The words of family location, explained in two sentences

112

The European Union's single emergency number, free to call and available without your carrier's coverage as long as any network is available. No family location app can replace it. Mi Estela's SOS puts it one tap away so you can make the call yourself.

Accuracy (margin of error)

The radius within which a phone's real position lies. On the map it's drawn as a circle around the dot. It can be as small as about 5 meters with GPS under open sky, or several hundred meters when only cell towers are used. A dot in the middle of a large circle doesn't mean the person is exactly there.

AlertCops

The official, free app of the Policía Nacional and the Guardia Civil in Spain, for alerting the security forces, with chat and location. It's for emergencies involving the police, not for seeing your family on a map. Mi Estela puts it one tap away from SOS.

“Always” and “While Using the App” permission

The two levels of location permission on iPhone and Android. With “While Using the App,” the system cuts off location as soon as you close the app. With “Always,” your phone can alert you that you've arrived without you opening anything. Since Android 11, “Always” can only be granted on the system Settings screen.

Also: allow all the time · background location

Apple Find My network

The network that lets Apple devices around the world detect a lost AirTag or iPhone over Bluetooth, anonymously and encrypted, even when it's powered off or has no signal, and report its location to the owner. Google has its equivalent for Android. It's for objects and devices, not for sharing presence with family.

Also: Find My · AirTag · Find My Device

Area onlySpecific to Mi Estela

In Mi Estela, you share your approximate area instead of your exact street. Your people know roughly where you are without seeing the details. It's the minimum a minor shares, and an option for any adult who doesn't want to share their exact spot all day.

Also: approximate location

Background location

Lets the app receive your phone's location even when it isn't open on screen. It's essential for arrival alerts and for your people to see you up to date. It requires the “Always” location permission, and the system (or the phone maker) must not put the app to sleep.

Battery optimization (manufacturer)

Android settings that put apps you don't have open to sleep to save battery: the system's Doze mode and, on top of it, the layers from Samsung, Xiaomi, Huawei, Oppo, or Motorola. They're the main reason a location app “stops sharing overnight.” Each brand has its own setting to exclude an app.

Also: Doze · idle apps · autostart

Circle

The group of people who share with each other inside the app: family, friends, the team. Mi Estela and Life360 use this word. In Mi Estela, each circle is independent: what you share in one is not seen in another.

Also: family group

Consent

Free and informed agreement to share your location with someone, which you can withdraw at any time. Locating a person without their consent (secretly installing something on their phone, or following them without their knowledge) is a crime in Spain. Every honest app shows the person who is sharing.

Crash detection

Crash detection is a feature that uses your phone's sensors to detect a car accident and alert emergency services or your people. Life360 and GeoZilla include it, and some phones have it built in (iPhone 14 and later, Pixel). Mi Estela deliberately leaves it out.

Also: automatic crash detection, car crash detection, crash alerts

Digital age of consent

The age from which a minor can accept an internet service on their own. The GDPR sets it anywhere between 13 and 16 years, depending on the country: 14 in Spain, 13 in Portugal, 16 in Germany. Below that age, a parent is needed, along with parental controls set up by an adult. Mi Estela asks for this age to create an account.

Driving reports

Scores on how each member drives: top speed, hard braking, and phone use behind the wheel. Life360 (on its Gold plan) and GeoZilla make them. Mi Estela doesn't: giving someone a score isn't presence.

Encryption

Encryption turns your data into something unreadable to anyone without the key. "In transit" protects what travels between your phone and the server (HTTPS), "at rest" protects what's stored, and "end-to-end" means not even the service itself can read it (that's how WhatsApp's real-time location works). Mi Estela stores your data encrypted on servers in the European Union.

Estela (the AI assistant)Specific to Mi Estela

Mi Estela's assistant: it helps you set up a meetup (where to meet, what's nearby, how to get there on foot or by transit), write or translate a message, and share useful tips. It's optional, comes switched off, and only receives the minimum it needs to answer you: no raw coordinates or unnecessary identifiers.

Family locator app

An app that lets people in a group (family, friends) share where they are, each by their own choice, and get alerts when someone arrives at or leaves a place. Some come built into the phone (Find My, Google Maps) and others are dedicated (Life360, Mi Estela, GeoZilla). It isn't parental control.

Also: family locator · family location app

GDPR

The General Data Protection Regulation of the European Union, in force since 2018. Your location is personal data: you have the right to know what is stored, to correct it, to delete it and to take it with you. In Spain, the LOPDGDD complements it and sets the age of digital consent at 14.

Also: GDPR · data protection

Gentle check-inSpecific to Mi Estela

In Mi Estela, a gentle check-in designed for older people who live alone: if the person hasn't moved for many hours, it lets the people they've chosen know. It's off by default, and the person turns it on themselves, choosing how many hours and who gets told. It doesn't replace telecare services.

Geofence

Virtual perimeter around a place (your home, school, or work). When a phone enters or leaves it, the operating system wakes the app and the app lets you know. It's the basis of arrival alerts: they let you know someone has arrived without having to check their location all the time.

Also: geo-fence · virtual boundary · safe zone

Ghost modeSpecific to Mi Estela

In Mi Estela, go invisible for a while: others can see that you're invisible, not a frozen clock or a fake location. It's for adults; minors always share at least their general area.

Also: invisible mode

Going-out modeSpecific to Mi Estela

In Mi Estela, a teen turns on going-out mode when they head out: they say what time they'll be back, and if they don't say anything, we check in ourselves. When they get home, one tap: "I've arrived." At home, everyone breathes easier, and the one who went out just carries on with their day.

GPS and GNSS

The satellite systems your phone uses to work out its position outdoors, accurate to within a few meters: GPS (United States), Galileo (European Union), GLONASS (Russia), and BeiDou (China). GNSS is the common name for all of them. Indoors, satellite signals don't reach, so your phone relies on Wi-Fi and cell towers instead.

