Check-in tells the people on a plan that you have arrived. It is a message you choose to send, not a location anyone can follow. When it opens, why it sometimes refuses, and what it never does.

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Check-in lives on the plan itself, not in the chat. As a plan gets close its card shows Happening now, or Starts in 12m, and a Check in button appears.

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It opens 30 minutes before the start time. It needs you to actually be there — try it from across town and Blinko will tell you roughly how far away you are and wait. It needs location permission and location services on, plus a good enough GPS fix. And it closes once the plan's window has passed.

This is a message you send, never a location anyone keeps. Blinko does not track your family, does not draw a map of where people are, and does not follow you between check-ins. One tap says "I'm here" — that is the entire transaction.

Once you are in, the plan shows You're here, and anyone else who has arrived appears too — "Sam is here too", or "Sam + 2 are here too" when the table is filling up. That is usually the only thing anyone needed to know.

If the button refuses, it will say why, and there are only four reasons: it is still more than 30 minutes before the start; you are too far away; location permission or location services are off; or GPS cannot place you confidently yet — step somewhere more open and try again.

The family "I'm home" check-in is the same idea on a different surface. In a Family circle you send a check-in as a message with a short label. It is still something you choose to send, and still not a location anyone can watch.

How check-in works, and what it does not do