The ability to share a specific location, such as being at a particular store or restaurant, has been an available feature of the Facebook Messenger for quite sometime now. However, the newest variation of this technology allows you to add a live location that will move around as you do.
Rightly named ‘Live Location‘, it became available the last week of March 2017 and you can now opt in to the service if you would like to be found more easily. Many users who have tested this tech have stated that it makes it much easier to get together with family and friends at a specified location without the need to give directions or have lengthy conversations about how to get to one another.
Facebook messenger no longer wants to be simply a tool for online, virtual gathering, group and private chats and one on one conversations. They also want you to be able to gather in person with friends, doing their best to make that as easy as possible to accomplish.
In order to make use of Live Location, you will need to open up a chat in Facebook messenger with the person you would like to share your location with. After tapping the dedicated location button, you will see the arrow for navigation. At this point, you will be able to tell messenger to share this live location, which exists as a large blue button just underneath the map.
Live Location Sharing
Default sharing time is set at sixty minutes and is currently not able to be changed. However, there is a clock that counts down exactly how much time is left on the live location sharing. Friends who check your live location will also be able to see exactly how long it would take them to reach the location where you are should they choose to drive there themselves.
Live Location will keep sharing your location as you move along, for the remainder of the sixty minutes, or until you tap the big red text labeled “stop sharing”, also located below the map. This means that, unless you stop the service manually or reach the end of your hour, anyone you have shared your location with will be able to know exactly where you are at any time, in live time.
This new feature is going to be showing up for both iOS and Android users as soon as they are upgraded to the very newest versions.
