About

WhereIAm is a cross-platform mobile application that allows to determine the location of another user’s smartphone. The key feature of the application is that location tracking is activated only upon request. This significantly reduces the load on the phone’s battery and thereby qualitatively distinguishes WhereIAm from its competitors.

Challenges

The challenge was to create a mobile application for fixing the geolocation of other smartphone users, qualitatively different from its competitors in the following characteristics:

• free to use;
• lightweight;
• energy efficient;
• high accuracy of geo-positioning;
• parental control option;
• real-time geo-positioning option.

Solutions

Having assessed the client’s requirements, the New Line Technologies team decided to implement this project using the Flutter framework and the Google Firebase platform. This made it possible to avoid writing separate source code for Android and iOS and thereby significantly reduce development costs; Firebase provided automatic scalability of the application in the future.

• WhereIAm is under 34 MB, which is significantly less compared to some popular analogs.
• The application has a simple and intuitive interface. To launch it, only two actions are needed to be performed: generate and enter a code for binding smartphones.
• To prevent possible violations of human rights, the application has an authorization system that allows tracking only after user approval. Thus, two-way location sharing requires the consent of both parties.
• Available parental control allows parents to unilaterally get the child’s geolocation.
• Additional functionality for employees is in the process of implementing. It will allow setting working hours and working days for each user, tracking his location during the working time. This solution will reduce the time needed to search for a person in the office. Also, a beacon-device integration will be developed that will help determine the exact room in the office where the person is located.

Results

On the one hand, location tracking applications are quite useful for taking care of loved ones and children. While on the other, they can be used for unlawful purposes. The New Line Technologies team is pleased to provide in the WhereIAm application an opportunity of caring for loved ones, as well as programmatically implement tracking protection without prior consent from the user.