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Tips for talking to your teen about safe driving

Talking to your teen about driving safety is very important. According to the CDC, motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for teens in the United States. Most crashes are preventable, so talking to your teen and establishing safe driving habits as a family can make a big difference

Here are a few tips from our team at Life360 for how to tackle a discussion about safe driving with your teen, and how to keep the conversation going to ensure good driving becomes a habit.

  1. Discuss the importance of safe driving. Although your teen may feel invincible, ensure they understand the laws in your state and that car crashes can change people’s lives in a matter of seconds. Review research and distracted driving statistics with your teen. For example, let them know that responding to a text while driving takes your eyes off the road for approximately five seconds, which is enough time to drive the length of a football field.
  2. Make a safe driving promise. Establish rules of the road for everyone in your family in a written contract. Make a promise that you will always wear seatbelts, follow the speed limit, focus on the road at all times, pull over if you are too tired to drive, and never drive under the influence or while using a cell phone. The CDC offers a parent-teen driving agreement you can print, or you can create your own.
  3. Monitor your family’s driving behavior, and review it together weekly. The Life360 Driver Protect service covers everyone in the family and shows instances of cell phone use, rapid acceleration, hard braking and top speed reached after every completed drive. A weekly driving summary for each family member provides an easy way to sit down together and review that everyone is sticking to your family’s safe driving promise.life360driving
  4. Timing is everything when talking to a teen. You know your family members better than anyone and choosing the right time to talk about safe driving is key. If your teen is not a morning person, don’t discuss driving tips over breakfast. If they have a lot of homework, don’t overwhelm them with a family meeting after dinner. Pick a time that works for your family and make safe driving check-ins a regular conversation.
  5. Set a good example. Parents are the earliest and most influential role models kids have. Follow the rules of the road and you’ll help raise a teen who is more likely to do so, too.

The Life360 Driver Protect service is available within the Life360 app, for iPhone and Android. A single subscription covers everyone in the family Circle and travels with you on your smartphone, in any vehicle. In addition to Safe Drive Insights, the service includes Automatic Crash Detection and Emergency Response and 24/7 Extended Roadside Assistance, providing help when your family needs it most.

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How To Handle the End of the School Year

It’s a child’s favorite part of the year: the last few weeks and days of school when it’s warming up, days are longer, and you’re dreaming of at least 6 weeks with no homework!

It can be a parent’s dreaded part of the year: how to entertain your kids for 6 weeks when you have to work, the cost of camps, will they finish everything on their reading list?!

Life360 can’t help make 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea any more interesting, but we can help with the coordination and worry that come with giving your children more freedom to play outside and hang out with their friends during the summer months.

 

Here are few tips from Life360 Parents on how to use the app after school lets out:

 

“Place Alerts for my daughter eliminate the need for constant texts”

You may have set up Place alerts for school and soccer practice, but your schedules and go-to places are different during summer. Set up a Place Alert at the playground and make sure your child takes a phone with them so you know when they come and go from there. Set up a safety zone around your house or neighborhoo so you know if they leave the zone and go into a dangerous neighborhood. Or Set a Place Alert at your childs’ best friend’s house for all those sleepovers.

 

“Vacation Circles help us keep track of each other”

Set up another Circle for vacation. Maybe you travel with another family, your cousins, grandparents, or friends. A vacation Circle makes everything easy to coordinate by knowing where everyone is without having to wait for them to call or text you back. Organize dinners, follow their day, and give yourself piece of mind knowing where everyone is.

 

Have any more suggestions on how to use Life360 to make summer life easier? Let us know in the comments!

 

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Win $500 For Being a #Life360SafeDriver

April is Distracted Driving Awareness Month, and Life360 wants to call attention to the bad habits many of us have with distracted driving-such as eating food while driving, texting while driving, and looking through music to play while driving.

We have unlocked the Driver Protect feature-Safe Drive Reviews- for all of our US users so that they can see how well every Circle member is driving. The feature is available April 12-18.

To show our commitment to the importance of correcting bad driving habits, we are sponsoring a contest!

