The iseeka reviewed: An essential piece of parenting equipment
How many times have you been in the supermarket running the aisles looking for an AWOL toddler or child? For some parents this is a daily event, but they can take some peace of mind knowing that help is out there.
UK company iseeka has recently launched a new child tracking system to help parents monitor their child’s whereabouts and allow children more freedom.
The product will track a child up to a quarter of a mile, currently the only child tracking device on the market with such an impressive range.
“Being a parent of two myself and knowing what it is like when you lose your child, if only for a second, I thought there must be something I could do to help prevent parents from losing their children” says Inventor and Director of iseeka, Les White.
“We also wanted to help give children a chance to roam more freely, whilst giving parents that all important peace of mind regarding their children’s whereabouts. That led me to think that a
tracking product could possibly be the way forward.
“iseeka also gives modern children more of a chance to develop socially, offering them the same freedom we had when we were young without parents feeling stressed about how far their offspring have wandered.”
But how worried should I actually be about my child going missing?
According the the charity Parents and Abducted Children Together (PACT), a child goes missing in the UK every five minutes. Getting a true picture by statistical information is difficult because there is no national collection of official reports and not all missing people are officially reported as missing.
Since 2002 the police have recorded between 600 and 1000 child abductions every year
Based on police reports the charity roughly estimates that at least 100,000 children go missing every year but a further breakdown on the individual reasons for each case is proving impossible.
According to the charity Missing People, who provide support for families who have had a member go missing, since 2002 the police have recorded between 600 and 1000 child abductions every year.
A 2004 Home Office study found that of the 798 reports of child abduction reported that year, 56 per cent of all reports involved a stranger, 47 per cent of all reports were attempted by a stranger and 9 per cent were successful abductions by a stranger.
Chopsy Baby tests the iseeka
Chopsy Baby editor Jen Smith decided to test the Iseeka herself “because my own child is a runner” she says.
For parents who don’t know what this is, a runner is a child who has disappeared through a combination of speed and cunning within two seconds of getting them out of the pram. Blink, and like Kaiser Soze, they have gone.
“After a frightening incident at Bristol Zoo and an even more terrifying incident at science centre At Bristol, where my child turned up on the top floor playing with a lone male stranger, I leapt at the chance to test out the iseeka.”
iseeka Features
Firstly, this gadget is not a replacement for parental supervision but is designed to give parents with a running child a sporting chance.
The iseeka comes in two parts, a base unit, looking like an ipod and a wrist tag that looks like a watch. The base unit will support up to 16 individual personalised tags and they will not become mixed up with any other iseeka user.
The iseeka will track a child up to a quarter of a mile. Parents can set a safe distance for their child to wander with a vibrating warning when the child exceeds this.
The wrist tag is lockable. It needs a special key to be able to take it off. A child is unlikely to be able to do this themselves but a fully grown adult could possibly remove it by pure force.
The parent with the base unit can call a child back to them at any time by sending the wrist tag an alert. If a child has problems themselves they can send a panic alert back to the parent.
Once the iseeka has been purchased it is completely free to use other than replacement batteries when necessary.
More tags and accessories can be purchased from the iseeka website.
The iseeka attached to safety harness
Jen took her fast moving three-year-old boy back to science centre At Bristol to fully test out the iseeka. The venue is full of standalone science exhibits spread across two floors and it is really easy to lose a child even when not busy.
Jen says: “Not actually wanting my child to get lost, I asked one of our writers to play hide and seek with me, taking the child wearing the tag to see how easy it was to find them.
“An essential piece of toddler equipment”
“Immediately there were two things that struck me about finding them. Firstly how well would the iseeka cope with multiple floors? And secondly, how easily would it find a moving target?
“Once you want to locate a tag, the user places the base unit into a search mode and chooses which child to track. By swinging the base unit slowly round in a circle, the unit uses a kind of hot or cold level to help parents find the right direction to go in.
“Carefully following all the instructions, the iseeka led in me in the direction to where it was detecting the tag. There was nothing there. Monitoring the reading whilst sweeping it up and down suggested to me that the child was on the second floor.
“Once arriving on the second floor it was just a matter of seconds before I had located the child.
The child located by the iseeka
“The gadget worked quickly and efficiently and on several subsequent trials found it to be an essential part of my day trip kit.
“I found that instead of finding these kinds of trips stressful knowing how easy it is to lose my child, I felt so much more relaxed knowing that I had a chance of being able to locate him through science rather than hope.
“The gadget is very easy to use and comes with comprehensive instructions.”
Our recommendations on getting the best use of an iseeka
If you use the gadget on a toddler, try attaching it to the child’s safety harness rather than a tiny wrist.
Always carry some spare batteries for the iseeka tag and remember to power it down through the base unit after use.
Become familiar with the gadget through play before using it out for the first time. Play hide and seek in the house, garden or park.
The iseeka is suitable for use at the park, day trips, shopping, holidays and every other place your child is likely to leave you in a cold sweat.
Priced at £99, this is an absolute bargain for such an essential piece of toddler equipment.