Findmykids vs Hauk

Findmykids gives parents GPS location tracking and selected parental-control tools for a child's phone or GPS watch. Location updates arrive every few seconds, with routes, location history and alerts about places a child visits. Parents can receive an SOS signal even when their own phone is silent, and Loud Signal can alert a child through a smartphone when that device is silent. App-use reports show which apps a child used and for how long, with overtime notifications. Sound Around lets a parent hear a child's surroundings; the child's device displays a notification when listening begins. Sound Around is unavailable for children using iPhones and when either parent or child is in Germany or Austria. Children can connect through the Pingo app or a GPS watch, and the company also offers web location tracking. Findmykids says its app can run on Apple Watch without a connected phone. The privacy policy says sound, usage statistics, fitness data and activity recognition data are not stored on company servers, and only the connected parent can access that information in the app. The service has a free plan and paid plans from €3.58 per month billed annually.

Hauk is a free, open-source service for sharing a phone’s live location through a backend that users host themselves. With its Android app, a user can set how long to share, then send a link for others to follow the location on a map. Sharing ends when the set period expires or the user stops it, and anyone with the link can view the location while it is active. The app sends location data only to the Hauk server configured in its settings. Running it therefore requires a server with PHP and Memcached or Redis, including the corresponding PHP extensions. Deployment options include manual or scripted installation, an Arch Linux AUR package, and an official Docker image. The project supports end-to-end encryption, LDAP authentication, and Tasker share starts; the Android app also supports HTTP and SOCKS proxies. Hauk is licensed under Apache-2.0. Its public demo is limited to two-minute shares and is intended for demonstration. The project recommends HTTPS through a reverse proxy to protect data in transit.