It's sad that a service like this exists. Taking a walk isn't a horribly dangerous activity and it's sad that our society has conditioned us to believe it might be.
Live a little.
EDIT: Sorry for the overly negative comment. I'd never personally want this, but Afforess makes a great comment about alternative demographics.
I live nearby a older grandparent right now. I was over at her house a week ago. While I was there, she asked if I could help her change the light-bulbs in her garage. Actually, she could change them herself, she just didn't want to use a 3ft step ladder alone, because she fell, it could have been hours before someone discovered her.
After that, I suggested she could text me before she does a similar task again, and if I didn't get a "all clear" text within a few minutes, to call and/or investigate. She is pretty savvy with her iPhone and agreed this was a good idea.
This seems to be exactly what this service offers, without having another person needed.
You're right. I didn't think of alternative demographics where taking a walk has a statistically higher chance of being dangerous.
Sorry for forgetting that not everyone is healthy and young. Though I fear it's likely going to be an uphill battle for a little app like this to reach the people who aren't.
> Though I fear it's likely going to be an uphill battle for a little app like this to reach the people who aren't.
Young people can use this too. Just one example: at a "safe sex" seminar during freshman orientation, the organizer recommended letting your roommate or a friend know where you are going before meeting someone off of Grindr[0], etc. At the time I heard that, I actually thought of making something like this, though I never actually got around to it. I'm glad that someone has, though.
Another example: I haven't had to travel by plane since this summer, but my friends have told me to let them know the next time I have to go through security, so they can know that I made it through safely.
These are both somewhat niche use cases, sure, but the product is general enough that it can satisfy both (and, I suspect, many others). The concept of a "dead man's switch" is certainly not new or obscure.
As you can see, the application mimics behaviors that already exist in the real world. So, their challenge will not be finding real-life uses for this application, but rather marketing it in a way that people understand the variety of things that they can use it for.
[0] Grindr actually didn't exist then - it was probably Cragislist or something. Also, it wasn't really a "safe sex" seminar - Columbia calls their anti-sexual violence training their "Consent" campaign (colloquially referred to as "Consent is Sexy": http://health.columbia.edu/services/svprp/advocacy-outreach), but I digress.
Fair enough. There are definitely use cases for this, including some that I myself might consider (such as when I go out on random solo backpacking trips in the desert).
So it's more an issue with the marketing choice of using taking a walk as the example, which I think is one of the worst possible options and possibly perpetuates a culture of fear.
Safety is personal and often a luxury. Living is exactly what people are trying to do thanks to such services. You may have next to zero exposure to violence surrounding you and others near and far. If you're in the United States, I'd suggest checking out some crime maps (which only scratch the surface), taking a look at your region's more in-depth Police Incident Reports if they have a site, and tuning-in to a police scanner online every now and then. It may give a nice dose of reality.
> "Taking a walk isn't a horribly dangerous activity and it's sad that our society has conditioned us to believe it might be."
That's relative. It depends on where you are, times, and other contexts. It's sadder that people are conditioned to be less receptive to understanding the plight of others or, moreover, conditioned to wearing blinders. You might never want a service that provides aid or extra peace of mind. You might not want locks on doors. But "live a little" is not a caring response to those who do.
Other services like this exist with various subscription models. As to whether this Kitestring one is any good, who knows. The splash page is too sparse.
It's sad that arguments like this exist. Believing that your own personal experiences are indicative of all other human beings' is foolish and it's sad that our society has conditioned people to believe this is the case.
Going for a walk isn't the best use case of this, at least for me (fortunately). I would find it more useful for solo outdoor activities, especially in the wilderness, like boating, hiking, etc.
They should definitely give some alternative use cases.
Think other scenarios please. If you go caving/hiking/anything-dangerous alone, this is a great service. Usually you always tell your friends, but this allows you to keep in check without telling everybody and possibly relying on a network of people instead of 1 or 2. To me this looks like a great idea...
Wait, what? It sounds like you live in a safe neighborhood. That's not the case for everyone. It sounds like you are a male. That's not the case for everyone. That comment isn't sexist, it's a comprehension of statistics. I see your point though; it is sad that a service like this has a market.
I can see this going really wrong -- I tend to forget things. Also, the value prop needs a bit of work. Show me the app or something. I want to feel like I trust this app.
Also, is this app profiting off of fear mongering? It's an interesting sector of technology that has sold to millions of people around the world. [See: Antivirus, Home Security Sytems, Insurance, etc]
What if your phone has no service at the time of text?
