GPS Tracker for £50-£100

DavidJ

DavidJ

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Just reading MB&Y March addition and page 90 (top RHS) implies that you can buy a GPS Tracker for £50-£100
Has anyone got one? and do you have to subscribe to 3G or GPRS or such like (My boat's in Spain)
I've done some searching but can't find such a cheap and cheerful product.
 
I have several. 1 in each of 2 cars and one on the boat. Here's one for £46.99 and free delivery

You need to get a PAYG sim card. Get one that you can top up from a land line so you can do it from the UK or a cheap monthly contract.

The device will do tracking via SMS or via a 3G internet link. It's actually quite easy to set up to have you boat permanently sending gps position to a remote server every 10 seconds or so. Doing it this way fits well inside the data allowance with most sim cards.
 
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That's amazing Nimbus
Did you use the oil sensor option?
How do you read the location, a point on google earth or just data from a server.
Any idea how long, say, a 10mb top up would last? or how much a month it costs for data.

Steve and Fantasie thanks for your replies but it was the security tracker I was after, perhaps my original request was not explicit enough.
 
David, I have just got a new Blackberry and it like my iPhone has the new tracking software on it, if you hid a Blackberry on the boat and had it constantly connected to a battery all you would need is a cheap BB £100, and a PAYG simm card with £10 on it, if the boat was stolen, by default so would the phone, and BB would track its location?
 
SteveE said:
David, I have just got a new Blackberry and it like my iPhone has the new tracking software on it, if you hid a Blackberry on the boat and had it constantly connected to a battery all you would need is a cheap BB £100, and a PAYG simm card with £10 on it, if the boat was stolen, by default so would the phone, and BB would track its location?
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Ah! now that's interesting. I have played with the "find iphone" function on my iphone but hiding an iphone would be too expensive. I guess you track the BB on your PC and that the app isn't available on Apple products....or maybe it is?
 
Last week a local was in court for receiving stolen goods - an Ipad. The 15 year old owner had used this app and tracked down the unit, following a burglary at his home, to outside a house about half a mile away. Called the police and two Ipads were recovered - so it definitely works!
 
I send out data every minute. About 100 bytes are transmitted ( speed, position ID etc ). There is some overhead in maintaining the 3g connection but a months worth is a couple of meg. In the uk i have multiple vodafone contracts for family phones and I got a deal on mobile data cards for £5 / month for 1 gig - much much more than required to listen in to a device every second of the day.

The raw message can just be read and cut and pasted into google maps to give you position.

I have a few bits of Java that run on a server and allow me to log in and see where the boat is / has been.

It wouldn't take much to give your unit access to the server and you could use it to translate your signals if you want.

Using a phone is ok but not quite as simple and twice the cost. In addition the ebay units allow you to 'listen-in' to who is on your boat! I have not used the panic button or oil pressure input beyond testing them. I reckon if my boat moves while I'm not there it's being nicked so not much point!
 
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ACE said:
David, have a look at this ... Slightly more expensive but works a treat....

https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=209&pID=67686&ra=true
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Thanks ACE. I also found this one for £150 which has motion tracking activation which would save on SIM card costs and may also mean that the battery may retain enough charge so that you don't have to connect it to the main batteries.
I think you can interrogated it from an iphone "on demand"
I like the "works straight out of the box" concept but I think you buy top-ups from them...at what cost?

http://www.gotek7.com/gotek7plus.php
 
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DavidJ said:
Thanks ACE. I also found this one for £150 which has motion tracking activation which would save on SIM card costs and may also mean that the battery may retain enough charge so that you don't have to connect it to the main batteries.
I think you can interrogated it from an iphone "on demand"
I like the "works straight out of the box" concept but I think you buy top-ups from them...at what cost?

http://www.gotek7.com/gotek7plus.php
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Dave

As it says it works direct from the box (with a little charging) no sim card required and no top up required all I had to do was upgrade to the Deluxe Tracking Service Plan at a cost of £5.00 (You don’t have to do this ...) which allows for things like email/text notifications and 50 hours available of continuous monitoring AND it even allows you to set a speed at above which it will text you.

You can set a "home" area in which the item goes to sleep and draws little power and only wakes up if moved out with that area.....

I tried this out recently on my car going from Aberdeen to Bradford it work at treat and I received text every time it went about 75 mph .....

Quite impressed with the little thing actually........ :D :D :D

PS. You get an iPad / iPhone app which is free and you can interigate it anywhere you have an internet or 3G connection
 
ACE said:
Dave

As it says it works direct from the box (with a little charging) no sim card required and no top up required all I had to do was upgrade to the Deluxe Tracking Service Plan at a cost of £5.00 (You don’t have to do this ...) which allows for things like email/text notifications and 50 hours available of continuous monitoring AND it even allows you to set a speed at above which it will text you.

You can set a "home" area in which the item goes to sleep and draws little power and only wakes up if moved out with that area.....

I tried this out recently on my car going from Aberdeen to Bradford it work at treat and I received text every time it went about 75 mph .....

Quite impressed with the little thing actually........ :D :D :D

PS. You get an iPad / iPhone app which is free and you can interigate it anywhere you have an internet or 3G connection
Click to expand...

Brillient!
On the ipad will it actually pinpoint on google earth (or similar) the location or just give co-ordinants?
 
DavidJ said:
Brillient!
On the ipad will it actually pinpoint on google earth (or similar) the location or just give co-ordinants?
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Google Earth as clear as day ...... If you want and it helps I can show you tomorrow/Thursday as my motor is about to be moved back home so you can watch it as we go ....... :D :D :D

PS. It was so precise this morning that when they moved it from on side of the warehouse to the other it showed it ...... (If this is what we have available it scares me to think what is out there that we dont know about :eek: :eek: !!)
 
ACE said:
Google Earth as clear as day ...... If you want and it helps I can show you tomorrow/Thursday as my motor is about to be moved back home so you can watch it as we go ....... :D :D :D

PS. It was so precise this morning that when they moved it from on side of the warehouse to the other it showed it ...... (If this is what we have available it scares me to think what is out there that we dont know about :eek: :eek: !!)
Click to expand...

I'd love to see it in practice. just to clarify are we talking the Garmin unit or the Gotek.
 
Deleted User said:
ACE, where can you locate this unit? For example, could you leave it hidden in your boat or does it need line of sight to satellites? Could you permanently wire it up to a 12V supply?
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Mike

Currently its installed in the back of my RR totally hidden away (even I couldn’t find it when I went to look after installation) The web page shows you at all times the signal strength and the GPS Signal Strength and the cell strength, latitude and longitude (See photo)….

It can be just ‘placed’ somewhere if it’s a daily thing (but need regular recharging) or it can be fitted as I have direct into continuous power** (The leads for that are about £20.00) if it’s hot wired it can send back info on speed (it doesn’t do that if not permanently connected)

See pictures …..

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ACE said:
Mike

Currently its installed in the back of my RR totally hidden away (even I couldn’t find it when I went to look after installation) The web page shows you at all times the signal strength and the GPS Signal Strength and the cell strength, latitude and longitude (See photo)….

It can be just ‘placed’ somewhere if it’s a daily thing (but need regular recharging) or it can be fitted as I have direct into continuous power** (The leads for that are about £20.00) if it’s hot wired it can send back info on speed (it doesn’t do that if not permanently connected)

See pictures …..
Click to expand...
Thanks ACE. It looks like the kind of thing I could install in a hidden place on my boat and permanently wire it to the 12V system, in which case it could be v useful
 
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