to drive. At the same time, as a parent, you’re naturally going to worry about whether they’re safe.
Location sharing can bridge that gap really well if everyone agrees on how it’s going to be used.
I think there’s a huge difference between occasionally checking that your teenager has arrived somewhere safely and sitting watching their location all evening or questioning why they’ve stopped somewhere you weren’t expecting.
If I was using Life360 with a teenager, I’d agree those boundaries beforehand so everyone knew what the app was there for.
Used sensibly, I actually think it could mean fewer messages from parents rather than more because you don’t have to constantly ask where they are or whether they’ve arrived.
Can someone turn their Life360 location off?
Life360 shouldn’t be thought of as some sort of foolproof tracking device that means you’ll always know exactly where somebody is.
Location sharing can be paused and phones can be switched off. Batteries die, signals disappear and phone permissions can change, all of which can affect what you see in the app.
That’s another reason I’d never want to become completely reliant on it.
If somebody’s location suddenly isn’t updating, that doesn’t automatically mean something is wrong. There could be a completely boring technical explanation.
Is Life360 the same as Snapchat Snap Map?
Life360 isn’t the only way you can share your location with other people.
Snapchat has its own location-sharing feature called Snap Map, which I’ve written about separately. That lets Snapchat users choose which friends can see their location and is another option that families sometimes use.
There are similarities between the two, but Life360 is much more specifically built around location sharing, families, journeys and safety features.
Snap Map is part of an app that people are generally already using for socialising, whereas Life360 is a dedicated location-sharing app.
I’ll link to my Snapchat Snap Map post here if you want to read more about how that works too.
Why my grown-up children use Life360
My children are both brilliant at keeping in touch with me anyway.
If they’re away somewhere, I quite often get the full step-by-step commentary and I genuinely love it. I’ll know they’re on the way to the airport, they’ve got through security, they’re boarding, they’ve landed and they’ve arrived wherever they’re staying.
But they’re also adults and I don’t expect them to report their movements to me.
Life360 is something they’ve chosen to use with each other instead.
They can see that the other has got home safely, check whether they’re still travelling or find out where they are if there’s ever a genuine reason to worry.
And as today’s alive check proved, every now and again their Life360 setup indirectly helps me too.
Our family alive check
Our alive check isn’t something I use constantly.
If I sent one every time somebody took ten minutes to reply to a WhatsApp message, I think they’d very quickly start ignoring me.
It’s for those occasional moments where something has genuinely made me worry and I just need a quick confirmation that everybody is OK.
That’s why they know that when “alive check” pops up in our family group, I genuinely need them to answer as soon as they reasonably can.
Most of the time, I’ll have two replies back almost immediately and that’s the end of it. There’s no interrogation afterwards and I’m not asking where they’ve been or what they’re doing.
Today’s was slightly different because my son probably wouldn’t have seen my message for quite a while.
Thanks to my daughter having Life360, she was able to tell me within seconds that he was showing as being safely at home.
For something as simple as a little dot on a map, that brought a ridiculous amount of reassurance.
Why I don’t have Life360 myself
I know plenty of parents have Life360 with their children and I completely understand why.
If mine were younger, I can absolutely imagine that I might have used something like it as they started going out independently.
But now they’re grown up, I don’t personally feel like I need it.
They’re adults and I don’t need to know where they are all the time. Knowing me, I’d probably end up looking at it when I didn’t need to and then wondering why someone had stopped somewhere completely random when there was almost certainly a perfectly boring explanation. 😂
I much prefer the setup we have.
They use Life360 to look out for each other, they’re brilliant at keeping in touch with me anyway, and I have my alive check for those occasional moments when something genuinely makes me worry.
Is Life360 worth using?
I think whether Life360 is worth using depends less on the app itself and more on how your family plans to use it.
For younger children, it could be a useful extra safety tool as they start becoming more independent. With teenagers, I’d definitely agree some boundaries around when and why locations are going to be checked. And with grown-up children, I’d want sharing their location to be completely their choice.
Location sharing shouldn’t be about catching someone out or questioning everywhere they go.
For my two, it’s simply another way of looking out for each other.
And today, when I saw news of a horrific accident on a road they both regularly use and my brain immediately went into panic mode, I was very grateful that they had it.
I know they’re grown-ups. I know they’re sensible. But apparently none of that stops that fierce little flash of panic when you suddenly think something might have happened to one of them.
Within less than a minute of sending an alive check, I knew both of my children were safe, and the relief was enormous.
I’m still a bit emotional thinking about it now.
Sometimes, that’s all a mam needs to know. ❤️
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