Pebblebee Is Getting Serious About Personal Safety Tracking
Think about Bluetooth trackers and security in recent years and your first thought could be the abusive use of apple aircraft and similar devices against women in cases of domestic violence and hunt.
In parallel with collaborative initiatives to counter and close these malicious uses (such as the IETF detection of unwanted, or DULT, standard location trackers), tracker manufacturers themselves overthrow the script, transforming the technology that has been used to monitor women against their desire in technology that protects them.
In mid-July, Pebblebee, based in Seattle, announced a new free security SOS feature, named Alert, for its $ 35 clip tracker which, like the rest of its universal range, can be configured with Apple Find My or Google’s Hub Networks, is made from around 30% recycled plastic and recycled battery.
When multi-pressed (more pressures), the clip can trigger a mermaid alarm, flash LED lights and automatically send a text notification to a “safety circle” contact that you have pre-saved in the Pebblebee application.
With the kind permission of Peebblebee
It is easy to configure the contact in the application, and a long press the device stops the siren and the LEDs, although it is unlikely that you do or accidentally define it. The clip siren is not as noisy and the lights do not cover as much radius as a dedicated personal alarm would do it, but they are sufficient to alert passers -by when they walk at night. In addition, the Pebblebee website stipulates: “Alert functionality, including siren, stroboscopic and first safety circle is and will always be completely free.”
We tested the SOS system and it worked without hiccups. Our Safety Circle Buddy has received a text saying: “Urgent: Sophie has activated a pebble alert. Please register immediately” with a link to the right location via Google Maps. By clicking on the button “Brand as safe” in the application and / or long pressure on the clip sends a tracking text to say that “Sophie has canceled their Pebblebee alert” with the latest location link.
Now, however, Pebblebee adds a paid subscription option, named Alert Live, which offers a safety circle of up to five contacts to receive the notification of SOS text when triggered via the clip, as well as the follow -up of the location live for these contacts, for $ 3 per month or $ 26 per year. There is also a new silent mode, which sends the alert without the siren and LEDs, for free and paid users: useful, although we have not yet had the chance to test the sharing of the location in real time.
