"I'm so tired of worrying where my kids are - the little ones and the teenage ones"
The BlueRanger Starter Pack is a compact, battery operated, discrete tracking device designed specifically for consensual personal tracking, security and assistance.
If your child or loved one wears a BlueRanger , you can track their whereabouts in real-time with accuracy down to just 4 metres using your PC and the Internet. Now you can give your kids a little more freedom to grow, while you get a little bit of your life back.
Ready to buy? Click here
How does BlueRanger Starter Pack work?
BlueRanger is controlled using BlueMap software on your Internet connected Windows PC. Simply charge your BlueRanger unit and switch it on. Then get someone to wear it and ask them to take a walk, you'll be able to see exactly where they are onscreen.
Day to day operation
Once you've set up your BlueMap software and found a way to get your child to wear the BlueRanger Starter Pack device, you can pack them off to school and watch progress.
At home on your PC, you get to see where they are on an on-screen map .. in the playground, in a classroom. Maybe even in the head teacher's office.
You will be able to see, for instance, if your daughter comes straight home or where your kids are if they are delayed.
This is great, too, for school trips or when they are out with friends. It's even good when the rest of the family go out, you can tell where they've been, where they are and when they are making their way home. Tracking them on a ride at Alton Towers might be interesting.
You can also use the unit to, for instance, track your location as you jog, cycle or orienteer your way around the countryside, to show how a shopping trip is progressing, or to provide location information when someone is travelling.
The Blue Tree difference: the problem with mobile phone tracking systems
Our product is very much ahead of the market, and if you are to be safe it's crucial to understand what you are buying. If you've looked around you will have seen mobile tracking devices which locate a mobile phone. You can use that method to locate a BlueRanger Starter Pack too.
But there are two huge problems with mobile phone tracking systems. You have to send a text (perhaps 40p a time) to request the position of the unit. This means it's easy to rack up additional costs and the data you get isn't real-time, it's on-request. With BlueRanger and BlueMap software, you get real-time information onscreen all the time.
Secondly, what you get back from a mobile phone tracking system almost always gives you a large area to search. A real example of this: "George is within 400 metres of Kings Cross Railway Station". An average car is 4 metres long, so next time you are out and you see a line of parked cars, count a hundred of them. Then think of that as a radius, so think how difficult it would be to find George if he could be 100 cars away in any direction, in any of the buildings. Then imagine you're in a busy shopping centre, airport, or railway station .. exactly the sort of place when you might lose George. When you need to find someone, texting every five minutes and waiting for a text response containing that sort of information isn't very helpful.
The service level of text messaging is also an issue. If you try to send a Happy New Year text at midnight on new year's eve, it's likely to arrive sometime the next afternoon. There is no guarantee that a text message will be sent or responded to in a timely manner.
With BlueRanger, if SMS alerts don't reach you, you will still be able to track position using BlueMap in real-time with normal accuracy of within 4 metres, and you'll also see direction and speed of travel.
What about signal strength and reliability?
GPS devices need to be able to sense the satellites that allow them to discover their position. Traditionally this is more difficult inside a large building or very built-up area, however our use of the best GPS components minimises this.
We show our confidence in a position using a circle. The larger the circle, the lower our confidence, the larger the area to search. This is very rarely more than a few metres.
In the rare event that BlueRanger cannot calculate its position, or cannot transmit it through the mobile phone network, BlueRanger will continue to attempt to connect. As soon as it gets a live connection to our server your BlueMap software displays its location. This is in contrast to competing products where you pay to send a text message that would return a "can't find them" message, leaving you to pay to re-send repeatedly.
Our server has an uptime of 99.99%. Occasional essential maintenance is undertaken at the quietest times.
BlueRanger has intelligent power management, so it reduces the number of times it calculates and sends its position as it runs low on power. We ran one down over two weeks and it continued to work, but was only able to send position data every hour.
How it really works
BlueRanger is a GPS device, which means it uses radio signals from satellites to discover its position anywhere on earth to within 4 metres. Your in-car SatNav system does that too.
BlueRanger is also connected to the mobile phone network. Assuming it can get a signal, it transmits its location to our server.