Life360 Contest

 

For every Safe Drive Review where a drive shows 0 events, that’s one step closer to winning!

Take a screenshot of the drive from the history view (before you click into the drive) so that it shows your name and 0 events. Post it on facebook, twitter or instagram with the hashtag #Life360SafeDriver and @Life360!

We will determine the winner after April 18th and reward $500! You have until then to enter as many safe drives as you want! Are you a #Life360SafeDriver?

Life360SafeDriver

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Safe Drive Reviews: Learn your distracted driving habits

Cell phone use on the road is responsible for 64% of all automobile accidents in the U.S. Every day, 11 teenagers die because they were texting while driving. During daylight hours, approximately 660,000 drivers are using cell phones while driving.

These are just a few of the scary statistics around distracted driving.

shutterstock_585894350

April is Distracted Driving Awareness Month, and we at Life360 want to bring awareness to you and your Circle. We will be giving all our US users free access to Safe Drive Reviews April 12-18. This is a feature of our subscription, Driver Protect.

Safe Drive Reviews let Circle members know about events occurred during a drive. View:

  • Top Speed
  • Texting and phone use while driving
  • Hard braking
  • Rapid acceleration

The Safe Drive Review map will show the spot where the event occurred.

life360safedrivereview

 

To become a better, safer driver, being aware of these bad habits is the first step to stopping them. Sit down and have a conversation with your loved ones about the dangers of each of these events. Encourage your Circle to complete drives with zero events. We suggest giving out a prize – like a gift card or money – for an entire month of zero drives.

To view a Safe Drive Review for a Circle member, make sure these first steps are completed:

  1. Drive Detection is turned on for every Circle member
  2. Turn on Driving Alerts to receive the drive notifications
  3. When you receive a push notification after a drive, tap it to be taken into the Safe Drive Review

drivingalert

 

Life360 is sponsoring a contest to encourage users to take zero-incident drives all week. A zero-incident drive will show all events at 0 – Phone use, Rapid Acceleration, Hard Braking, and High Speed. We’re awarding 1 winner $500!

To participate, screenshot each zero-incident drive and post on facebook, twitter, or instagram with the hashtag #Life360SafeDriver and @Life360

We will choose one winner from April 12-18 who has posted the most Safe Drives from their account!

 

We leave you with this heart breaking, but touching story of the dangers of texting while driving. Remember – Just Drive.

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April is Distracted Driving Awareness Month

April is observed as Distracted Driving Awareness Month by the National Safety Council. To help raise awareness and encourage discussion about safe driving habits, we will be sharing a number of resources throughout the month – here on our blog and on the Life360 Facebook page.

The National Safety Council estimates that more than 40,000 people died in motor vehicle crashes last year. Cell phone use was the leading cause!

 

Since launching our Life360 Driver Protect service, we have been able look at driving behavior trends across our millions of users. Our data shows that a cell phone is used on average 1.78 times during each drive. This is the national average, and unfortunately cell phone use on the road is much more frequent in some areas. Check out additional insights from the National Safety Council and our own driving behavior data analysis:

 

life360distracteddriving

 

We encourage each of you to start a conversation with your loved ones about how driving safely could save lives! Putting your cell phone in the backseat, waiting to eat, and staying focused on the road are all ways to improve bad driving habits.

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Become a Life360 Beta Tester

Do you like getting first access to brand new features? Are you excited to help Life360 build the best app we can?

Join our Life360 Beta Program!

As a beta tester, you receive an early version of Life360 not yet available in the App Store or in Google Play. That means you get to see and play with experimental features. Just by using it like you normally do, you help us directly with issues and bugs so that we can fix them and send out updates ASAP.

As a beta tester, either you can be the only one in your Circle on beta or invite other Circle members to join the beta program, too.

We use feedback from the way beta testers use the app to improve performance. You don’t even need to send us information about a problem, our technology will detect it. If you do see a bug you want to report, just shake your phone and a window will pop up with your device and version information to send to us in order to help diagnose the problem.

 

To join the beta program as an iPhone user, join our wait list by clicking here to get started.

