What is the Life360 Heart Icon?

Jessie Richardson Read more February 18, 2020

If you’re new to Life360, you might find it a bit complicated and hard to grasp. The info and FAQ section on the official site mostly deals with big problems, leaving some of the minor stuff out. Unfortunately, it doesn’t explain the Heart icon.

If you don’t get the meaning of this icon, you’re at the right place. Keep reading to find out all about it.

What Drives the Confusion?

The heart icon is in the app’s assets library, and you can use it in Life360, though it only appears under certain circumstances. Its function and meaning differ slightly from the standard, thus the confusion. One would typically associate a heart icon with a lover or a romantic relationship. Yet, the heart icon in Life360 means you are looking at people in your family circle.

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What Is a Family Circle?

A Family Circle is a music band, a magazine, a variety of biscuits, and a function on Life360. If you choose, you can set up a family circle on Life360, and you may use the heart icon to represent its members on the map. That way, you can tell them apart from people who are not your family members. The symbol becomes more useful as the number of people you can locate increases.

Just like with Facebook, you can add people to your profile and then assign them labels. You can designate which profile is your mother, father, sibling, and so forth. The people you add to your family circle do not need to have the same last name as you, and they do not even need to be part of your family. The point of your family circle on Life360 is to lump all for your most important contacts together.

If you were using the app to track your workers, then you would set up a workmates or employees circle. You wouldn’t put them in your family circle.

Why the Heart Icon?

But why is the heart there? You may open your map and see many people you know on it. In this case, the heart icon would signify which people are members of your family (i.e., of your family circle).

Why Not Use the Heart Icon for Your Lover or Spouse?

Another reason for the confusion is because the love heart usually means something else. Even though people love their families, the love heart has become culturally linked (at least in the West) with romantic love. This idea is backed up by things like Valentine’s day and Cupid’s shooting arrows into people’s hearts.

Can You Create a New Circle?

In September 2013, Life360 extended and released the Circles feature to the public. That allowed people to add users into separate groups. It was when users were first allowed to define the groups that they put people in.

For example, you could have one for your baseball team called, “John’s Baseball team” or one for your extended family, or one for caregivers, and so forth. BMW had circles it used for different employees.

People Can See People in Their Circles?

The idea is that you can look up other people in your circles. You may be a member of three circles. You may be part of “Family,” “Friends,” and “Extended Family” groups. The people in all three can see your location, and you can see where they are at any given moment. However, somebody from the “Family” circle cannot see somebody from the “Friends” circle unless that person is a member of both groups.

Heart Is for Family

The Life360 website and app don’t explain what the heart icon does or means, but we’re sure you’ll be happy to know that it denotes the members of your family circle. It is not a major feature, but it may come in handy when the map’s crowded.

Do you think that Life360 should offer better and more in-depth tutorials? Do you think the heart icon should only denote lovers? Let us know in the comments section below.