5 Find My Friends Alternative Apps to Track Family and Friends Location
Knowing where your loved ones are is very important. Given the risks around us, it’s imperative that we take measures to ensure the safety of the people around us. This is why apps like Find My Friends give iPhone users an extra layer of security. While Find My Friends is only available on the iPhone, there are a bunch of Android apps out there that can help you get similar features at little to no cost. These apps are developed by reputed institutions, ensuring the safety of your loved ones in times of crisis or otherwise.
We’re going to talk about a few of these apps today in an attempt to help you better understand the kind of options out there if you ever wondered about these apps. All the apps we’re talking about are free to download and use, some might require an in-app purchase for additional features, but rest assured, they’re all free to download.
5 Find My Friends Alternative Apps to Track Family and Friends Location
Family Locator & Safety
This is a comprehensive setup for those who want to know when their loved ones are safe. This app can give you real time information on your contacts in a detailed map. Further, you can even receive notifications when they’ve reached or arrived at a predetermined location (school, office, home etc). The app also comes with a panic button which initiates an emergency response to all your trusted contacts, thus providing an extra layer of security in times of crisis. Naturally, this app also help you locate your phone through a series of steps, making it an incredibly handy app overall.
This app is especially recommended for parents who want to know where their kids are. And given the built-in safety features like the panic button, kids can reach out for help easily within the app. Family Locator also comes with a built-in chat feature to talk to your contacts in real time. Lastly, location is shared with the users only with consent and approval through the app. Family Locator is a free download on the Play Store and comes with in-app purchases. It is compatible with devices running Android 4.1 and up.
Wheres My Droid
This phone can help you vibrate or ring your phone if you’ve lost it. There’s also live GPS tracking present, which can be done using maps on your device or on a computer. Further, there’s a low battery feature that automatically alerts you of your phone’s location when the battery is running low. Further, if the phone you’ve lost has a change of SIM card, you will be alerted of that as well. You can also assign people who can use the phone with a whitelist/blacklist feature built-in.
The app comes with passcode protection to make sure there are no unauthorized changes made to it in your absence. In terms of permissions, the smartphone requires Device Administrator permission to work, which is a prerequisite with apps in this segment. Wheres My Droid is a decent app which comes with a ton of features as we’ve mentioned above. This is a free app, but there’s a Pro version available which gives access to more features like the ability to take pictures from the phone camera, and activate the app using a separate phone (even a landline). The free version comes with ads on board.
Trusted Contacts
This is Google’s offering that allows you to know where your loved ones are. This can be likened to a direct replacement of Apple’s Find my iPhone, and the only difference here is that Trusted Contacts is available on both iOS and Android. So if you have a family member who has an iPhone and you own an Android phone, you can still share each other’s location. A neat safety feature here is the ability to request a location from a contact. If the person doesn’t respond, the app triggers a response and sends the person’s location immediately.
Location sharing works even if you’re offline and the phone is on low battery. This makes it a crucial app to have for you and your loved ones. Since it’s integrated with Google Maps, you get an excellent navigation experience as well. As with any Google app, this is a free download and is devoid of ads or in-app purchases.
Lookout Security & Antivirus
This is a power packed anti-theft app that is designed to help you track your lost phone, while it can also be used to ascertain your loved ones’ location. However, they will need this installed on their phone for this to work. Whenever a phone is stolen, the app automatically takes a picture from the front camera and shares the exact GPS location over email immediately.
Since it’s an anti-theft app in its core, you also get the ability to remotely wipe your device to protect your content on the device. It is also a decent antivirus app and can help you deal with security/data breaches that happen with big corporations. However, some of Lookout’s features are premium only, meaning that you might be required to make an in-app purchase to use all of its offerings. The app itself is free to download and has no ads.
GPS Phone Tracker
Yet another handy phone tracking app to alert you of your loved ones’ location. This app doesn’t work across platforms, however, so both parties will require an Android smartphone to track each other’s location. This app can be ideal if you’re locating your friends or family in a dense crowd of people. When the location is shared, the app will automatically open navigation for you to make it easy to find the person you’re looking for.
Although the app is free to download, it comes with ads and in-app purchases. But making an in-app purchases should remove the ads for good. Although the app is pretty basic, it still gets the job done. GPS Phone Tracker is compatible with smartphones running Android 4.1 and higher.