Finding runaway children w/ phone - Home SSID/Password known

[findthelost]

This is an amazing forum and you are all so awesome! Learning a lot already. I need some advice... I help find missing and runaway children. Most often, they have a phone/tablet that was once connected to their home router before going missing. When we go to the home to interview the parents, we collect the home router information (SSID, password, security protocol (WPA, WPA2, etc.) and MAC address). What I think is possible would be to set up a Pineapple or similar and wardrive an area where the child may be with an omnidirectional antenna and if the child's device is ON and beaconing out for known AP's (not currently connected to wifi), then if we get within range and the timing is right, their device will connect to our Pineapple thinking it's connecting to the home AP. Then further driving and/or changing out antennas to a yagi would help us direction find the child's device.

Is a scenario like this even possible?  Would a Pineapple be necessary to accomplish this? I'd like to keep this as simple as possible. 

Thank you!!! 🙏

[dark_pyrro]

I would say it's possible, with or without a Pineapple. Respond with the official email address of the organization you are working for and I can provide some more details if I find it all being legit.

[DramaKing]

Kismet would be a good choice so you could get reports and not have to continuously monitor for connections.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0Nwff0KDJ0