WEST ISLAND
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A West Island entrepreneur offers a smart watch that allows parents to track the location of their children and enable kids to call for help if necessary without having to carry a cellphone.
Adam Dorfman’s candy-coloured Lil Tracker (liltracker.ca) watches are designed to appeal to kids, while offering a number of high-tech features for anxious parents.
The Dollard-des-Ormeaux father of two started the tracking bracelet company a little over two years ago after a scary moment when he lost sight of his then-fiveyear-old at Fairview Pointe-Claire shopping centre.
“I was looking at a shirt, and when I turned around she was gone. It scared the hell out of me,” said Dorfman.
Although he quickly found his daughter, who had wandered away to peer at pennies in a nearby fountain, he said the experience made him wish he had a way to ensure he’d always be able to quickly find his kids.
The Lil Tracker watch uses GPS to pinpoint the location of a child wherever they go. Using the connected app, parents can see their child’s location on a map, as well as see where they have been.
In addition to the GPS features, the watch also serves as a cellphone.
A phone book in the watch stores up to 15 names and numbers and an SOS button makes it easy for a child to stealthily call a parent if they’re in trouble.
“That’s a one-way call in an emergency. The people near the child wearing the watch wouldn’t know that the phone call is even placed,” said Dorfman.
The watches are sold online and range in price from $60 to $115. Five per cent of the cost of each device sold is donated to foundations for missing children in Canada and the United States. A monthly data plan is also required to use the watch, but Dorfman said his customers find it’s a small price to pay for peace of mind. For parents of older children who have some freedom to roam, the watch also offers reassurance that kids can reach them if they need help.
“A lot of people just want the watch to send messages back and forth and for a bit of peace and mind in case of emergency. They don’t all use it to track the location of their kids,” he said.
Dorfman said while interest in the Lil Tracker watch does spike in specific regions after news reports of missing children, such as the disappearance of Ariel Kouakou in Ahuntsic-Cartierville two months ago, the unfortunate reality is that it’s all too common for children to go missing.
The Missing Children’s Network notes 45,000 children are reported missing to police in Canada each year, with more than 7,000 of those in Quebec.
While most of those cases are runaways, and the vast majority are found within days of their disappearance, some children seem to vanish without a trace.
“There’s a kid that disappears every week in the U.S. or Canada. It’s just way too much. One of my goals is to lower that as much as possible, any way I can,” said Dorfman.