What if you forget and your leave your phone in a different room?
I suppose it all comes down to how your emergency contact choose to handle the situation. It's not as if it automatically calls 911 (unless that's what you make you emerg. contact?
> "Are you okay? (Please reply yes or no)"
> Kidnapper hears phone vibrate... reads text... responds "yes".
Without Kitestring, emergency isn't contacted.
With Kitestring, emergency isn't contacted in your particular situation, but might be if you fell when hiking or somehow got yourself electrocuted, or were caught in a rip while swimming, etc. Or if you had a PIN lock on your phone.
Luckily, security agencies have already solved this particular problem.
Instead of texting "Are you okay, please respond [this way]", there's a very simple challenge-response mechanism.
Agent in the field knows the correct response and a duress response to literally any pre-shared question ("How many eggs do you need to make an omelette?" Correct answer: "I'd rather have waffles", duress answer: "three").
All of the "what if [technical fault, stupidity]" is solved by escalation. Replace a text with a phone call in two minutes. Then call an emergency contact in 5. Then call the police in 10. (Adjust numbers to your locale and situational urgency).
When the time is up, you have to put a PIN in to give it the okay. There's a duress PIN, so even in the scenario where a kidnapper forces you to disable the app, it still achieves its goal. The alert is triggered from the server, so even if they smash your phone it still works (albeit without any more location tracking, obviously).
There's ways to handle most worst case scenarios, so long as you accept the possibility of false positives.
I love this idea! I wanted something like this for kiteboarding, actually, which an interesting coincidence given the name.
Some UX feedback: You should warn the user in advance that you are going to send an SMS to their phone number to confirm the number. After getting the first SMS to confirm my account, I started to add my emergency contact. I stopped, though, because I was worried that you might send an SMS to them asking to confirm their number, status as emergency contact, etc. The UI doesn't make it clear what will happen when I add them as a contact.
While the concept of this app is noble, why would anyone give up there phone number, full name and location to a site that says absolutely nothing about what they will do with that data.
There is a privacy policy and terms of use on the site, but those only cover use of the website itself and mostly just protect the site creator.
There is a significant revenue opportunity to gather this information and sell it and if that is the intent it should be clearly stated. If that isn't the intent, then they are potentially losing users by not yelling that from the rooftops.
Totally. We certainly have no intent to sell your phone number.
We only ask for your full name because we think that will better identify you in case of an emergency. (But you can put anything there.) And we actually don't need your location. We do need your phone number, though, so we can communicate with you on the go.
There are plenty of them. They watch your activity, if you're moving around, and if the phone detects you have fallen over, it sends alerts to your configured SMS/Twitter contact.
So what is this? A text only service? A web app? Native phone app?
I am on a tablet, so maybe the site isn't showing me all there is to see but I can't figure out what this this is without signing up. All there is to read is three sentences in the hero.
It's a mobile-friendly web app (and you also use SMS to interact with it). No native app (yet!). I just added an FAQ at the bottom. Sorry for the confusion!
Beautiful product, both aesthetically and conceptually. Very simple and honest, very few apps start like that, but I think the ones who do, legitimately deserve success.
Strange coincidence! A friend on fb posted a message tonight along the lines of "going to a new friend's house, if I don't check in by midnight, call the police". I've definitely let a friend know when making a craigslist or airbnb transaction. I probably would rather just let a friend know where I was going but it's nice there's an alternative and I'm sure this service can be run rather cheaply.
Livesafe[1], although not as straightforward or elegant, is a general life safety app that already does this and is already somewhat well-established. (This counts as a plug, I guess, since I know people who work on that app)
Another app which has overlapping functionality is bSafe (getbsafe.com).
I like simple apps that do one thing and do it well, so I build Kitestring to give them a little friendly competition. I'm hoping that it's simplicity / ease of use will be attractive to people.
I think there are many people who could benefit from an app like this. Of course I'd like them to use mine, but I'm also happy to see them using another app as long as they're on top of their safety.
It's a shame to see so many negative comments. MIT compsci student has good idea to help people, has a clean and simple UI/UX that I was able to test very quickly, open-sources the code. Even if you have no need for it, I have respect for attempts like these.
If you're on a large display the Get Started button seems like it's broken if you don't notice the color change down below. I noticed after I clicked it a few times.
Live a little.
EDIT: Sorry for the overly negative comment. I'd never personally want this, but Afforess makes a great comment about alternative demographics.