Smart handcuffs are provided herein as part of a personal-area-network (PAN) along with a method for operating the smart handcuffs and the PAN. During operation smart handcuffs will pair with a first PAN master device. An alarm will sound when no system identification (SSID) is detected by the handcuffs, when no SSID is detected by the handcuffs that matches SSIDs within an internal database, when the handcuffs have broken the pairing with the first PAN master device, and the handcuffs have not paired or are not pairing with a second PAN, or when the handcuffs have broken the pairing with the first PAN master device, and no update from the handcuffs has been received by the first master device that the handcuffs have paired or will pair with the second PAN.