The BlueMap software on your computer communicates over the Internet to our server to get the position of your BlueRanger unit, and then it displays where your child is onscreen for you. We currently use Google Maps (but reserve the right to change that without notice), so you can see the location as a road map, as an archive satellite image, or both. If you are not familiar with Google Maps, enter your postcode here. By default you see the map view, but there's a button for 'satellite', and 'hybrid'. Some areas have high quality satellite images, some only lower quality, but we think Google will bring high quality to all as soon as it is able. Just to be clear, these are NOT 'live' satellite images, you will not be able to actually see your child walking down the street using this system, these are archive satellite images taken weeks, months or years ago. We take Google Maps and overlay our symbols to show the location of your children. If you have more BlueRanger units, it can display the location of all of them.
We use the very latest SiRFstar III GPS chip and the best active GPS aerial, so you get the most accurate position data, and much improved positional fixes when the BlueRanger is indoors.
Emergency operation
In order to reach the competitive price we have, BlueRanger Starter Pack does not provide emergency alerts or the ability to set up geofence boundaries. However, in the event of an emergency or just of one of your kids being late home, assuming the unit is still with the child, you will be able to see their location on your computer and, we suggest, direct people on the ground using a mobile phone.
BlueRanger Starter Pack is upgradable to full BlueRanger functionality which does provide a panic alarm, geofence boundaries, multiple contacts, and emergency room phone support. You can do that at any time simply by contacting us and paying the price difference. Our contact details are here.
If you wish, you might also like to purchase a BlueMap PDA which would allow you to walk or drive yourself to find your child using a hand-held unit that displays where you are in relation to each other (although to stay within the law while driving you probably would have to park each time before using the BlueMap PDA this way, but you can get yourself close, park, and continue on foot). More on that later.
BlueRanger must have a connection to the mobile network in order for it to communicate its position. We currently use Orange to provide mobile services, their coverage map is here. The system is designed as a child location device with the assumption that you are unlikely to let your kids go wandering around unsupervised in the Cairngorms. If you are walking on the hills you would need a phone signal anyway to raise help, our system provides location data as soon as a connection is established, so no watching for a momentary icon on your phone and then being unable to connect for long enough to say .. what .. "I'm stuck somewhere on the south side of Ben Macdhui"? If BlueRanger can get a phone signal, you can tell the emergency services exactly where your loved one is regardless of visibility.
In the case of abduction, no system that provides this level of accuracy and speed is yet able to be small enough to escape detection. If the unit isn't detected immediately by an abductor and is taken along with your child, you would gain time and direction data and perhaps fingerprints or other forensic evidence on the unit if it is discarded, and, of course, a discarded unit may be quickly found.
Of course, if the BlueRanger isn't discovered by the abductor then your child can be very quickly found.
If you wish, you can hide BlueRanger inside, for instance, a teddy bear, coat or bag, but you will need to do that in such a way as to be able to remove it again regularly to charge it.
Car barter
An interesting application of this technology has been picked up by the press recently. BlueRanger has allowed some astute parents to gain peace of mind and help keep their driving-age children safe.
Although the risk of child abduction is very small, with 1,000 attempts each year in England and Wales, every day 23 young people are killed or injured on the UK's roads.
By striking a 'deal' in which the young driver agrees to use BlueRanger while driving in return for the parents buying or contributing towards them getting a car or letting them use the family car, the parents know their offspring is staying safe and within the law and also where they are, and at the same time there is an incentive for the young person to stay within the speed limit, and a reason to give to their mates why they can't. Upgrade to the full BlueRanger to get speed alerts.
Missing child got into car with man
Sky News: Wednesday June 20, 2007: Fears are growing that a missing boy has been abducted in Worcestershire.
Police said the nine-year-old was last seen getting into a red Vauxhall Astra-sized car in the Woodrow area of Redditch at around 7pm with a man aged between 45 and 50.
The boy, who has not been named, is described as white, 4ft tall with short brown hair. He was wearing a blue t-shirt and dark blue shiny tracksuit trousers.
West Mercia Police appealed for anyone in the area who may have seen anything suspicious to contact officers.
How much does a BlueRanger Starter Pack cost?
We have worked hard to provide an economical service with predictable costs.
BlueRanger Starter Pack is available for rent for just £19.95 per month (incl VAT), with £10 p&p in the first payment (so, £29.95 in month one, £19.95 each month thereafter, minimum term 18 months).
You may wish to purchase just one BlueRanger Starter Pack to begin with, and pass it around the family according to the day's plan. We simply track the BlueRanger Starter Pack unit.
Ready to buy? Click here
Does it work outside the UK?
BlueRanger Starter Pack works inside the UK only. Roaming is possible by upgrading to the main BlueRanger product.
How can I cancel?
