Life360 App (some Might Consider Stalking With Permission, LOL)

Our son has been inviting my wife and I to come on board as a passenger on his regional dedicated route. My wife left with him 3am on Tuesday morning so they've been on the road for a little over 5 days and they will make a delivery about 45 minutes away around next Wednesday and I'll pick her up then.

To check in on one another (i.e., to call my wife when they are driving not doing a 10 SB) we've been using an app that a friend of mine said she's used for the past year and really liked. It's called Life360. I've been using it a couple of times a day for the past five days and it seems like it would be handy for some others. It works across different platforms (i.e., iOS and Android) and each user installs the app and then they can invite others to be in their "circle" which, if accepted, allows others to see where they are at, how fast they are driving, etc. It updates constantly, kind of surprising to be able to see someone moving right down the highway in real time. If you set up locations such as home or a terminal , everyone gets notified when someone has reached that destination. "Hey, honey, I see you're at the store, please pick me up some ice tea", etc. The only annoying thing I've noticed is that others get notified when your phone battery is low, but that may be able to be turned off. You can set up to be notified if there is a crash involving one of the parties in your "circle", I don't have that set up.

I'm using the free version. You can also use different plans for roadside service or other features that I'm not interested in. I'm pretty sure you can just turn off location services on your phone if you don't want someone knowing where you are at when you're shopping for Christmas, cheating on a spouse, etc. LOL

The most odd thing my wife has seen so far on this trip was on the first day. Traffic was moving fine and then came to a crawl. Near the top of a grade that was maybe 5-10 miles was a tractor and trailer in the slow lane. Not a tractor/trailer, a tractor and a trailer. The trailer just dropped off the fifth wheel and sitting their in the roadway. Must have been going fairly slow, fortunately. My wife tried to take a photo but missed it. Maybe time for our son to buy a dashcam.

I tried that a few years ago, right after I started driving, for us orientation buddies to keep track of each other. I found that it drained my battery way too quickly, and uninstalled the app soon thereafter.

I still use the app with my wife. She likes to live the adventure vicariously through me by looking at my location throughout the day.

I do notice that it seems to drain my battery but I still am okay for 8 hours or so and imagine if I just turn off my location in the settings that would improve greatly. My wife and our son keep their phone plugged in on the truck so it's not an issue. They arrived at their current location in Mira Loma (SoCal) about 21 hours before unloading appointment time and then get loaded at same location 13 hours later so I think I'll turn off location tomorrow morning and see how battery life is with that.