  • After you send us your email address, you will recieve an email from TestFlight
  • Follow the instructions on the TestFlight email to download the beta version of Life360
  • You will be sent emails whenever there is a new beta build

To join the beta program as an Android user, while on your phone, click here to view Life360 on the Google Play store.

  • Scroll down until you see the option to be a beta tester
  • The beta app is updated like any other Google Play Store app
  • We recommend enabling auto-update, click here for instructions

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Ask a User: How Does Wi-Fi Improve My Family’s Location Accuracy?

 

Why Does Life360 Ask Me To Turn on Wi-Fi?

You may have received a push notification from Life360 telling you that your friend or family-member arrived at home or work, but telling you that to improve their location accuracy, they should turn on Wi-Fi.  That’s strange, isn’t it?  What does Wi-Fi have to do with location?  Well, plenty, actually.

 

How Wi-Fi improves location accuracy

Both Apple (for iPhones) and Google (for Android) keep databases that tell them that a given Wi-Fi network is at a given location.  So if your phone can “see” that network, then you must be very close to that location.  This is a basic part of your phone’s location services.  Life360 does not keep this database, nor do we even know which networks you’re near — Google and Apple handle that for us, all we get is an improved location.

Being able to see what Wi-Fi networks are close by also helps tell your phone when it is in motion — if it starts seeing a constantly changing list of networks, it follows that it’s moving, and it can then turn on other location services (such as GPS) to get an accurate fix on your location.

 

I don’t want to connect to strange networks!

Don’t worry, you don’t need to connect to any network in order to get this improved location accuracy.  Your phone will get much better locations even if you never connect to any Wi-Fi network ever!  This is because wifi networks broadcast their presence freely — your phone can tell it’s near a wifi network without that network ever knowing about your phone or getting any information from it.

 

I’m worried about battery drain

The battery drain of having wifi turned on is minimal.  Because your phone is not exchanging any data with the networks it “sees,” it uses very little battery.  In fact, in some cases you may save battery by getting a very accurate location using wifi instead of GPS, because GPS uses more battery than Wi-Fi.

 

How about privacy?

The Wi-Fi networks that you are nearby learn nothing about your phone just by your turning on Wi-Fi.  You would have to actually connect to the networks for them to discover your phone, and that is not necessary for the improved location experience.  Your phone will never connect to a new network without your specific action.

Life360 gets only one piece of information from wifi location:  better location.  We do not see which networks you are near or any network traffic from networks you are connected to.  The only information you give us is more accurate, better location.

 

How do I turn my device’s Wi-Fi on?

iPhone 

Android

 

 

Have a question for our next Ask a User segment, send it to Community@Life360.com for a chance to be featured in next month’s post?

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Introducing: Driving by Life360

Life360 introduces it’s most exciting, new feature: Driving

 

Driving is now available for Life360 Circle members. This new feature allows members to view detailed information about how their friends and family behave while driving.

Each drive gives a detailed view including:

  • Top Speed Know how fast your loved ones are driving
  • Detailed Drive Routes View our most accurate routes
  • Dangerous Driving Events Did the driver use their phone or brake too hard? See the number of unsafe events

driver-overview-app

To view a drive, go into a Circle member’s profile and click on a Drive, like the picture below. The information provided will show start and stop time and locations, the top speed reached during the drive, and if any Unsafe Driving Events occurred during the drive.

Unsafe driving events include phone usage (like texting, or picking up your phone while the drive is happening), rapid acceleration, and hard braking.

 

drive

 

In order for Life360 to detect Driving for a user, Circle member’s must turn their ‘Drive Detection’ setting to On. To do this:

  • A Circle member goes to their menu in the top left corner
  • Tap Settings
  • Tap Drive Detection
  • Slide it to on (or off if you’d like to turn Drive Detection off)

Life360 can also send alerts after each drive. Keep in touch with your family, and know when they arrive safely. To turn on a Driving Alert and to recieve a notification for any Circle member:

  • Tap your menu in the top left corner
  • Tap Driving
  • Slide the button to on or off for the Circle member you want to recieve Driving Alerts for

 

Life360 is very excited to expand location and alert capabilities to include Driving. We hope this new feature provides even more peace of mind for you and your loved ones. We also hope this sparks conversations with your loved ones to encourage better, safer driving for everyone!

