Five years ago Life360 was born with Google's backing. Now German car manufacturer BMW has invested in helping the popular family location app to the next level.
Life360 allows users to join together all of their family members' phones in the app, so they can see where family members are, as well as other potentially useful information, like nearby emergency services. It is available on all smartphones.
Earlier this week, BMW announced a contribution from its venture capital division, iVentures, that will lead eventually to integration with the in-dash infotainment computer systems in BMW's luxury cars.
Life360 co-founder and CEO Chris Hulls said on Friday that the investment will lead to Life360's placement in, hopefully, almost all cars, as well as several more exciting, unexpected and as-yet unannounced places.
"We're trying to be ubiquitous," Hulls said. "We're trying to be in everything. This is a part of that path for us."
Hulls said that the specific moves planned for Life360 in both the immediate and more distant futures are not quite ready to be announced, but he did offer explanations of the kinds of ideas that the company will be pursuing on its way to digital domination.
For car integration, Hull described the current procedure for a user meeting his wife at a doctor's office, for example: calling to get the address, writing it down, navigating there, finding a parking spot nearby. With Life360 integrated into a car's computer, Hulls said it could be as simple as just telling the car to drive to where his wife is, and the app would do all that work, including finding the parking spot.
Hulls also hinted at eventual smart home integration, and how Life360 could help address the biggest complaint about current security systems: remembering to activate them. Life360 could be set up to automatically activate the system when it detects all of the family members have left the house.
Judging by the number of users the company has garnered on smartphones alone –– 30 million users, more than FourSquare, Hulls noted –– Life360 appears on the way to achieving that ubiquity. BMW's choice looks sound.
