Parents are turning to smart technology to prove to their children that Father Christmas is real

Parents are turning to smart devices in an attempt to keep the magic of Christmas alive, according to a new survey.  

With ‘smart home’ tech and voice assistants such as Alexa becoming more prevalent in homes, many parents are already using their devices to ‘prove’ that Father Christmas exists, according to a survey of over 1,002 parents by Hive.

Two-thirds (67 per cent) indicated they have used technology to convince their child that Santa has stopped by, and more than half (56 per cent) would do so again.

Almost a quarter (24 per cent) said they have used smart technology such as indoor security cameras, motion cameras and voice assistants.

Meanwhile, seven in 10 parents of children aged five to 11 years old have used an online Santa tracker to show his busy journey across the world delivering presents, and 60 per cent have arranged special phone calls with the big man.

‘Our Christmas Detectives study shows that when it comes to Father Christmas, it’s clear that, seeing-is-believing, and so it’s fitting that British parents are looking for innovative ways to prove he has paid a visit,’ said Peter Simon, managing director of Hive.

Hive said home security cameras can be used  to show children recordings of Santa – or a lookalike – leaving presents under the tree.

Motion sensors, which send notifications when someone enters the room at a particular time, can also help to cement children’s belief in Santa. 

The Hive study was conducted in December 2019 on 1,002 British parents with children between the ages of 5 and 11. 

Overall 96 per cent of those surveyed said they do at least something to prove the existence of Santa – even if it is something low-tech like visiting Santa in his grotto, eating the biscuits and milk left out for him, or surprising children with handwritten letters from Lapland.

And it seems to be working, as almost two thirds of 5 – 11-year-olds admit to having seen Santa themselves.

Hive Motion Sensors send notifications straight to your smartphone whenever anyone enters the room. Was the man who entered the living room at midnight Father Christmas? I sure hope so!

Santa trackers are ones of the cheapest and most popular ways for parents who want to prove the big man’s existence.

One wildly popular program run by the US and Canadian militaries provides real-time updates on his progress to millions around the globe tonight. 

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) lets children follow Santa Claus across the globe as he makes his journey from the North Pole to their living room.

The NORAD program evolved after a department store ad to ‘call Santa’ in the 1950s included a misprinted phone number that instead put callers through to Colorado Springs’ Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) Center. 

Children around the world can follow Santa Claus across the globe as he makes his journey from the North Pole to their living room by checking NORAD’s live tracker

In the festive spirit, CONAD played along, and later issued a press statement announcing that it would ‘continue to track and guard Santa and his sleigh on his trip to and from the US against possible attack from those who do not believe in Christmas’.

Today, NORAD’s dedicated apps and website integrate geospatial and satellite-positioning technology with high-resolution graphics that display the actual positions of the stars, sun and moon and the shadows they cast at any point in Santa’s journey.  

It takes a village of dozens of tech firms – including HP, Google, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard and Bing Maps – to deliver the immersive effect for global Santa trackers, with some 15 million visits to the website alone last year. 

Google also has its own Santa Tracker, which includes games such as ‘wrap battle’, ‘elf maker’ and code boogie’ which is designed to help little ones learn to code.