To ask for help with a tracking device

[hopelessholly1]

Not aibu bot don't know where to ask:
I need a tracker I can put into my child's bag which offers real life tracking. Child will not accept phone tracking (complex MH needs and needs some sort of tracking, been request by school too). We just need something to track them in real life time. I ordered a Tile Mate and didn't realise it only updates when within Bluetooth range of my phone so completely useless. I am not techy and just cannot work it out.

https://www.personalgpstrackers.co.uk/

You'd need a GPS tracker similar to this really, they require data so either come with a subscription or a sim card that you top up (the example I have linked is one you top up). They usually cost about £5-8 a month. What you could do with something like this is geofencing so you wouldn't need to actually track all the time but could set it up to alert you if the tracker (and therefore DC) entered or left a certain area (like around school - you draw the area "fence" on a map) and then you could just go look on the tracking then if you needed to.

Things like airtags and similar work by connecting to nearby devices via Bluetooth so don't have a cost attached because they aren't using data / GPS but won't be as accurate and can't live track to the same degree.

Searching for dementia trackers will probably bring you up a variety of options.

It can be as simple as location sharing on google maps - doesn't need to be a special programme it's a built in feature.

Or if you have both got Samsung phones try out their smart tags. They work well for us and it's actually unlikely to cause pop up that he's being followed - my wife and I have them on keys for cars we share so sometimes they follow me around and sometimes her - neither of us ever get stalking alerts so shouldn't be intrusive. I work on ambulance service and my colleagues have never mentioned their phone warning them they're being followed - there's so many about we'd all be getting pop ups all the time if they did. I presume they have an algorithm to work out if a new one has been secreted on a person/someone you don't live with has set it up/placed it on you then it follows you and never them...

They just need to be in range of any samsung phone to work. Similar to samsung smart watches - they share location by default with the samsung app so if anyone logs into the account you can see the location - also they have 4g versions so they don't even need to be near a phone to work/share location.