Trick or treating season is here! When Halloween comes, our children will leave the safety of our homes to knock on people’s doors. For parents, this is the most frightening part of Halloween.

Thankfully, technology is here to our rescue. With the use of our trusty smartphones, these Halloween apps will help parents monitor their children even while we are not physically near them.

Treatster

Target

Treatster is a recently-launched trick-or-treating app by retail giant Target. It’s basically a user-generated map that tells you where the best houses for trick or treating are located.

Users can give a house’s pumpkin indicator a thumbs-up to tell others about how great trick or treating in that house is. The more thumbs-up a house gets, the bigger its pumpkin will be.

Nextdoor’s Halloween Treat Map

Facebook / Nextdoor

Nextdoor is another crowdsourced map app that also functions as a “free, private social network for you, your neighbors, and community.”

But for Halloween, Nextdoor provides its users with a detailed map so you can see which of your neighbors are giving out candy this year. The ones who are will be indicated by candy corns, saving your kids the hassle of going to homes that aren’t giving out candy this year.

Nextdoor is available in iTunes and Google Play.

Trick or Tracker

Facebook / Trick or Tracker

Trick or Tracker, available on iOS and Android, is meant for older children who can bring a smartphone with them when trick or treating. The app is downloaded onto a parent’s phone and onto the child’s phone. Once activated, the app sends frequent text updates about a child’s location. It also has a nifty little feature, Guards Up, which sets a boundary, which is especially useful if kids are only allowed in certain neighborhoods to trick or treat. Should the child step beyond this boundary, the app sends a notification to the parent.

Here’s the app in action, albeit with a test subject, a dog.

Family Locator

Sygic a. s.

Family Locator is a free app that helps parents see their kids’ location in real time. It also notifies them when kids reach their destinations.

This family tracker was awarded by Parent Tested Parent Approved, a parent-testing community.

Life 360

Life360

Life 360 is a free app that allows you to stay connected with important people in your life, including family and friends. Users can create private groups where they can communicate via group chat. The app also notifies users when members check into places. Parents can even set boundary limits, get notified when children go beyond this boundary, and take the necessary next steps.

Red Panic Button

Ultimate Communication Software Ltd

Red Panic Button is an emergency app that sends a text message and an email containing a link to Google Maps with your child’s GPS coordinates to people on the panic list. The app could prove valuable in worst-case scenarios.

These Halloween apps can definitely bring you peace during trick-or=treating season. But don’t forget about these basic precautions you should primarily do this season.

Aside from trick or treating, what other aspect of Halloween that affects your kids worries you?

 Additional Images: Facebook / Nextdoor

Comments

comments