MiniFinder Nano GPS Personal Safety Alarm Review

The MiniFinder Nano is a feature-packed device which includes a number of sensors and trackers aimed at keeping you or your loved ones safe.

Worn like a watch, the device can connect to GPS and wireless or mobile networks for location tracking and communication but also includes heart rate and fall detection sensors for further functionality.

There are a lot of possible use cases for a device like this but the two obvious ones are for monitoring elderly people or children.

MiniFinder sent us over a Nano to review and I’ve been using it for the last few weeks to see how it performed.

What’s in the Box?

The Nano comes with a proprietary charging cable and power adapter and a quick start guide which includes links for you to download a user manual. There’s a lot of features to get up to speed with here so the manual is essential.

Charging and Battery Life

The battery needs to be charged for 4 hours when you take the Nano out of the box. Subsequent charges then take 2 hours. The charging cable attaches to the back of the device via pogo pins and is held on, in the correct orientation, with magnets.

The Nano seems happiest when you use the included adapter to charge it. I plugged the cable into different chargers that had a higher output and it didn’t charge. Once the device is charged the battery is rated for 120 hours. During our testing, using it more than would be normal, we were seeing about two days between charges. We had the location set to update every 30 seconds which is the lowest interval possible and therefore the most battery consuming.

Design

The device can detach from the watch strap and be worn on a lanyard or wrist strap if desired.

Taking a look around the device, on the front in the middle is a large, easy to find, SOS button. On the top right quadrant of the front face, there are two indicator LEDs. One is for GPS connection and the other for mobile network connection. Different flashing patterns mean different states of connection and this is explained in detail in the manual. The bottom left quadrant of the face has a small hole for the microphone.

On the side of the device, there’s the On/Off button and the holes for its speaker. Around the back, there’s the pogo pins for charging and the heart rate sensor in the middle.

App

The main setup of the device, changing its settings and the tracking and communication with the Nano are looked after by an App which can be downloaded for Android or iOS.

Before you start your setup you need to go to a website to create an account and activate the device. Once that’s done you can log into the App with your new account and get going from there.

For the most part, the App is fairly easy to navigate and you can get through most of the setup without the need for the manual but to use all the features you need it to hand.

We’ll go into more details of the App when covering each feature below.

MiniFinder Nano Features

GPS

Obviously one of the main features of a device like this is the ability to track its location in real-time. The MiniFinder Nano can connect to GPS satellites for accurate location reporting and can also get location information from wireless networks it connects to.

Inside the App, you have a number of different mapping options available, including street view, where you can see the real-time location of the Nano. In addition to this, you can also view up to 7 days of location data for the device.

From within the App, you can adjust how frequently the device updates its location within a range of 30 seconds to 10 minutes. If you decrease the frequency to ten minutes this will help with battery life but will obviously give you fewer data points for location history.

All told we found that the MiniFinder Nano reported the location to within about ten meters of what our phone was showing which was perfectly acceptable.

SOS Button and Calls

The MiniFinder Nano comes with an eSIM which allows it to connect to mobile networks. The price for this service ranges from €8.90 per month on a 24-month contract up to €15.90 per month with no contract. This then allows users to connect to mobile networks in over 190 countries around the globe.

To set up the SOS button and calls function, you first need to register a phone number in the App and turn on the settings. In total, you can add 2 numbers. The first number you input will be contacted when the SOS function is initiated. If the first number can’t be reached the second number will be contacted then.

To activate the SOS function the user presses and holds the SOS button for 3 seconds. The dialling sequence then begins. If a call is successfully connected you can speak to the person like you would on any call. The sound quality on the calls is good but you do need to turn the volume of the speaker on the Nano up in the App settings as by default it’s quite low. If calls to both numbers are unsuccessful the sequence will be repeated again after five minutes.

Calls can be initiated from the device to the first phone number by pressing and holding the On/Off button for 3 seconds. It is also possible to ring the device from within the App or by just dialling its phone number directly.

GeoFence Alarm

It’s possible to create a virtual limited area on the map within the app so an alarm and notification are generated if the Nano leaves this area.

Fall Detection

Using the Nano’s inbuilt sensors, falls can be detected by the device. From within the App, it is possible to change the sensitivity of the detection and to enable or disable this function.

Conclusion

There will be many people reading this who will appreciate the features offered by the MiniFinder Nano. From keeping an eye on children to ensure they stay close to home or for peace of mind when caring for adults with dementia there are many situations where a device like this can be very useful.

The MiniFinder Nano is an easy to use device for the wearer. It takes a little while to set up but once that is done things work smoothly. We’d like to see better battery life in future versions but considering the number of connections and sensors that are packed in it performs well.

The MiniFinder Nano is available now on their website for €210.