KidsSafe GPS Tracker

I have been tinkering in the internet of things realm for about a year now, and have the pleasure of being an instructor for our IOT bootcamp through CNM ingenuity. I wanted to challenge myself and create another project so I decided to enter the Meshtastic challenge!

Congratulations to all the contenders, I'm going to keep entering and trying! this has been a fun experience! I am continuing to develop this and other projects and look forward to entering other events in the future! Thank you Hackster.io, seeed Studio and Meshtastic for the opportunity!

Imagine this: you're camping with your children, surrounded by nature's beauty. But that beauty also holds hidden paths and potential dangers. What if your child wanders off, even for a moment, and you lose sight of them? The anxiety can be overwhelming.

Now imagine having a device that virtually extends your reach, ensuring you always know where they are. Introducing the KidsSafe GPS Tracker – your ultimate companion for family adventures. This compact, durable, and user-friendly device is designed to provide real-time location updates directly to your smartphone, wherever your child may roam.

With features like Geofencing, you can set safe zones around your campsite, hiking trails, or any area you designate, and receive instant alerts if your child leaves that boundary. In the event of an emergency, the SOS button empowers your child to instantly send their location to designated contacts, ensuring help arrives quickly, even in remote locations.

The KidsSafe GPS Tracker offers:

• Real-time Tracking: Pinpoint your child's location with accuracy and stay updated on their movements.
• Geofencing Alerts: Create virtual boundaries and receive notifications when your child enters or exits these safe zones.
• SOS Button: Your child can send an emergency alert with their location for immediate assistance.
• Long Battery Life: Reliable performance for extended camping trips without constant recharging worries.
• Durable and Water-Resistant Design: Built to withstand the rigors of outdoor adventures and kid-level play.
• Two-Way Communication (optional): Some models allow direct communication with your child, providing reassurance and instructions.

With the KidsSafe GPS Tracker, you can embrace the joys of nature with your family, confidently knowing you have a powerful tool to ensure your child's safety and your peace of mind

This is my original fritzing for the base station, I added an OLED to display information for the parents.

In order to conserve energy, I also added an on off switch for both the base station and the tracker. For this prototype I am focused on functionality, in the future I would want to make this device wearable for both the child and the parent.

I developed this using the Photon2, but I am considering using a Boron or an Argon instead, I am trying to figure out which micro controller will work best for what I am trying to accomplish. I feel like the use of a base station will help make my tracker more accurate and get more real time readings from the WIO tracker L1 E-ink. I went with this tracker model out of the three because I like how robust the built in display is. I think its fitting for use outside, especially with children, I would also consider putting an E-ink display on the home base as well eventually.

Yay! My Wio Tracker L1 E-ink arrived in the mail yesterday (8/20/25) this is perfect timing because I wanted to start the fritzing for the main board and 3D model and design an enclosure for the home base and the tracker itself. I have also been looking at the data sheet for the meshtastic kit, I am really excited to work with this kit. Since I've never use the Wio Tracker L1 E-ink before, today, I am attempting to create a new fritzing part for this project, hopefully it comes out here is my first version of my Wio L1 E-ink dev kit.

I am taking a break from fritzing and finishing up designing the home base enclosure today. I also want to start working on my flowcharts and sudo code, its time to get to work!

Here is a pictures of some of my soldering work for the home base, I am working on getting a 3D printer potentially for my home office so that I can print off my parts here rather then running into my place of work to do so, hopefully I will be able to do that! In the mean time I am tweaking my current designs and working on my code some more.

I am pretty glad I got my soldering certification before this challenge started. Some of these would of been much harder for me to solder if not for the instruction and training I received.

So far this is the homebase I just need to finish soldering the lora device, I have already soldered the photon 2 microcontroller, an on/off switch and a GPS module, I just need to solder the OLED screen and solder the rest of the wires on and the homebase is ready for coding/testing phase!

Finally got my 3D printer in, shout out to Bambu Labs!!!

Still working on my code for this! I've made several design changes for my HomeBase 3d design and will be printing my newest version of it this evening, since I am using a photon2 for the homebase I am using particle on visualStudioCode and I am utilizing the arduino IDE for the Wio Tracker device.