GPS Car Trackers

justjeepin86

justjeepin86

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 9, 2005
Location
Winston-Salem, NC
Anyone have any experience with these? Long story short, my dad wants one for a vehicle to keep track of. He wants one that does not need to be wired in.
 
Don't want to burst your bubble, but take a look at the 2nd line in the description of the Spy Tec:

  • 100% Accurate Real-Time GPS Tracking
  • $25 a month | No Activation Fees | No Contracts | No Cancellation Fees
  • E-mail and Text Message Alerts | Speed, Geo-Fence, Battery and MORE
  • 1 Full Year of Historical Data Saved to Cloud
  • Up to 2 week Battery life
 
Lurch830 said:
Don't want to burst your bubble, but take a look at the 2nd line in the description of the Spy Tec:

  • 100% Accurate Real-Time GPS Tracking
  • $25 a month | No Activation Fees | No Contracts | No Cancellation Fees
  • E-mail and Text Message Alerts | Speed, Geo-Fence, Battery and MORE
  • 1 Full Year of Historical Data Saved to Cloud
  • Up to 2 week Battery life
Click to expand...
Guess I missed that one, lol!

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A friend of mine used one to catch his ol' lady cheating that was called past track or something like that. It only worked when car was in motion but saved all traveled paths and length of time stopped at each destination. He bought it off CL for less than a $100. Said it worked good and just had magnet to stick under car and after a couple days he would remove it and download info to laptop.
 
justjeepin86 said:
That looks cool, but don't want a monthly fee. This is going to be something, at this point, that will only be used a few weeks. It being more expensive for wireless is OK. I was looking at this

Spy Tec STI_GL300 Mini Portable Real Time GPS Tracker Amazon.com: Spy Tec STI_GL300 Mini Portable Real Time GPS Tracker: Cell Phones & Accessories

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Click to expand...
I hate to burst your bubble, just think about how these things have to work.
GPS only goes one way - the device is tracking where in space the GPS satellites are. Information only goes one way - down to the device. Hence a GPS will work anywhere in the world.
In order for the device to tell something else where IT is in the world, it has to communicate back out to SOMETHING. In most cases, that is either a cell tower or open access WiFi points. That information has to then route through some other server for you to be able to get to it.
So what this means is that some 3rd party HAS to be tracking your device. That 3rd party has to make money to pay for said service. They are going to do this by either (1) charging you a service fee or (2) doing something really shady w/ the information it gathers from tracking you - like selling it to Google, or China, Russia... whoever.

Generally the company's business model is to sell the devices really cheap or at cost and make money on the service.

Buuuuut - If its only a short time, why would it matter if there's a small service fee anyway?
 
justjeepin86 said:
That looks cool, but don't want a monthly fee. This is going to be something, at this point, that will only be used a few weeks. It being more expensive for wireless is OK. I was looking at this

Spy Tec STI_GL300 Mini Portable Real Time GPS Tracker Amazon.com: Spy Tec STI_GL300 Mini Portable Real Time GPS Tracker: Cell Phones & Accessories

Sent from my HTC6535LVW using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Lurch830 said:
Don't want to burst your bubble, but take a look at the 2nd line in the description of the Spy Tec:

  • 100% Accurate Real-Time GPS Tracking
  • $25 a month | No Activation Fees | No Contracts | No Cancellation Fees
  • E-mail and Text Message Alerts | Speed, Geo-Fence, Battery and MORE
  • 1 Full Year of Historical Data Saved to Cloud
  • Up to 2 week Battery life
Click to expand...
Again - $25 for 1 month of service. No contract. I'd just consider that $25 one time in the total cost of use.
 
Ive researched this heavily. My parameters have been:

No bluetooth (who wants to get radiated?)
No monthly fee
No requirement on user to user lock

Maybe something has hit the market over the last year or so?

There were quite few things out there that worked, but were more keyed towards keys, bicycles, etc and used a smartphone app. Viable, but the problem is it is by bluetooth. If you dont have the health concern, it is a huge issue for actual use in case of theft. It can only record a gps coordinate when you pass by another product user (smartphone on with bluetooth and app activated) or it passes by your smartphone. This ended up being how systems like Lojack work apparently and is why it is only offered in heavily populated places with other Lojack users. No go for me.

The best solution I found was by using a prepaid cell phone. You can buy 10 minutes once a year to keep it "on". Hardwired to the battery. One guy got fancy in case of theft and battery was pulled and it was towed, and wired in a hefty capacitor as a secondary battery. You could send a special coded text to the phone and it would auto respond with the gps coordinates of the phone. Thats probably what I will end up doing when I can get around too it.

Another option is you can take a old smartphone. You can add it to your plan for 0-10$ a month and leave it hardwired in. Leave gps turned on. You can use the internal "find my phone" feature or you can use googles free gps tracking service. On the phone go to google and activate via text, and then from any other phone within the google app you can always see where the current location of the phone is and all the stops it makes. Great for tracking people too if you can get access to their phone for a minute or two. They would never know. haha :D
 
This was talked about on hardlines Facebook page. Scott goforth has something on his buggy, truck, wife's and kids cars. I looked into it and i think it was 5-10 bucks a month.

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I'm just trying to keep tabs on my daughter in my vehicle. I've read the cell phone system and it seems to be the best solution. Hardwired in behind the glovebox on mute. Technically you could also turn the phone in and listen to what's going on in the cabin.

Poor man's OnStar!
 
bro troubles again?
 
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