React Mobile: A Smartphone App for Safety

Tweetvar fbShare = {size: ‘small’,}         
(function() {
var po = document.createElement(‘script’); po.type = ‘text/javascript’; po.async = true;
po.src = ‘https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js’;
var s = document.getElementsByTagName(‘script’)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s);
})();

This was brought to you by AdvertiseWithBloggers.com and React Mobile.
You’re going to see a lot of app reviews on my blog in the next few days.  With the arrival of my HTC One, I’ve been looking at some new ones to play with, since this is my first Android phone.  I just installed React Mobile, a safety app, the other day and here’s what I think about it.

The app is free to download to your phone and is available from both the iTunes and Google Play stores.  I reviewed the Android version and I had no issues downloading it.  The app gives you a basic but very good tutorial on how to use it when you first launch it.  After swiping through the screens and following along I found it easy to use.

Once you’ve finished going through the tutorial, you can add your contacts to the app.  You can either do that manually or through your phone’s contact list.  If you have a phone that imports contacts from Facebook and Twitter, you may want to choose to do this step manually, because you’ll have to filter through a lot of people to find the ones you want to add to the app.  Once you’ve added contacts you can establish if you want them to receive alert e-mails, SMS and/or be able to receive the information from the “Follow Me” feature.

Follow Me allows you to share your where abouts in real time with your chosen contacts.  You can choose a time frame of 30 minutes, 1 hour or 2 hours to allow someone to follow you, and when you’ve reached your destination you can check in with “I’m Safe” to let your contacts know all is well.

My husband and I tried out the app together.  He received both my Follow Me, I’m Safe and SOS distress messages by text and e-mail.

When you feel like you may be in danger you can send an SOS Alert.  That will send out an alert via e-mail and/or text message to your selected contacts with a link to your last known GPS location.   You can also choose to post to Facebook and Twitter for greater exposure.  Once you’ve activated the SOS Alert you’ll be prompted to dial 911.  The neat thing about that is if you’re traveling abroad the app will update to reflect the emergency number for whatever country you happen to be in.

In my opinion this is a good app to have on on a tween’s or teen’s phone as they are exploring their independance and wanting to go places on their own.  Seeing that it’s also free…it makes total sense to use it as an extra layer of safety. 

I hope they come out with a Windows App for React Mobile in the future, as that’s the platform phone our daughter has, and I feel this would be a great app for her to utilize on her university campus in fall.  She can let her friends or us know when she is out at night walking from building to building and then getting back to her dorm room safely.  She can also have the campus police as a contact if they have a texting number which would make this mama feel even better.

I feel more confident and protected now if I take an early morning outing to Dunkin Donuts, that I can let my family know with the touch of a button that I either arrived their safely or that I need help – because in situations of distress the difference in time between trying to type out a text or dial a keypad and just touching your screen, can be huge.

You can learn more about React Mobile by visiting their website:  http://www.reactmobile.com.  You can also follow them on Twitter and Facebook.