Where is that kid?

08/08/2002

By DOUG BEDELL / The Dallas Morning News

Timothy Neher came to understand a parent's ultimate nightmare while treating his brother's two young children to an outing at the Honolulu zoo.

"I looked up at the lunch menu where we were going to order food," Mr. Neher says. "By the time I looked back down again, they were gone."

Frantic, he raced around like a madman.

"I didn't even know what they had on; I didn't dress them," he says. "I didn't have any pictures. I was about to call the police."

Mr. Neher corralled his wandering charges after a brief search. But that experience got him thinking about technologies that could help parents answer the burning question: "Where is my child right now?"

And, ultimately, it gave rise to a California company called Wherify Wireless Location Services and its first product, the GPS Personal Locator for Children.

In July, after four years of work, Mr. Neher and Wherify began delivering the first of these brightly colored, rugged digital watches to customers. About 1,000 of the $400 units have been shipped, Wherify says. Since Wherify Wireless.com began taking online reservations, there have been orders for about 100,000 units, Mr. Neher says.

"We're not going to be able to keep up with the demand," says the Wherify founder, president and chairman. "There's a huge need out there for something that's a backup safety system for kids."

U.S. Justice Department reports show that 93 children were abducted by strangers last year and 106 were kidnapped in 2000. From October to June this year, there have been 62 cases. Given the recent headlines, Mr. Neher may be bringing his product to market at a time when parents are particularly anxious.

Mr. Neher, who handled inventions and patents for a Chicago firm before embarking on his Wherify venture, isn't the first entrepreneur to recognize the promise of using Global Positioning System, or GPS, technology to track youngsters.

At least three other companies say they have developed similar products, including a GPS watch with a separate pager by Digital Angel. But only Wherify has produced a one-piece device for the marketplace, prompting the 2002 Consumer Electronics Show to award the product its Innovations Award.

During demonstrations at this year's show, Mr. Neher attracted overflow crowds to watch his creation in action.

The first versions of his bracelet come in Galactic Blue and Cosmic Purple models that lock on a child's wrist. The rubberized, water-resistant units contain GPS chips – the same electronic component already used to track probationers and cars.

GPS watches for adults have been on the market for more than a year, but only recently could be the components be miniaturized enough to make a child-size watch possible. The technology, which uses a system of 24 satellites orbiting the Earth, can pinpoint the location of GPS devices within about 30 feet.

But to be truly effective for parents, the GPS Personal Locator for Children needed other vital features. Parents had to be able to query the device and receive an immediate response in the case of an emergency. And the child had to be given a method of setting off an alert when in danger.

Wherify's solution was to wed the GPS technology with Sprint's PCS digital data network, which adds a minimum $25 monthly subscription to the cost. And the distress calls have to be monitored, hooked into a nationwide telephone system that can quickly respond with 911 emergency calls to the proper authorities.

Melding all those requirements into a cohesive network, Mr. Neher says, was the company's biggest challenge. Today, a parent using the Wherify locator can log into a Web page using a secret code and password, hit a "locate" button and, within a minute, see an aerial photograph of the bracelet's location. The readout also gives the approximate address of the child.

If a parent is not near a computer, an operator at an around-the-clock, toll-free call center can report the location.

Buttons on the watch can be programmed to summon help via 911, and the device also works as a conventional pager so parents can tell the child to call home.

"We don't want people to just throw their 5-year-old out the door in the morning, then do a 'locate' when they want them again," Mr. Neher says. "It's just designed to be another layer of security."

If the watchband is cut or the locking mechanism is tampered with, an alert is automatically sent to the monitoring system, and tracking begins. Parents can also set tracking intervals for a "bread crumbing" report. This records the child's location at certain intervals, say, every 10 minutes.

"If the baby sitter is supposed to pick the kid up at day care, you can check up on the whole thing," Mr. Neher says. In that case, the service will plot a series of "locates" on the Web page map, tracking their path.

Wherify is targeting the device for use with children 5 to 10 years old.

"You just can't give a child that age a cellphone for security," Mr. Neher says. "Anyway, an abductor is going to snatch that kid right out of your yard and throw the cellphone out the window."

There are drawbacks to the technology. Even the most modern GPS systems have trouble locating units inside concrete structures. And the PCS network subscription plans are a lot like those for cellphones. If a parent goes over the allotted number of "locates" and pages for their monthly plan, surcharges quickly pile up.

But the GPS Personal Locator for Children has picked up some heady endorsements from groups such as the Dallas-based Lost Children's Network (www.lostchildren.org), which produces videos to help find missing children.

"I think it will provide some much-needed security for parents and children," says Randy Smith, head of the Dallas nonprofit agency. "We think it could really prevent some child abductions."

Thus far, purchasers have largely been middle- or upper-income families in which both parents work, Mr. Neher says.

"They're using it as a tool to help manage the family," he says.

The company hopes to fill back orders soon, then market the devices through retailers by October. With time, the price should drop as the cost of components falls, Mr. Neher says.

"We want to make it affordable for every child in America to have," he says.

Wherify is also developing devices for Alzheimer's patients, women joggers, teens in cars and other users.