Aug

28

Got cell phones? Got kids? You need AT&T FamilyMap (and you need this giveaway)




This is a compensated review from BlogHer and AT&T FamilyMap

 

Don’t we all know moms or parents who said “My child will NEVER have a cell phone”?  I do.  In fact, I was that mom.  I was sooo amused listening to parents complain about their teenagers and cell phones.  I was convinced that no kid needed a cell phone.  In fact, I didn’t have a cell until just a couple of  years ago.  Well, let’s just say that I will never say NEVER again.

My son got a cell phone last year.  Not because he was begging for one since all his friends had one.  They do, but he didn’t care. No, the reason he got a cell phone was because of me. He was going off to band camp at a large, out of state university.  I became obsessed with the fear that he might get separated from his friends or get lost on the large campus.  Or that he might miss the bus that took them back to the dorms at night. I was just worried, and a cell phone seemed like the best solution. Which it was.  So avoid saying never, because you never know.

Even though I wanted him to have the cell phone, I didn’t want him to have free reign with it.  We have AT&T, and I absolutely love it. I’ve used their Smart Limits program to set restrictions on time of use, how many texts, and more.  I can log in anytime and change the limits if I want or just view what he’s been doing.  I have made many phone calls to AT&T with questions about adding or removing services, and the reps have always been patient with this non-techie mom.  AT&T is extremely family friendly.  In fact, when we first got the cell phone I made some mistakes that resulted in a higher than normal bill.  When I called in, the rep looked at our account and immediately said, “You have a teenager, right?”  She knew exactly why the bill was higher and fixed it right away for me, and explained so that I wouldn’t make the same mistake.

Since I have had such great results with the Smart Limits program, I was really excited to see the new AT&T FamilyMap service.  I don’t want to spy on my son or know exactly where he is every second of the day.  But he is a teenager.  He is notorious for saying he’ll call me when he arrives at his destination then forgetting to call for hours.  He has also been know to call me to come pick him up at a friends house and have no clue how to tell me how to get there.  I have spent hours lots of time driving around neighborhoods trying to find  houses that didn’t map correctly on mapquest. So this seemed like a great service.

This is a new service, and right now you can get your first thirty days free. With the FamilyMap, you can locate your child’s phone, or any phone in your plan.  You can track phones from the internet or from your own phone. In addition to random location checks, if that’s what you want to do, the service includes a Schedule Check option which I am most excited about.  With that, you can specify a time of day to automatically locate a particular phone.  In my case, this will be very helpful when my graduate classes start in a few weeks. I can’t count on my son to call me when he gets home from school, but I also can’t call him during my class.  With the Schedule Check, I can set it to check his location at 3pm on the days that I’m going to be in class.  Then at 3pm on those days, I will get a text message letting me know if he is home.  Since I would spend the entire class time worrying if I didn’t know where he was, that will be a big help. 

There are some parents who might prefer that their child not know that they can track their location.  When I signed up for AT&T FamilyMap and selected my son’s cell phone for mapping, he immediately got a text message saying that my phone number was tracking his location.  Since I hadn’t explained it to him first, I got a not too  happy text message asking why I was doing that. But we’ve talked and he understands now.   He does not get a text every time I locate his phone, unless I go into my account and set it up that way.  He will get periodic notification, about once a month.  I’m really not using it to spy on him 24/7, so it’s fine with me that he knows I can track his phone.

However, if he turns off  his phone, I can’t track it.  If you have a teenager, you’ll understand why I’m not too worried about this :)   Unless the battery is dead, his phone is on.

Now for the downside, if you can call it that.  The mapping service works best with phones that have Assisted GPS.  My phone is ancient and does not, so FamilyMap uses cell towers to give me the most accurate location when I track my own phone. It states right on the AT&T website that without the Assisted GPS phone, it can be within a few hundred yards to a few miles of the phone’s actual location.  It also will depend on the location itself, if there are lots of trees or tall buildings it may not be as accurate.  

Because I am so technologically impaired, I have done quite a bit of reading on the FamilyMap.  It doesn’t say so in the FAQ’s or at least I haven’t found it, but through reading the AT&T forums, it seems like phones with internet accessibility will track better. My son’s phone is newer, and he has a media package on his phone, so he can browse the internet, but the media package is not required for FamilyMap. I have tracked my son’s location and my own location, and it has been right on target with my son’s phone.  I do not have a media package on my phone, so no internet.  The tracking is a little off for my phone, probably by only a couple miles.  That’s ok with me, since I don’t really need to track my own phone. 

I’ve been happy with the FamilyMap service so far.  It was very easy to register and get it started.  The mom (that would be me) who said her kids will NEVER have cell phones is probably going to be getting a cell phone for the  younger son soon, so I’ll have more phones to track.  I’ll be honest, if I stayed home and didn’t work or go to school, I might not think I needed the FamilyMap service, at least not until my kids are driving (let’s not talk about that!).  But as busy as they are and as busy as I am, I think it’s going to be a lifesaver. You also can’t beat the free 30-day trial to see if it’s going to be helpful for your family.   To learn more, and sign up and get your first 30 days free, check out the Family Map site. 

Now for the giveaway! You know you were waiting for it.

To enter to win a $100 Visa gift card, leave me a comment below and tell me what gives you peace of mind -specifically with regards to kids/teenagers, but if you don’t have kids, please enter anyway!

The contest will begin on August 27, 2009 and will end on September 20, 2009.  Make sure that the e-mail address you leave is correct so I can contact you if you win. 

  • No duplicate comments
  • You may receive an additional entry by linking on twitter and leaving a link in the comments.
  • You may receive an additional entry by blogging about this contest and leaving a link in the comments.

Official Rules

This giveaway is open to US residents, aged 18 and older

The winner will be selected via random draw using the Random Number Generator, and will notified by e-mail. You have 48 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.
Check out how the rest of the BlogHer Reviewers explored AT&T Family Map – you have 10 chances to win a $100 Visa gift card.

The giveaway has ended and I will be emailing the winner soon, thanks for entering!  Check back soon for more giveaways!


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