Comment below and let us know how you will use Driving with your Circle!

 

 

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Life360’s Help Alert – Get Help in Seconds

life360_panic_button_help_alerts_fridge

 

If your family is like ours, you have a list of contacts on your fridge in case of an emergency. But how confident are you that the information is up to date? And what if you’re not home when you need that list most?

Since your Emergency Contacts will likely be friends and family members you see during the holidays, this is the perfect time to discuss additional options! Life360 makes this process easy with its Help Alert feature, and your Emergency Contacts do not need to have the Life360 app to be there for you.

The Help Alert is a panic button that, when pressed, will send a text, phone call, and email to your Life360 Circle Members and Emergency Contacts with your location at the time you pressed the button.

 

How to add family and friends to your Emergency Contacts

  1. Select a Circle
  2. Tap Help Alert in the menu
  3. Tap the + sign
  4. Select the contact you would like to add as an Emergency Contact or tap “Enter Manually” to enter their name and phone number
  5. You will receive a confirmation when they agree to be your Emergency Contact

 

Life360 panic button for family safety

How to add emergency contacts to family locator Life360

 

Keep in mind these contacts do not need to download Life360 in order to see your location when the Help Alert is activated.

 

How do I use the Help Alert?

We hope you will never have to use it, but if you need to share your location with your Circle and Emergency Contacts, activate the Help Alert. You will also be given the option to dial 911. Life360 is not a substitute for calling 911, so if you are experiencing an emergency please call 911.

  1. Select a Circle
  2. Tap Help Alert in the menu
  3. Tap the ! button

life360_panic_button_family_locator_

Life360 panic button

 

I activated my Help Alert, what happens next?

 

Once you tap the Help Alert button the following will happen:

  • All of the members of that Circle will be sent a notification to their phones and will receive a phone call with your location.
  • Emergency Contacts in that Circle will receive a call with your location and a text message with a temporary link that shares your location at the time you activated the Help Alert.

 

Let us know in the comments section how you would use the Help Alert and how you talk to your friends and family about Emergency Contacts

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Travel Safely this Holiday with Life360

tgkids

 

Thanksgiving is the biggest travel day of the year for long distance trips, and nearly 9 out of 10 of those trips will be by car. The amount of travelers in 2016 hasn’t been this high since 2007!

That’s a lot of cars on the road, and when you’re looking forward to eating your fried, bbqed, spatch cocked, or roasted turkey, worrying about travel safety isn’t top of mind.

For families traveling to other families, or for groups expecting groups, we’ve got 6 tips on how to use Life360 to give you Peace of Mind on safety and coordination this holiday so that you can concentrate on not burning the green bean casserole.

  1. Want to know when your family is approaching so you can set the table? Create a Holiday Circle and get notified when they are getting close to your house.
  2. Check in that everyone is where they should be by taking a peak at the map. Breathe a sigh of relief that your family is still driving, en route, and not stuck with a flat tire and no help.
  3. Do you have such a big group that you are traveling in separate cars? Follow fellow travelers to arrive together by adding each other in a Circle, looking at them on the map, and communicating through Life360 messaging.
  4. Gravy? Check! Cranberry sauce? Check! French’s Fried Onions? Check! Uh oh, your daughter is bringing her new boyfriend and he doesn’t eat meat. Tofurkey? Check! Make your Thanksgiving dinner list editable by the whole family with a Life360 List
  5. Unbutton your jeans and let the tryptophan set in. It’s time to grab Apples to Apples and snap pictures of your family having fun without fighting. Share pictures privately with your whole Circle with group messaging inside Life360.
  6. Let your teenager take the wheel and work on his or her driving skills. With Life360’s Safe Drive Analysis, you can see if they picked up their phone while driving, the top speed reached during the trip, and how many miles they drove. With the busiest travel day of the year, this is a perfect time to have a conversation about safe driving habits.

 

Let us know how you use Life360 to coordinate and stay safe over the holidays!

 

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in Driving, Family, Life360