If you change your mind and wish to cancel a new order, you have a statutory seven days to do so. You must let us know in writing or by email and return the product unopened and at your expense.
For the rental of a BlueRanger Starter Pack, 18 months is the minimum term.
Guarantee
We want you to be completely satisfied with your BlueRanger Starter Pack unit, and we are sure you will be. But we offer a no-quibble, money back guarantee, just in case.
If, after fourteen days of use, you're not absolutely happy with the BlueMap software on your PC or with the wearable BlueRanger unit or with anything at all that we've provided, just return it to us in its original condition, and we'll refund your money in full. No questions asked. No hard feelings. No problem.
What you will get when you order BlueRanger Starter Pack
- a wearable BlueRanger unit (of course) (pictured)
- a wall charger (the unit has integral batteries)
- a user manual
- a BlueMap management software CD, providing the ability to track the BlueRanger Starter Pack's location on an on-screen map, with a licence to install on more than one computer
- access to our technical support line (business hours only)
BlueRanger Starter Pack specifications
- dimensions: 24mm x 80mm x 55mm (about the size of a credit card, but 24mm thick)
- weight: 100-110g
- GPS chip: SiRFstar III
- intelligent power management (battery life dependent on temperature and other factors)
What you need
In order to use BlueMap software to manage the service and track the position of the person wearing your BlueRanger unit, you will need an Internet connected Windows PC.
Track your BlueRanger while you are mobile too, using the BlueMap PDA
The BlueMap PDA is an optional fully featured Personal Digital Assistant running BlueMap software, so you can see onscreen the relative positions of you and the person wearing your BlueRanger unit together with the direction of travel. To find them, you just travel or walk towards them. We haven't seen this capability anywhere else.
It's also a fully functioning PDA. We are currently using the Mio A701, so it gives you satnav, it's a phone, camera, video and audio player, and comes with Microsoft Office mobile, a calendar, contacts list and much more. So now you have a great reason to get a gorgeous, state of the art PDA.
BlueRanger works well without the BlueMap PDA, but with it, finding an errant runaway is fast and easy, and if, during a search, you still have someone watching BlueMap on your home computer, they can see the relative positions of both units.
Our price for the BlueMap PDA is £351.32 + £11.75 per order for p&p (incl VAT). We don't offer this on rental. You have a choice regarding the data charges. You may buy a BlueMap PDA and put your own phone sim into it, so you keep your number and contacts and you pay for the data charges through your existing phone contract. Or you can buy a new sim from us at £141 per year (incl VAT).
All BlueMap (parent) units are able to track more than one BlueRanger (child) unit at no additional cost.
What you are getting
A single BlueRanger Starter Pack unit gives you the ability to track the position of your child in real time with 4 metre accuracy.
All the other BlueRanger functionality: breadcrumb trail, alert button, boundaries and alerts, emergency telephone assistance service, and the ability to set up a 'not being worn' alarm are available as an upgrade simply by contacting us and paying the price difference. Our contact details are here.
How to order a BlueRanger Starter Pack
Are you ready to give your kids a little more freedom to grow, while giving yourself the reassurance they are safe? We are taking pre-orders for the BlueRanger Starter Pack for delivery from the 1 August 2007.
Click below to rent a single BlueRanger Starter Pack unit and pay through our secure payment pages.
2Checkout.com is an authorized retailer for Blue Tree Services Ltd.
If you wish to purchase more than one BlueRanger Starter Pack, click the rent button above and alter the quantity on the shopping cart, which is the next page you see.
If you wish to add a BlueMap PDA, after adding the correct quantity of OurKids Lites TM use your browser's back button to come back to this page, click here to go to our prices page and place an additional order for the BlueMap PDA. At our secure payment provider's shopping cart page, check the contents are correct before proceeding to checkout.
What happens after I've bought?
We currently try to ship every Tuesday by Parcel Post, so if you order by mid-day on a Tuesday you are likely to receive it next day. If you order on a Wednesday it will be just over a week.
When you receive your parcel, set the BlueRanger Starter Pack charging.
You will be asked to agree to our terms and conditions and to request the unit be activated. We are obliged by law to protect children from being monitored by those who are not their guardian, that's why that step is there.
Once you've done that, we send you a login code. You install BlueMap software on your PC, enter the login, turn on the BlueRanger and you will see its position on your screen. Well done, you're tracking!
Next step: enjoy tracking your loved ones and knowing they are safe
Worry less about the people you love, give yourselves the means to be safe. Click here