Do they make wireless alert things for preventing theft?
 

Im thinking they could have a device that alerts you wirelessly when your bike moves. It would alert you wirelessly on a small device you can hold in your hand when going shopping or something. Would that be helpful or would the theif steal your bike too fast for you to get back to it in time?

This would probably give you a lot of false positives if you lock on the street on a shared area. If you're worried about theft probably better to hide a gps device in there so you can track it.

They have such devices for boats. But there would be problems with a similar system for bikes.

1. You need a power source. Boats have large batteries so this is not a problem. And the GPS devices have internal power sources should a clever thief cut the power cables. There are lots of places to hide a fairly decent size GPS tracker on a boat after all.

2. You need a GPS receiver antenna, and some sort of antenna for the transmitter that alerts you when something is moved. This can be done using a cellular network, but you still need an antenna.

Now I suppose you could have all these things built into the frame tubes of a bike, but the bike would have to come out of the factory with all that stuff - or else you would need to cut a frame, stuff the equipment in, then re-weld / re-bond it all together. Somehow, I do not think this would be possible.

Any externally mounted unit would simply be cut off and left on the ground - then the bike would move without it. So it would never alert you to anything. A tracker, by definition, has to be hidden from view, hard to locate even if you suspect there is one installed, and REALLY hard to remove.

If you buy a car / boat and have a tracker installed, the installer may not even tell you - the owner - where the thing is hidden!

Perhaps the handle bars would be a better option than the frame tubes.

http://www.zoombak.com/
^^^
They make one that you can mount under the saddle.

It's tiny! I find this frightening.

sweet.

Again, the problem is that if I can easily mount it - someone else can easily remove it. Although the Zoomback is pretty neat and it could be hidden so as to make detection not so obvious - if it were discovered then removing it would be really easy.

With a larger object, you can use a tracker as a deterrent. You get a sticker saying "this object is equipped with a GPS tracker" and a thief may pass on it. But usually this only works if the object in question is large and has countless places to mount the tracker. Place a sticker on a bicycle and realistically where could the tracker be hidden?

Leave the sticker off and your stuff still gets swiped. By the time you get it back it could be damaged, parts could be removed, and so on.

But hey - for $179 per year that micro tracker is pretty sweet. Better than nothing at all, and at least you have a chance of recovery! Not to mention the grand theft charge a person busted with your property gets - as any decent bike will be worth enough to classify as a felony charge. If you live in a three strikes and your out state, that bike theft combined with two other felonies could send someone up the river for a long time. And all the other people in prison will point and laugh.

Why not just put the sticker on, don't bother with an actual tracker then a thief would never be able to find it.

I like the idea of a motion sensitive alarm

For what it's worth I just ordered one of these for my dog (same device as the one would be used on a bike, just with a collar attachment).
When it comes in I'll post a review.

For what it's worth I just ordered one of these for my dog (same device as the one would be used on a bike, just with a collar attachment).
When it comes in I'll post a review.

Reminds me of that scene from Running Man ... the collar isn't rigged to detonate if the prisoner crosses the security perimeter is it? :lol:

Awesome. Please let me know how it works. People I work with are very interested in making a boss tracker :)

I'll try it out on the cat first to see if it blows up.

*crosses fingers and prays*

http://media.zoombak.com/img/zoombak-actual-size-lg.jpg

Hmm, it's not that tiny.

I wonder if a purpose built version of the zoombak could be fit into handlebars. Different form factor obviously, and both GPS and GSM antennaes would need to run on the outside of handlebar. Underneath bar tape maybe? GPS works perfectly well in a handlebar bag made of heavy PVC, and GSM is even less picky about "line of sight".

It could have battery recharge wire at either end of handlebar,or a direct connection to dynohub. If it would operate on request only (one of the Zoombak modes), power consumption would not be that big. One problem is, in occasional use GPS takes quite some time to get first position fix.

--J

You could buy a cable lock with an alarm. It is not heavy and reacts to tampering by giving out a sound.

It did not blow up the cat.
It is smaller than I thought, would fit easily under a saddle.
Log on to the website and it shows you the location on Bing Maps (like Google maps) give or take 100 feet or so.
You can set a home location from 20 yards to 50 miles, speed limit alerts, instant tracking, and a location history.
Alerts can be set for emails and or phones.

So far it works as advertised.
I like it.

It did not blow up the cat.
It is smaller than I thought, would fit easily under a saddle.
Log on to the website and it shows you the location on Bing Maps (like Google maps) give or take 100 feet or so.
You can set a home location from 20 yards to 50 miles, speed limit alerts, instant tracking, and a location history.
Alerts can be set for emails and or phones.
It also will text you when the battery is low.

So far it works as advertised.
I like it.

A monthly service charge...T mobile coverage... hmmm. I think I'd look at something else. I remember there being a sting operation that was conducted in one of the metro areas by one of the major TV medias where they equipped bikes with a GPS and then videoed thieves swiping the bike. The thieves usually outran the TV crews but they were caught by them within short time. So with that I would suspect that there is something else.

Garmin Astro dog tracking device may have some potential
 

Another possibility is the Garmin Astro dog tracking device. Transmission range is line-of-site so in the urban environment a bike is most likely to be stolen, it may not provide the range you want.

What is needed is something that immediatly alerts you when your bike starts moving a few feet. I note that the Garmin Astro might provide a way of doing this:It is unclear exacty how this function works. You should be able to download the manual and find out. Maybe it is a sensor that attaches to the dog's leg that detects when he points. On a bike, perhaps this could be attached to your kickstand so that if the kickstand is raised, your bike goes "on point" and you are immediately notified.

Update: I read the manual and it is still unclear what triggers the "on point" alert. It does not seem to use a sensor outside the collar unit. Perhaps it just works off no movement for a certain elapsed time. Thus it seems you could not use the "on point" alarm to detect if your bike's kickstand went up or if moved from its parking spot.

[QUOTE=dmac49;10696425]A monthly service charge...T mobile coverage... hmmm...QUOTE]
I wonder if you can buy the device but not start paying for coverage until your bike is stolen. Not an immediate method but if you can get coverage started in few hours to a day, it could be useful and not as expensive.

[QUOTE=Giro;10697955][QUOTE=dmac49;10696425]A monthly service charge...T mobile coverage... hmmm...It says you have to activate it within 60 days of purchase.

The dog wondered over to the ballparks next door and I got a text saying he left my property.
The map put him within about 50 feet of his location.
Haven't had to recharge it yet (3 days so far).