Parents nervous about sending their youngsters trick-or-treating alone this Halloween can now use technology that not only tracks their every transfer — but warns them when their kids are close to a reported crime or other harmful incident.
A growing assortment of apps and devices from corporations including household security app Life360, Verizon, Apple and TickTalk lets mother and father monitor their kids’s areas, set up digital boundaries, obtain alerts about close by crimes and even discover out when a little one removes a GPS-equipped smartwatch.
Wireless giant Verizon is selling its Gizmo Watch 4, a kids’s smartwatch launched in July that permits mother and father to monitor their youngsters’ areas and set up digital boundaries.
Parents are more and more turning to GPS-equipped smartwatches and location-sharing apps to keep tabs on their kids as they head out trick-or-treating on Halloween. Rawpixel.com – stock.adobe.com
The system can even notify mother and father when a little one removes the watch from their wrist.
Verizon is touting the gadget’s GPS location sharing, boundary alerts and parent-approved contacts as instruments to help kids enterprise out with higher independence.
The watch, which also supports video calls, connects to the Verizon Family app, permitting mother and father to handle its monitoring and security options.
Apple is also competing for mother and father in search of to monitor their kids without handing them smartphones.
Its Apple Watch For Your Kids function lets mother and father use the Find My app to verify their kids’s whereabouts and obtain notifications when they arrive at or go away designated areas.
The watches can be configured through a father or mother’s iPhone, permitting kids to make calls and ship messages without proudly owning an iPhone themselves.
A graphic offered by Life360, Inc. illustrates digital instruments designed for mother and father to observe trick-or-treaters and warn of close by crime. Life360, Inc
Another competitor, TickTalk, unveiled its TickTalk 6 smartwatch earlier this month, focusing on kids ages 3 to 12.
The $169.99 system provides GPS monitoring, calling, messaging and emergency SOS capabilities without giving kids access to social media or the open web.
Parents can also review their kids’s latest routes through the companion app.
TickTalk, which requires a separate wi-fi subscription beginning at $9.99 a month, has been advertising and marketing the system particularly for Halloween.
Life360’s Safety Incidents function alerts mother and father when critical incidents, including weapon-related crimes, thefts and fires, have been reported within a mile of a member of the family’s location. Life360
Life360 is among the corporations pitching those instruments, offering a function that alerts mother and father to critical incidents reported within a mile of a member of the family’s location.
Life360’s “Safety Incidents” function sends notifications when a qualifying occasion has occurred within the earlier six hours and within a mile of any member of a household’s personal, opt-in location-sharing group, identified as a Circle.
The warnings are based mostly on reported incidents in the surrounding space — not evidence that a explicit little one is in hazard.
Users can faucet a yellow warning image on the app’s map to get particulars about an incident and contact members of the family close by.
Apple’s Watch For Your Kids function lets mother and father observe their kids’s whereabouts through the Find My app and obtain alerts when they arrive at or go away designated areas. Apple
Life360 said the incident data is up to date every half-hour, with alerts displaying the sort, location and time of the reported occasion.
Since launching the function in late April 2026, Life360 has displayed roughly 2 million security incidents in its app across more than 100 cities.
Users can also change the notifications on or off at any time through the app’s Map Layers settings.
The function is accessible in the US, although free customers are restricted to viewing particulars of three incidents within 24 hours. Those in search of more access must improve to the company’s Gold or Platinum subscription plans.
Life360 said more than 100,000 new Circles were created on Halloween last 12 months. The company also reported a 9% increase in app openings per individual, although it did not specify the comparability period.
Verizon’s Gizmo Watch 4 lets mother and father set up digital boundaries and even obtain alerts when their kids take away the smartwatch from their wrists. Verizon
The figures spotlight the appeal of family-tracking technology for Life360, which reported 102.4 million month-to-month lively customers and 3.2 million paying Circles as of June 30.
The company posted second-quarter income of $159 million, a 38% soar from a 12 months earlier, fueled by growth in subscriptions and promoting, according to its financial outcomes.
Samsung and parental-control company Bark also entered the fray in September with a new Bark Watch constructed on the Galaxy Watch8.
The system combines GPS location monitoring with software program that displays messages for doubtlessly dangerous content material.
The $169.99 TickTalk 6 smartwatch lets mother and father observe their kids’s areas, review latest routes and talk with them without giving them unrestricted smartphone access. TickTalk
Bark prices $10 a month over 24 months for the watch, plus $15 month-to-month for mobile service and parental controls.
The growing array of merchandise comes amid evidence that mother and father are more and more comfy utilizing digital monitoring to supervise Halloween actions.
A Verizon-commissioned Morning Consult survey launched last 12 months discovered that 75% of mother and father deliberate to use location-sharing apps to monitor their kids’s trick-or-treating routes, while 69% deliberate to use wearable gadgets with location capabilities.
“Halloween is one of those times when parents really feel the push and pull between wanting to keep their kids safe and wanting to give them more independence,” Kati Morton, Life360’s household dynamics knowledgeable, instructed The Post.
“But giving kids freedom doesn’t mean we have to stop looking out for them. While families could agree on a route, a check-in plan, and a time to be home on Halloween, technology like Life360’s Safety Incidents feature can help support that independence, acting as a digital safety net so parents can act if their child is near a situation they’re concerned about.”