Lone Guardian has announced Guardian2, the second generation of its personal tracking and location devices.
The new devices include added features such as Bluetooth headset support, built in phone book, preset status messages, indoor tracking and a sophisticated welfare check monitoring mode.
The new devices integrate with Lone Guardian’s control and mapping software, WebGuard, providing what the firm calls a complete solution to help employers ensure the health and safety of field operatives and lone workers in sectors such as security, construction, social care and leisure.
Guardian2 has the latest assisted 50 channel GPS tracking technology, including support for the new Galileo satellites. Guardian2 includes a welfare check monitoring capability which avoids the frequent false alarms of traditional ‘man-down’ units. The product allows the user to independently manage their own welfare status, giving peace of mind to users who are not always backed up by a control centre. The device can be set with a ‘false-positive’ response, to fool anybody else who might take control of the unit. A simple button push confirms the user’s status. Failure to respond, or sending the false-positive, will result in instant escalation back at the control centre.
For indoor location tracking the devices use ZigBee short-range wireless technology, where competitors’ GPS-based solutions have proved unable to deliver adequate results. ZigBee is a very low power standard, helping to improve the battery life of Guardian2. By equipping an office with small ZigBee beacons, the unit can triangulate its position with great accuracy, effectively bringing GPS inside the building.
Lone Guardian’s management software, WebGuard, provides visibility of tracked personnel. This means that companies can manage their workers effectively, meet their legal requirements for duty of care, and demonstrate to clients that staff are fulfilling their required assignments. An "officer dashboard" uses straightforward colour-coding to constantly show the status of each worker in real time, and on-site and off-site alerts can be configured to automatically raise a warning if the individual is not performing their expected duties.
"Lone Guardian has the best solution out there for the automatic monitoring and protection of manned guards," said Stephen Dean, managing director at Security Centres (UK). "The product not only negates many of the risks encountered by a guard while performing their duties, but also provides unparalleled visibility of the guard, indoors or outdoors, and shows that their patrol schedules are being strictly adhered to."
"While there is range of products that claim to provide personal tracking, most of them fail to meet the requirements of customers," said Jon Pope, CEO at Lone Guardian. "By providing indoor tracking capability, sophisticated software and a small, ergonomic hardware device, we have developed the most effective solution available on the market today for lone working tracking."
The Guardian2 solution also provides emergency alerts, geo-fencing, real-time and historical reporting, battery levels and detailed street level mapping. Each easy-to-use device features GPS tracking to an accuracy of 1.5 metres, an SOS panic button and two-way voice calls to up to twenty pre-defined numbers.
All of Lone Guardian’s products conform to the BS8484 standard for lone workers.
