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It can be difficult for older adults to continue living on their own if their family members are constantly worried about them. Now there’s an app specifically designed to provide peace of mind to independent older adults and their loved ones: Safe365.

Safe365 is a free, downloadable application for mobile phones that tracks the location of other people in real time. It also can notify family members of any apparent emergencies.

The app was created in 2012 in Spain under a different name: Alpify. It was originally meant as a security measure for outdoor excursionists, enabling them to share their exact location with emergency responders.

Last year, however, the company rebranded the app to provide assistance to older adults rather than skiers and hikers.

“By reading a lot of articles and speaking to a lot of people, we found out there was something missing in [older adult] care,” said Delphine Tobias, spokesperson for Safe365. “It’s a huge market that we could help.”

Through the application, family members receive notifications every time their loved one leaves or enters a frequently used location (home, office, neighborhood, etc.). They also get an alert when the older adult’s phone battery is low.

Additionally, they can receive exact coordinates of the older adult during an emergency at just the click of a button. That way they can make a decision as a family as to whether the financial burden of an ambulance or hospital visit is necessary.

Tobias says Safe365 is the only app to provide these services for free. Life360, a popular family tracking app in the United States that shares the locations of friends and family members, charges for alerts and emergency response.

“We wanted to replace expensive solutions,” Tobias said.

Safe365 hopes to bridge the gap between technology and older adults, who often feel disconnected due to today’s hyper-digitalized world.

How to use it

To use it, download the Safe365 app onto your mobile phone. (It is available free of charge at the App Store and on Google Play.)

Then, add the mobile phone numbers of those you want to keep track of. They will receive a link to download the app onto their phone, and will have to give you permission to track their whereabouts. Without their acceptance, the app will not give you location information for another person’s phone.

Tracking can occur at three different levels: exact location in real time, approximate location, and route. Both the tracker and the trackee can select and modify the level of tracking or turn it off entirely.

In addition to tracking services, the application provides a way to communicate with each other. That way older adults don’t have to use a different function on their phone to send messages or emoticons.

In only a year, Safe 365 has attracted more than a million users in 193 countries. It is available in eight languages, including English and Spanish. To learn more about the app, or to download it, visit the App Store or Google Play.