Sponsored post, in partnership with HomeTeam by Panasonic. All opinions are my own.
I'm pretty lucky, that generally speaking, Jamie doesn't travel *that much* for work. I am gone far less than I used to be, so these days, I'm the one holding down the fort here with Max while Jamie is making site visits to his team all up and down the West Coast.
At this time of year, the combination of holiday season preparations and then CES coming up in January, he is gone FAR more than usual. For three weeks, he was only home for 2 nights, basically coming home to sleep and then leaving again. It's a rough stretch here, but it's going a little smoother these days, thanks to HomeTeam from Panasonic.
When they first reached out and asked if I'd be interested in writing about the app, I figured it might be interesting, because Jamie's been traveling so much. It's hard on Max, going days without seeing Jamie, so I figured this might be a good solution for us.
And wow, is it ever!
It only took a few minutes for me to set up an account on my computer; I went to MyHomeTeam.com and set it up right there, and sent Jamie an invite to join my account.
Jamie installed the app on his tablet, and as soon as he created his account, it told him that he already had a waiting invite, and a few taps later, we were video chatting!
*Billy Mays voice* But wait! There's more!
Video chatting is cool and all, but I've seen it all before. The things that HomeTeam brings to the table? Next level.
There are games you can play together! Drawing ones, where you draw something on the screen and the other person tries to guess what it is, or Curious George card matching. There's tic tac toe and flashcards. Everything can be played solo or together, so you're video chatting while you play, together, across however many miles.
The game options are easily sorted by age range, so it's easy to find appropriate things to do based on your child's age. There are also a couple that play well on their own, and I've found myself spending a bit of time playing with the Roller Coaster builder game on my own, without Max. 🙂
[himage]
[/himage]
You can read books together; there's a lovely selection for ages all the way up to 6th grade. Max's teacher asks them to read 20 minutes every night, so this is a great way for him to get his minutes in AND spend time with his Daddy.
And of course, the fact that there's a Niners book doesn't hurt. 😉
While Jamie never travels too far from us, HomeTeam works as long as the people on both ends have data access. I can just imagine how amazing this much be for families who have parents and grandparents on the other side of the world, or our servicemen and women who are deployed.
I love technology that helps bring people together, and allows us to connect in ways that we couldn't before. Letters and phone calls are nice, but these sort of “face to face” interactions are so valuable and irreplaceable.
HomeTeam is available on your desktop or tablet; Basic membership includes unlimited video chatting, to upgrade to Premium, which gives you access to over 1600 book titles and all of the games, is just $8.99 a month (or $89.99 a year). Set up your account today and try a free 30 day trial.
Ok – that is SO cool!!!