Pingo by Findmykids

Review by eFreeware

Pingo is the child-side half of a two-app arrangement. The parent-facing Findmykids app does the watching; Pingo sits on the phone or smart watch your child carries and reports back. It comes from LETEM LTD, the same developer behind the parent app, and it has been on Google Play since March 2018. The install count is past ten million, and the average rating sits at 4.7 from more than 358,000 ratings.

The reason to consider it is straightforward: it puts a child's whereabouts, daily movements and phone status in one place for a parent to check. Pingo is free and carries no ads, and there are no in-app purchases. What you get for nothing is the live location view; the rest of the toolkit is where the subscription question comes in, and I will come to that.

The map view is the core of it

The feature the developer leads with is the GPS tracker itself. Once the two devices are linked, a parent can see the child's position on a map, and alongside that a record of the day's movements that the developer describes as an online location diary. That combination is the heart of the app: not just where your child is right now, but the shape of the day so far.

The developer also pitches this as a way to notice when a child goes somewhere risky. That is a reasonable use of a location history, though it depends on the child carrying the device, which the app cannot control. I would treat the diary as a record to review rather than a live alarm.

There is a watch angle here too. If you would rather your child carried a smart watch than a phone, a kid smart watch can be paired with Pingo. That widens the audience beyond families handing a phone to a younger child.

Listening in, ringing loud and watching the screen

Sound around is the feature that will divide parents. It lets you listen to what is happening near your child through the device the tracker is installed on. The developer is explicit that it only works when the child-side app is set up on their phone. Whether that level of monitoring is appropriate is a family decision, and I would think carefully about how you introduce it.

Loud signal is the more mundane and, to my mind, more useful tool. If the phone has ended up at the bottom of a backpack or has been left on silent, you can send a loud ring to it. The same idea works for a misplaced smart watch, which is the sort of small feature that saves an afternoon.

Screen time manager reports which apps were used during the school day, so you can see whether play happened instead of lessons. It is presented as an alternative to dedicated parental control tools. That is a fair amount of oversight to hand to one app, and it is worth deciding in advance where your lines are.

Notifications, battery warnings and the family chat

Arrival alerts are the quiet workhorse. You set up places such as school and home, and the parent app notifies you when your child reaches them. For a family with a child walking to school alone for the first time, this is probably the single feature that justifies the setup.

Battery control is a small thing that matters more than it sounds. If the phone or the watch is about to run flat, you get a warning, which gives you a chance to remind your child to charge it before the device goes dark. A tracker that has run out of power tells you nothing, so this is a sensible addition.

Family chat lets members swap stickers and voice notes. It is a channel that lives alongside the tracking, which is convenient if your child is not yet carrying a phone with a normal messaging app on it.

What it asks of you before it does anything

This is not a standalone app, and that is the first thing to understand. The developer asks parents to install the Findmykids parent app first, then put Pingo on the child's device and enter the code issued during sign-up. It is also clear that Pingo belongs on a child's or teenager's device, not on a parent's own phone.

The permissions list is longer than some parents will expect. Each has a stated purpose, and it is worth reading that list before you install rather than after.

On cost, the picture is mixed. Seeing your child's live location is free once the devices are connected, but other features in the free version come with restrictions, and a subscription is needed to use everything. There are no ads in the app itself, and no in-app purchases. If you want the full set of tools, plan on paying.

Getting the setup right the first time

The order matters. Install the parent app and complete sign-up so you have the code in hand, then set up Pingo on the child's device. Doing it the other way around leaves you with a tracker that has nothing to talk to. The developer's own recommendation is to start with the parent app, and that matches how the pairing works.

Think about which device you are tracking before you buy anything. A phone gives you Sound around and the screen time view. A smart watch is the lighter option for a younger child, and the developer supports connecting one. Deciding this first saves a second setup later.

Once it is running, the app is mostly something you check rather than something you operate. The value comes from the notifications arriving on their own, so it is worth spending a few minutes defining the places that matter to your family. School and home are the obvious pair; a grandparent's house or an after-school club may be just as useful.

If something does go wrong, there is a support chat inside the app and an email address. Having that route documented is reassuring for an app that a parent may be relying on at short notice.

A locator for families already inside Findmykids

Pingo makes most sense as the second half of a pair. If you are already using the Findmykids parent app, or you are ready to adopt both, then this is the piece that goes on your child's phone or watch, and it covers what the app sets out to do: location on a map, a record of the day, arrival and battery alerts, and a chat channel for good measure.

The free tier is genuinely useful for the location view alone. Beyond that, the developer is upfront that a subscription is what opens up the full feature set, so the real question is how many of the extras your household would actually use. Sound around and the screen time report are the two that will decide it for most people.

I would suggest this to parents who want a dedicated tracking setup rather than a general-purpose family app, and who are comfortable with the permissions it asks for. The 4.7 average across a large number of ratings suggests the arrangement works for a lot of households. If you are not already using the parent app, start there and come back to this one.

What's new in version 2.12.0-google

Hear that? How could you not? It's like there's a little ringing sound. Ding-ding. Yep, it's the reminder bell, telling you it's time to update the Pingo app!