Also: Galileo · GLONASS

GPS locator (device)

A small device with GPS and a SIM card that sends its location: kids' watches, pet collars, little boxes for the car or backpack. It's not an app. It's separate from your phone and has its own monthly plan. For a young child without a phone, a SIM-equipped watch is an alternative to parental controls.

Also: GPS watch for kids · GPS tracker

“I've arrived” and “I'm okay”Specific to Mi Estela

The two one-tap alerts in Mi Estela: “I've arrived” when you get somewhere, and “I'm okay” for anyone who just wants to say everything is fine (older parents use it a lot). They work even without signal: they're saved and sent as soon as the connection returns.

Last known location

The last location a phone sent, along with the time it was sent. It's what you see when someone has no signal, their phone is off, or the app is asleep. An honest app always shows that time ("10 minutes ago") instead of pretending the dot is live.

Live sharing (temporary real-time location)

Sharing your exact position for a limited time, after which it switches itself off. WhatsApp does it for 15 minutes, 1 hour or 8 hours. Mi Estela has “share live for a while” inside your circle, plus a live link anyone can open in the browser, with nothing to install.

Also: WhatsApp live location · live link

Location history

A record of where a person has been over the course of days. It's the most sensitive thing an app like this can store. In Mi Estela it exists only if you turn it on: 3 days on the free plan and up to 30 days with Premium, never indefinitely.

Also: travel history · routes

Location Services

The master switch for your phone's location (in Settings). If it's off, no app can tell where the phone is, no matter what permissions it has. It's the first thing to check when someone is “not showing up.”

Low Power Mode

The battery saver you turn on yourself (or your phone suggests when it's running low): it cuts background activity and spaces out location updates. With it on, your people will see "a while ago" more often. On iPhone it's called “Low Power Mode”; on Android, “Battery saver”.

Also: battery saver

MidpointSpecific to Mi Estela

In Mi Estela, the right spot for several people to meet, calculated around each person's trip (not just the geometric center). It includes free uses every month.

Parental controls

A tool that lets an adult oversee a minor's phone from their own account: screen time, allowed apps, content, and location too. Family Link, Qustodio, and FamiSafe are parental controls; Mi Estela is not.

Personal emergency response system

The service, usually run by the public sector or social organizations, through which an older person alerts a call center from a pendant or a button at home and gets help. A family location app doesn't replace it: Mi Estela alerts the family, not a call center.

Precise and approximate location

Since iOS 14 and Android 12, you can give an app your exact position or just an approximate area a few kilometers wide. A family map with arrival alerts needs the precise one. Mi Estela also lets you share “area only” with your people, even when the permission is precise.

Presence (not surveillance)Specific to Mi Estela

The idea behind Mi Estela: an app for knowing your people are okay, not for controlling them. In practice, that means symmetry, consent, choosing how you appear, and being able to stop sharing. No driving reports, no microphones, no reading messages.

Push notifications

Alerts that reach your phone even when the app isn't open, delivered through Apple and Google's servers. Arrival alerts, SOS messages from your people, and the ring for calls all travel this way; they need to be enabled on the phone of whoever shares and on the phone of whoever receives.

Real-time location

In location sharing, positions arrive within seconds while your phone is moving. No app sends your position every second all day: when you're still, the phone spaces out updates to save battery, which is why the map says “a moment ago” or “10 minutes ago.”

Roaming

Using your mobile data plan in another country. Within the European Union it works “like at home,” at no extra cost, so the app keeps sharing just the same. Outside the EU it depends on your plan: with mobile data off, your family will see you without signal until you connect to Wi-Fi.

Senior ModeSpecific to Mi Estela

In Mi Estela, a dedicated screen for the older people in your family, with large text, few buttons, and only the essentials: “let my family know I'm okay,” seeing your people, a quick message, and the video call. It helps without taking away control or talking down to anyone.

Simulated location (fake GPS)

An Android feature (found in developer options) that lets an app fake its position and mislead other apps. On iPhone it's very hard to do without tampering with the system. No location app can guarantee with 100% certainty that a position is real, which is why trust is the foundation.

Also: fake GPS · mock location

SOS

The emergency button in a location app: it sends your position to your circle and, depending on the app, calls emergency services or puts them one tap away. In Mi Estela, it alerts your people and puts 112 (Spain's emergency number) and AlertCops one tap away. It doesn't call for you and doesn't replace emergency services.

Also: panic button

Stalkerware

Apps secretly installed on someone else's phone to spy on them: where they are, what they type, who they talk to. They're illegal, app stores ban them, and antivirus software detects them. A family locator app is the opposite: the person can see that they're sharing and with whom.

Also: spyware

Symmetry

Everyone in the circle sees the same things about everyone else. There's no admin who sees more, no supervisor, and no one being supervised. It's the difference between a presence app and a surveillance app. Life360 has a Circle admin, parental controls have an adult supervisor, and Mi Estela is symmetrical.

The PactSpecific to Mi Estela

In Mi Estela, the conversation where the family decides together how they want to stay present: Connected (they know where I am), Calm (they know I'm okay), or Quiet (I share when I want to). Made for parents and teens.

The TurnSpecific to Mi Estela

In Mi Estela, the easy way to look after someone as a group, without drama or lists: when the person asks for company, the Turn picks one of the siblings (or someone else in the care circle).

Wi-Fi and cell tower positioning

When satellites aren't in view (indoors, narrow streets), your phone estimates where you are from the Wi-Fi networks and cell towers around it, matching them against maps of known networks. It's less precise: anywhere from tens to hundreds of meters.

Also: cell tower triangulation