Patent ID: 8682356

Claim:
A tracking device configured to be worn by a user for location tracking of the user, the device comprising: a housing, the housing configured to be worn by a user, the housing holding: a global positioning system device (GPS) configured to collect geographic location data that delineates a physical location of the tracking device; a cellular transceiver; a satellite transceiver; a peer to peer transceiver configured to communicate location data with a specified, paired peer to peer transceiver; a storage device configured to store location data collected by the global positioning system device; a processor configured to determine which of the cellular transceiver or the satellite transceiver to automatically communicate with a remote unit based on availability of a cellular network for the cellular transceiver, by configuring the processor to; search for an available cellular network and when a cellular network is found causing the cellular transceiver to establish a connection and when an available cellular network is not found, the processor is configured to: search for an available satellite network and when a satellite network is found causing the satellite transceiver to establish a connection; cause the tracking device to send the location data collected by the global positioning system device to the remote unit, over the connection established via the determined one of the cellular or satellite transceivers; and cause the peer to peer transceiver configured to communicate location data with a specified, paired peer transceiver by presenting peer to peer credentials previously programmed into the tracking device, and presenting a transceiver ID of the specified peer to peer transceiver to establish a direct peer to peer network connection with the specified paired peer to peer transceiver.