Parents Get Mobile Device to Track Children

Ugandan Parents can now track their children's activities through mobile devices thanks to the introduction, on the market, of a smart watch with inbuilt space-based navigation systems.

Interlinked with smart phone apps, the watch uses Global Position System-GPS location technology to help parents keep tabs on their children. The GPS allows parents to pinpoint the exact position of the child using a map on the smartphone or tablet. It also offers geo-fencing, an electronic barrier drawn on a digital map which, when breached, immediately alerts the parent.

Although already in use elsewhere in the world, the watch, branded as ‘Magfratech Smart Watch' is a new entry on the Ugandan market. Each watch costs 250,000 Shillings.

Francis Magoba, the operations officer at Magfratech Company, the importers of the Magfratech smart watch, says “once programmed, you can easily control the watch through a mobile phone app and it reports as soon as it is removed from the hand.

He says that the three in one inbuilt system is capable of telling the time as well as tracking and providing two way communications between parents and their children. The watch has Sensor Observation Service–SOS features and allows calls and alerts for a set geographical proximity.

Magoba, a parent who is already using the tracker says it has helped him to track children's activity when they go to Sunday school as he doesn't accompany them.

As a technician, he explains, the only flaw with the device is that it uses GPS technology which is based on satellites whose communication is affected by location. He says that their accuracy is affected while indoors or areas with bad network due to limited connection to telephone masts.

Although branded Magfratech, the devices are manufactured and produced by Neelam, a Chinese company.

Joseph Almeida, a parent who attended a business expo for the watch at Saint Charles Lwanga Church in Ntinda, Kampala, shares his thoughts about it. “Privacy doesn't exist in family because you can trust your child but you can't trust their environment.”

Magoba says the business is still at a sampling phase, official sales have not taken place but the watches have been given to select people to find market and get word out.

He says those that see the price as too high should ask themselves “how much they would spend to protect a child.

Asked about a possibility of partnering with the Uganda Police to use the watches to fight crime such as kidnapping, Magoba says the police may not have the same technology as him but that he would welcome a chance to work with them.