Life360 Wins as Smartphones Become Family Utilities

Life360 isn't a hot new app embraced by the digerati, it’s a family safety app that has been around since 2008, when it won the Android Developer Challenge. But you wouldn't know that by looking at its growth over the last six months, which has skyrocketed to 2 million families or about 4 million downloads, up from 300,000 families in November.

After signing up 3,000 to 5,000 new users a week for much of last year, the service took off in November and has been on a tear, reaching 125,000 new sign-ups last week. Life360 lets families locate each other online and through iPhone and Android apps and get information about local threats. In November, Life360 added a check-in button in addition to a panic button. With one click, users can push out their location to a spouse or parent and confirm where they are and that they are safe. That has helped boost daily engagement with about a quarter of all users checking in every day. The fact that location-sharing has also become more common has also certainly helped Life360. But the big story appears to be that Life360 is finally reaping the benefits of the rise of smartphones, which are becoming family utility tools, said founder and CEO Chris Hulls.