Amber Alert GPS Knows Where You’re At

Amber Alert GPS is a personal GPS tracker that uses the Global Positioning System (satellites that are orbiting the planet) to locate your child. And, as the name implies, this tracker boasts a little something extra you may be interested in; it can alert you when your child is near the home of a registered sex offender.

If that feature is of utmost importance to you then Amber Alert is the tracker you’ll want. No other tracker offers that. But this unit doesn’t stop there – it has other features that will surely get your interest. For me, two-way phone calls top that list. And that’s something only 1 other GPS tracker features, but voice is clearest on Amber Alert.

Just Gimme 70… Seconds

Their latest model, introduced in 2017, is dubbed the Prime One. During normal use the Prime One updates its location approximately every 5 minutes. This was my biggest beef with their previous device. But all that has changed because now I can do an instant locate! That’s right, I can push a button, wait about 70 seconds for the info to fly through the air, and the device reports the most current location to me! That’s what I need more than anything and AmberAlert GPS provides it! Give them a gold star!

When the unit is moving quickly, such as when your child is riding in a car, location data should automatically be pushed to you at a rate quicker, at intervals shorter than 5 minutes. Time changes when you’re moving quickly. NASA knows this. The folks at Amber Alert GPS need to get onboard with that and have the unit automatically update the location more frequently especially when it’s on the move. But instant locate mitigates that problem quite a bit.

Like most other GPS trackers you get no choice of colorway; black is back. However, you can get the little pouch that holds it in black, blue or pink. Hanging from a lanyard the pink one looks right at home around your lil punkin’s neck.

Some other trackers will enter a low power mode when they sit idle in order to save battery life. That’s not the case with this one. It’s always up and running and giving you its location, for better or for worse.

Keep track of your child on any internet-connected device. All you have to do is visit the Amber Alert web portal. No need to do a manual refresh of your web browser to see the latest location data – the data is pushed to you the moment it is received.

Naturally, you can set this unit up to give you text and/or email alerts, even to 10 additional people. You can configure geofences too, which issue alerts whenever your child then enters or exits the imaginary circular boundary.

Sending Out an SOS

The big black button is the SOS button. If your fighter jet is going down you send out an SOS. If your ship is sinking you send out an SOS. And if your kid is in trouble, or just needs to talk to you, they could also send out an SOS by pressing this button to initiate a phone call to the cell phone that is registered with the device. Wow! That’s a very nice feature. Your child wearing the device can phone you! I like that a lot. In order to really take advantage of this feature your child needs to wear the device on a lanyard around their neck or somewhere close to their mouth and ears otherwise sound is too muffled to be of any use.

What’s more, only the cell phone you’ve designated through the portal can phone the unit itself. And you have the ability to change it to another number as often as you need. (At the time of this review the ability to change the phone number is not working correctly.) If Joe Bob down the street gets the number he cannot call the device or get any information. Here are some things I noticed while testing the SOS 2-way phone call feature:

The AmberAlert GPS Prime One sitting in its charging cradle.

In the past, to prevent false alarms, the team behind Amber Alert GPS has given us control over the SOS button so that it must be depressed for 5 seconds or 10 seconds before a call is placed. Unfortunately that is no longer the case. If the button gets pressed a call goes through and you get an SOS alert with the device’s location. Volume control is gone also, but it existed on the Prime One’s predecessor.

3Gs are Enough for Anybody

This is important. 2G cellular service is waning. And some GPS trackers are still relying on it. But Amber Alert GPS operates on 3G. That’s a good thing because 2G is soon headed the way of dinosaurs and hand-written letters.

• Free access via the web portal (no apps)
• 2-way phone calls
• Sexual predator notifications
• Location data every 5 minutes, plus instant locate button!
• Water resistant
• Alerts sent to you and up to 10 others
• Geofencing (Maximum of 20)
• No data contract, $15 per month
• $135 purchase price ($20 activation fee)
• Toll-free telephone support!

Some Small Issues

GeoFencing is great. It’s a nice feature to have and all personal GPS trackers have it. With Amber Alert GPS you can create circular zones with with a 500, 1000, 1500 or 5000 foot radius. I’d prefer if their geofences allowed for a lot more flexibility in terms of their size and shape.

Toll-free phone support is nice. But more often than not when I called the support line (1-888-334-3958) I got a voice message or a disconnected call, even when calling in the middle of a business day.

I also wish the location history connected the dots for me or had arrows to show me direction of travel. When the device remains in one location the numbered markers stack up like pancakes and begin to look confusing visually.

I’ve noticed some false alerts on occasion. One morning, after charging the device all night, I got an alert saying the battery was low. I checked the device and it had a full charge.

There is no app for the Prime One at the time of this review, only a web portal/interface. Lack of an app isn’t a big deal, as it appears to only affect people like myself who are using an older, smaller screen device. I tested the interface on a variety of platforms and screens, and it works well on most everything. It’s awkward and difficult to use on my now-ancient iPhone 5 though. Not sure how much that matters.

Like any GPS unit location data is not 100% accurate 100% of the time. Through my continued use of this unit it has occasionally reported to me a location that was up to a mile away from the real location of the unit. It happens. Perfection is not a reality with any personal GPS tracker.

What About Battery Life?

Amber Alert’s website boasts “Up to 40 hours under normal environmental conditions.” While I was testing the Prime One I could get nowhere near 40 hours of battery life. I couldn’t even get half that! Either way, my son is crazy happy to recharge this unit each night. And surely the infrequent location updates (5 minute gaps) contribute to increased battery life. It’s a trade-off that bodes well for this category.

As with all personal GPS trackers the real test in terms of battery life will be longevity. Can the battery in a single tracker continue to hold enough of a charge day-after-day for several months? My guess (and this is only a guess) is that you shouldn’t expect them to last more than a couple years before it needs replacement, but that totally depends on how often the unit is used and how you use it. Do you use it as a phone all the time? Does it go everywhere your child goes? Is it always powered on?

A really nice feature of this device is the included charging cradle. No cables to plug and unplug. You just drop the Prime One into the little charging cradle and let her charge up! The cradle can stay plugged in.

Get Your GPS On

The Prime One is a little heavy when hanging around your kid’s neck, but it’s not so heavy that it’s a burden. I also found the lanyard a tad long, but it was easy to trim down to size. Amber Alert GPS offers lots of features waiting to win you over. The product could be improved, sure. I don’t know any personal GPS tracker that doesn’t need improvement in one area or another. With this one you gotta love that 2-way phone call feature and instant locates! Those are real clinchers for me. It’s just too bad they don’t offer the Prime One dipped in chrome!  :-)