High Tech Trick or Treats

Today, technology not only allows you and your children have more fun on Halloween, but it can also help to keep your children safe while they participate in the annual spooks and specters pilgrimage to the candy laden promised land.  Below are five different ways that technology can enhance your Halloween experience.

Tracking Your Trick or Treater
Nothing can cause more anxiety in a parent than momentarily losing track of your child, whether that is at an amusement park or out Trick or Treating.  Several devices and applications are now available to let parents keep an invisible tether on their kids while still giving their child a sense of freedom.  For example, the new iPhone operating system, iOS 5, provides the Find My Friends app, which gives basic tracking functionality, and other applications such as Life360 (Free for Android & iPhone) which provide a full suite of tracking and contact based services ideal for the busy family unit.

The problem with these solutions is that they require your child to be carrying a smart phone.  Many parents are uncomfortable purchasing their child a mobile phone.

( Updated October 18, 2011 3:42 EDT - a rep from Life360 contacted us to let us know that their application does not require a smart phone -   "I wanted to let you know that Life360 does not require one. It works with GPS devices, which are $99 to purchase and $10/month for data service. Life360 users can actually also use feature phones as well by leveraging SMS, which is free for the first three uses, then it is $4.99/month.")

Enter the Garmin GTU 10.  No larger than a lucky rabbit’s foot, this device is a full-fledged GPS tracking unit that utilizes both mobile phone signals and satellites to always provide an accurate location.  Using the Garmin Tracker application (iPhone / Android / Web) you can design virtual boundaries called Geofences.  Any time the device travels out side the pre defined geo fence you are alerted.

You can sew the device into your child’s costume, hang it on their belt loop using the included carabiner clip, or throw it into their candy bag.  After Halloween is over, the device can continue to be used to monitor you child or use it for another purpose such as pets, golf clubs, or laptop bags.  

The Garmin GTU 10 is available from AT&T and the retail price is $199.99 with no contract required.  The first year of the Garmin tracking service is included and afterwards costs $49.99 per year.

Figure 1 - The Garmin Tracker App

Figure 2 - Setting a Virtual Fence with the Garmin Tracker App

Keeping ‘Em Visible
After working hard on their Halloween costume, your child wants to show it off.  It is no secret that children will resist any kind of safety feature that they feel will detract from their costume.  However, there is a solution that kids will love and will give parents the peace of mind that their child can still be seen while going out into the spooky world of Halloween Trick or Treating.  Buy inexpensive LED flashers and incorporate them into their costumes or equip your child with an old-fashioned orange plastic pumpkin candy container and throw a glow stick into it.  The spooky glow cast by the pumpkin will be visible for blocks!  If you child has a smart phone, most of the ‘flashlight’ apps also feature special Halloween strobes and lighting effects.

Knowing Your Neighborhood
In today’s sprawling suburbs it is not uncommon for parents to not know much about their neighbors.   Smart phone apps such as Sex Offender Search (Life360 - Free for iPhone and Android) or Sex Offender Tracker (Been Verified - Free for iPhone /  99 cents Android) help to give you an idea of who is living in the neighborhood where you want to take your children trick or treating.  In our testing the Life 360 app provided more offenders, but less information than the Been Verified app. These apps will never replace parental intuition, but will help provide you with the background information you need to make informed choices.

Figure 3 - Sex Offender Search by Life 360

Figure 4 - Sex Offender Tracker by Been Verified

Finding a Haunted House
Maybe you want to find a seasonal haunted house (the kind, that while scary, isn’t real) or perhaps you’re in the mood for a more ‘spirited’ romp?  As the saying goes, there is an app for that!

Haunt Finder (2.99 - iPhone) and Find Haunted Houses ( Free – Android) find and provide directions to the seasonal haunted houses in your area.

Meanwhile, if a true (after) life adventure is more your speed, Syfy has created the Ghost Hunters app (99 cents – iPhone only) that allows you to follow the adventures of your favorite real life ghost busters as well as guides and directions to the locations made famous by the TV series.

 

Figure 5 - Haunt Finder for iPhone

Figure 6 - Ghost Hunters for iPhone

Treating Yourself
Many applications exist for both the iPhone and Android smart phones.  Two excellent ‘Just for Fun’ apps are the X-Ray Candy Scanner and the Ghost Cam app.

The X-Ray Candy Scanner (99 cents, iPhone only) is not a real x-ray device, but it may help you covertly snag some of your favorite candy before your child wolfs it all down.  Simply take a picture of the candy by clicking the left side of the ‘Scan Candy’ button for candy you don’t like or clicking the right side of the button for the candy you want all for your self.  The app will then ‘X-Ray’ the candy.  The candy you don’t like will be labeled ‘Safe’ while the good stuff will show up with a screw or razor blade and be labeled ‘Don’t Eat It’.

The other fun app is the Ghost Cam ( 99 cents iPhone / Free Android).  This app superimposes ghostly figures on images you take or already have stored on your phone.  While the novelty may quickly wear off, it should be good to trick a few friends into believing that you have a knack for catching the supernatural off guard.

Figure 7 - I Love Butterfingers! (X-Ray Candy Scanner)

Figure 8 - Our Chief Meteorologist's Office is Haunted (Ghost Cam)

 

Technology impacts almost every aspect of our daily lives and Halloween is not immune to this phenomenon.  The above products and applications can help ensure that your Halloween 2011 celebration stays safe and enjoyable!

 

C Robert Dillon   is the digital developer at  WISH-TV  in Indianapolis and serves as a technology consultant and on-air contributor to WISH as well as the technology expert and host of the Taming Technology segment on Indy Style. Opinions presented are those of the author and not necessarily of LIN Media, WISH-TV, or Indy Style.  You can keep up with Rob on  Twitter ,   Facebook , or   Google+   .