Apple released an interesting new feature on iOS 17 for your iPhone that allows you to send a message telling your friend or family member that they will receive a message either when you arrive at your destination or a warning message if you fail to reach your destination.
This sounded great to my son, as he would like to know when (if) I make it back from my daily walk. He also wanted to know if the kids made it back home from school.
I ran into a few issues as I started to test it using my iPhone and my son’s iPhone. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a great feature, but you need to overcome a few limitations.
First, both iPhones must be running iOS 17, have the Find My app enabled, and have Settings- Privacy & Security- Location Services enabled. The person sending the Check In message must have their cellular data plan enabled.
While my son can already use the Apple “Find My” app to locate me when he wanted to know where I was, he wanted an automatic notification when I returned from a walk. While this could be set up in “Find My” under “People- Notify Me- Arrives,” he didn’t want to be notified every time I arrived home, just when I went out on a walk.
See this YouTube video on its usage
Location-based Check In
So, it seemed that Check In would be perfect as I would use it to send him a message when I started my walk, as shown below. It’s a simple addition to an iPhone message.
Now you can send your Check In Message by tapping the “message send” arrow
However
The first problem was that I couldn’t set my location when leaving the house on my walk as I got an error that I was “Too Close”.
I then tried starting my walk, and after ½ mile, I was able to send the Check In message to my son. This underscores the problem. It’s designed to start looking for your destination from your CURRENT position. So I couldn’t send a Check In message to my son at the start of my walk and would have to wait until I was far enough away to be recognized as “not at destination”.
This would also be a problem for tracking of the kids coming home from school, as they would have to send this Check In message while at school, not by their parents when they leave for school.
Time-based Check In
The other option is setting a time-based Check In. I could choose when I should arrive home or when I have completed an activity, such as a workout while at home. This works by sending a Check In message to your family member stating the time when your activity is over. Just follow the same instructions above for the Location Check In, except choose the Timer Check In as shown below.
If you fail to end the timer before that period, your family member will receive a message that you may need assistance. You are given a 14-minute grace period with reminders every 5 minutes to turn off the timer or extend it.
The basic idea about Timer Check In is that you must end it before the timer runs out, or extend it, so that your family member doesn’t get a warning to check on you.
Another issue is that Check In must be set up every time you want to use it. This means that scheduled use, such as the kids returning home from school, was impossible as it’s designed to start tracking right away from your current location.
Bottom Line.
I still think it’s a great feature, especially if you are not starting it at your “destination location,” as it does automatic messaging. It also notices if you’re not progressing towards your destination and can provide detailed path tracking if you fail to reach your goal.
· You could use a Check In Timer message instead of a Check In Location message when you are starting at home as your destination. Please note that a Check In Message Timer will NOT indicate that you arrived back home, just that you ended the timer.
· You could create a daily reminder to start a Check In Location message if you always leave work at the same time. If you are handy with iOS Shortcuts, you could use a Personal Automation to detect when you leave a location to run an iOS Shortcut with an Alert to start the Check In Location message.
Personal Automation Sample Shortcut