The GPS on a child's phone or on a device clipped to the dog still knows its location when signal drops - but Life360 and Find My need the internet to get that location to your phone. Nelos fills that gap: you carry a small radio, your child or pet carries a tiny tracker with no phone attached, and their location shows up right on your map.
On a camping or hiking trip where signal is weak, a child's phone or a device clipped to the dog still works out its location from GPS, but apps like Life360 or Find My need the internet to get that location to your phone. Lose mobile data and Wi-Fi and those apps stop updating, and you only see the position from the last time there was a connection.
Nelos fills that gap. Parents carry a handheld device paired to a phone over Bluetooth, a child or pet carries a small tracker, and those devices exchange locations directly with each other over radio instead of over the internet - free to start using. Range depends on terrain, and this doesn't replace an adult keeping an eye on a child directly.
GPS and the internet are two different things. GPS is a phone or a tracker listening to satellite signals and working out coordinates on its own; that doesn't need cell service. The internet is the channel that carries those coordinates from one device to another.
Life360, Google Maps location sharing, and most similar apps send coordinates over the internet. When the group drives into a valley or into the forest and loses signal, those apps have no route to send a new location. The device still knows where it is, but that information stays on the device. The guide Does Life360 work without signal? goes deeper into this point.
Apple Find My is a bit more nuanced: an Apple device with no connection can still be picked up by other nearby Apple devices over Bluetooth and have its location reported. That's useful in crowded places, but at a quiet campsite, with no other devices around, it has almost nothing to work with.
For young children or pets, carrying a phone usually isn't practical. A small LoRa tracker solves that. It's a battery-powered device with GPS that reports its own location over radio without a phone attached. You can put it in a child's backpack or clip it to a dog's collar.
A tracker doesn't message and has no screen. It does one thing: it lets people in the group who carry a Nelos device see roughly where it is on a map. So you still need at least one adult carrying a handheld device paired to a phone, to see locations and communicate with the rest of the group.
The Devices page lists compatible trackers and the handheld devices that can double as one.
If a child or the dog isn't where you expected, Nelos can do more than show the last dot: Find Mode asks the tracker for fresh positions much more often while you go and look, and a Safe Zone drawn around the campsite alerts your phone when a tracker leaves it. For the dog specifically, see tracking a dog where there's no coverage; for choosing a child's tracker, see what parents should know about kids' GPS trackers.
Nelos is an app that runs on top of LoRa radio. A parent's phone connects over Bluetooth to a LoRa radio device. Instead of sending data over the internet, Nelos exchanges the group's messages and locations over that radio layer. No cell service, no Wi-Fi, no account.
On screen, you see the most recent position each member and each tracker has shared, on a map. This isn't continuous real-time tracking the way it is with a connection; positions update at intervals, and only while the radios can still reach each other.
There's no single range number that's right for every trip. LoRa radio works best when there's a relatively clear path between two devices. Terrain, trees, a hillside in the way, antenna placement, and weather all affect how far a signal carries. At a flat campsite, the whole family is usually comfortably within range of each other. If a child runs down into a deep gully or over the far side of a hill, the connection can weaken or drop.
Out of the box, each radio talks directly to the others in range. To bridge points that can't reach each other - a child down by the stream, parents up at the tent - you can place a repeater somewhere high, on an outcrop or near the central tent, and messages and locations pass through it. Some compatible radios and trackers can also be switched to relay for nearby devices, at the cost of more battery. The guide Range and terrain covers this in more detail.
A location dot on a blank screen is almost useless. For a child's or a dog's location to mean anything, you need a base map showing the trails, streams, and roads around it.
A phone doesn't come with a detailed map of a forest unless you download it in advance. While you're still at home or still have signal, download offline maps for the whole trip area, not just the campsite. After that the map still works without the internet, and locations shared over LoRa show up on top of it.
Two parents, two kids aged eight and ten, and a dog. They drive to a campsite in the forest, about forty minutes from the nearest town.
On the way, the whole family has Life360 location sharing on as usual, and the grandparents at home can follow along. About fifteen minutes before they arrive, the road into the forest loses signal. From that point, the location on Life360 stops.
At the campsite, each parent carries a handheld device paired to a phone. Each child's backpack has a small tracker, and the dog's collar has another. When the kids go collecting firewood around the site and the dog roams about, the parents look at their phones and see four dots moving around the tent on the offline map they downloaded beforehand.
In the afternoon, one child follows a trail down toward a stream. As they drop lower and disappear behind an outcrop, their dot on the map updates more slowly, then stops. One parent walks down the trail in that direction; when they're back within radio range, the dot reappears, a few dozen metres from where it last stopped. Nothing here replaces an adult going with the kids - it just helps you know which way to walk.
When the family drives back out and picks up signal again, Life360 syncs and the grandparents at home see the new location.
A compact arrangement for a family:
The Getting Started page walks through pairing devices and creating a team. It works with a single adult too; if the group regularly spreads beyond direct radio range, a repeater placed high near the campsite helps more than extra handhelds.
A tracker tells you roughly where a device is. It doesn't tell you whether the child is okay, whether they're still wearing the backpack, or whether the dog is still wearing the collar. A dead battery, a device that falls off, or terrain blocking the signal all cause the dot on the map to stop reflecting reality.
For young children near streams, cliffs, roads, or unfamiliar ground, no device replaces an adult being within sight and reach. Treat this location layer as a tool for coordinating when the group spreads out a little around a campsite, not a reason to relax supervision. Nelos isn't a rescue device and doesn't replace a dedicated satellite communicator for a genuine emergency.
See also the family communication guide.
When there's signal, Life360, Find My, and similar apps do their job well, including for grandparents following along from far away. When the family goes into an area with no connection, a LoRa layer keeps the parents seeing the relative position of the kids and pets, as long as the radios can still reach each other. The two layers don't conflict; each covers what the other can't reach.
If your family regularly goes on outdoor trips into weak-signal areas, Nelos is one way to add a direct location layer between members and devices over LoRa.
No. It communicates directly with the other devices in the group over radio, doesn't use cell service, and doesn't need a service subscription.
No. The tracker reports its own location. But you need at least one adult carrying a handheld device paired to a phone to see the locations on a map.
Not exactly. Positions update at intervals and only while the radio connection holds. It's a coordination tool, not a safety monitoring system.
No. It tells you where a device is, not whether the child is safe. An adult still needs to supervise directly.
There's no fixed number. It depends on terrain, hardware, antennas, and radio conditions. At an open campsite the whole family is usually within range of each other; blocking terrain reduces the range, and a repeater placed high up can extend the coverage area.
See everyone on one shared map and keep messaging when the signal drops — over your own LoRa network, not a cell tower.
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