Just now, 4m ago, quiet since 07:50 — all three are answers.
A live location tracker is only as live as its last update.
Live is the most abused word in this category. Here it means something you can read straight off the screen: every position carries the minute it arrived, so you never have to guess whether you are looking at now or at an hour ago.
Start trackingAndroid · iPhone · a browser tab, which is live only while it stays open
Sunday, 11:40 AM
Her row had not moved in an hour, so I asked her phone a question instead of guessing.
This is the part most maps leave out. When nothing new has arrived, the app does not invent a newer dot — and it does not leave you stuck either. It lets you ask, and lets her phone answer.
A ping is a request, not a command. She could have ignored it, and the row would have gone on saying the only true thing it had.
Grandma Jean should have been back from church by now. Her row does not pretend otherwise: it names the hour it stopped hearing anything and leaves the last point where it was.
Quiet since 07:50A phone in a pocket on a slow morning is the usual explanation. Silence is not evidence of anything.So I tap the ping on her row. It does not reach into her phone and take a position — it asks her to open the app, and tells me it has asked.
We let Grandma Jean know.She opens it, the phone reports, and the row rewrites itself with a minute I can trust. Nothing about the map got more live; her phone did.
At Home · Just nowFive minutes of not knowing, ended by her choosing to answer. That is the honest ceiling of live on any platform.
How live is live
Five rungs, and a real time location tracker sits on a different one every hour
The rate is not a setting you win by turning up: a live location tracker follows the phone, not a slider. And if none of these rungs is good enough for what you are actually worried about, the answer is not a faster map: save the place once, and be told when somebody gets there.
- Moving, app installed
Often enough to follow a journey
A phone that is travelling reports on movement, so the row keeps pace with the road rather than with a clock.
- Standing still
Rarely — there is nothing to add
The rung that looks like a fault and is not. Eighteen minutes old, on a phone that has not moved in eighteen minutes, is a correct answer, and the row says which it is.
- App in the background
Still reporting, less often
Both platforms throttle background work, and neither publishes the number. No live location tracker app can promise a figure it does not control.
- A browser tab
Live only while the tab is open
Enough for the relative who installs nothing. Close the tab and they go quiet like a switched-off phone.
- Off, no signal, or permission withdrawn
Nothing — and the row says so
Quiet since, with the hour it stopped, or No location yet. Never a position invented to fill the gap. What differs by platform is on the phone tracker page.
Everyone gets a heads-up when someone arrives or leaves.
You're invited
Sam invited you to "The Bennett family"
Live in one direction is not live, it is watching
Everyone in the circle reads the same map with the same freshness stamps, your own row included — and the app says so on the screen before anybody joins, in the line they have to read to get in.
- Whoever created the circle gets no faster refresh, and no view the others do not have.
- A real-time location tracker that can be pointed at somebody unaware would be a different product; this one cannot be, by design.
- The battery is the price of the word live, which is why the circle is told when somebody drops low rather than finding out when the dot stops.
- For the broad version — what each row can say, and where history ends — the location tracker page covers the ground.
Questions about how live it is
How many seconds between updates?
There is no fixed number, and an app that quotes one is quoting its best case. Updates arrive more often while a phone moves and less often while it rests. What you can rely on is the time written on every row.
Does the map update while the app is closed?
On the installed app, yes, in the background. In a browser tab it updates while the tab is open, which is enough for someone who will not install anything — and when the tab closes, they go quiet like any switched-off phone.
Why does someone show as five minutes old when they are standing next to me?
Because their phone has had no reason to report since. A still phone saves battery by reporting less. The reading is old, not wrong.
What does a ping actually do?
It sends them a notification asking them to open the app, and tells you it has been sent. It does not read their phone, and they can ignore it without owing anyone an explanation.
Can I get an alert instead of watching the map?
Yes, and it is the better habit. Save a place once and the circle is told when somebody arrives there or leaves, so nobody has to sit with the map open.
Is there a live location tracker app that works on both platforms?
This one. Android, iPhone and the browser join the same circle and read the same map, with the same timestamp on every row.