Wristband Wirelessly Tracks Kids, Spouces

This wristband can track its wearer anywhere within a Wi-Fi system.

Recently we reported on GPS shoes with Bluetooth, capable of transmitting the wearer's location to MySpace, Facebook or some other Internet-related site. Now we have Ekahau's T301W Wi-Fi wristband that can also track the wearer's location. The drawback is that the gadget doesn't use GPS, however the price is somewhat lower than the shoes; only $60, making it ten bucks more than a fancy Swatch.

So what good is this thing if its doesn't use GPS? Ekahau says that the device is excellent for hospitals, hospitality venues, and even cruise ships (it's waterproof in case you stumble over into the sea). Companies could apply these devices to miners to keep track of each individual deep in the earth, while the government could slap them onto visitors to know if they're wandering into restricted areas. All of this, of course, is done through Wi-Fi.

"Combined with the recently announced Ekahau room and bed beacons, the wristband tags guarantee precise location capabilities down to less than a few feet in both confined and open spaces," the company said. "The wristband tag houses a programmable push button that, when pressed, sends a pre-determined message to the RTLS system that then processes the button press based on a sophisticated set of business rules. These messages could be an alert that assistance is needed, or signals an event, for instance, when an individual has completed a task or is required to check-in on a periodic basis."

Granted the wristband isn't quite as broad and as cool as the GPS shoes, this would be a handy tool for parents keeping tabs on the kids, and kids who need to keep tabs on wandering parents.