tracking device
 

Hello,
I am thinking of getting this for my bike.
http://www.brickhousesecurity.com/pr...king+device.do

What is your thoughts on this

The 30 dollars a month service fee might be a deal breaker for some.

I agree. $30/month is way too steep. Life for many is already cluttered with subscriptions for $10-80/month. Furthermore, it would seem difficult to hide the device on a bicycle. The thief will locate the tracker and throw it in the trashcan.

For me, not just the $30/mth., but also the original cost of the device.

For $50/mo and a lower initial price, you can get a prepaid smartphone with data service, and I'm sure there's an Android app that will make the phone just as trackable. As a bonus, you'll always have a backup phone when you're on the bike, and you can use it with mapmyride.com or something similar.

I have a spot for my back country adventures. SPOT They have their detractors, but if you have to make the call of shame your location is on a web site. There is also a button that will get the service to call numbers with your location and another button to call emergency services. These buttons are well-covered

Proliferation of these electronic devices is getting ridiculous ....
and I thought people texting each other within the same house was bad,

so now, your bike has a GPS and you can see its position with your smartphone.
what's the point in that? you don't need electronics to know where your bike is; just look down below your butt, there's the bike right there!

Having raised teenage children, I can see the use of texting to other persons in the same house. Teens can now hold a private conversation right in front of their parents.

Having a GPS navigation device has been very helpful in aiding our travels, sure beats having to go through contortions to correctly fold a map. ;)

I was really of thinking of getting my $2000.00 back if it gets stolen.

I just want to make sure the man knows where I am.

Just to list the problems of GPS based tracking in bicycle use:
- Where do you hide it? Remember that GPS requires line of sight to satellites.
- Motion activated tracking = short battery life (remember it has both GSM and GPS). Also, if a stolen bike is not moving, tracking won't happen.
- If the bike gets stolen and taken indoors (van, for example), GPS tracking is useless.

IF GPS tracking is desired for bikes, it should not be built into one box IMO. You could run a heck of an antenna discreetly along the frame, place the actual central unit out of reach inside the frame, battery somewhere with relatively easy access for charging/replacing. Come to think of it, a USB plug for charging could be hidden somewhere in frame tubes. Make the whole package SMS activated. And still it would only work when the bike is outdoors.

--J

And I'm moving this to Electronics and Gadgets.

--Juha, a Forum Mod

Actually, I'd just go straight GSM, and use triangulation to get an approximate location (what phones use when they don't have a full GPS receiver, or when they haven't gotten a GPS lock yet).

I thought the phones based thier location on trianglation from the cell towers as opposed to true gps with satellite reciever? This device sounds like a lojack for your bike.

The device OP linked to uses GPS triangulation.

GPS may be assisted, which means the device has access to information regarding GPS satellites' current position. This speeds up the process of finding enough satellites to get an accurate GPS fix. I don't know whether this particular device has assisted GPS.

In addition, phones can use cell tower triangulation, or wifi triangulation to get an approximate position (this again speeds up getting an initial GPS fix), or when GPS doesn't work, or even when the device has no GPS chip at all.

--J

One more thing regarding "the man" mentioned earlier: GPS is one way traffic only. A GPS device is just a receiver.

Cell and wifi based tracking requires two-way traffic, with information exchanged with cell tower and/or wifi provider, which leads to privacy concerns.

the man knows where I am because a SPOT device uploads a position to a satellite every 10 minutes

Since I usually carry it in a back pocket, I have to remember to lie face down in the snow when I have an emergency

Garmin GTU 10 Tracking Device
 

Had one of these for two days now, and I am impressed. Mounted it under the nose of the seat, very discreet. I set it up so that it tracked every second and the charge lasted about 5 hours. This will be long enough for when I am out and about and lock my bike up somewhere. There are many features to this, and some limitations. $135 for the unit right now on Amazon includes a year's service, additional years for $50/year. To get the instantaneous second by second update features, it costs an extra $5/month, which I bought - no contract, but it is limited to 50 hours of use per month in that mode. I would only use that mode when I am down to the pub and the bike is out of my sight, so the 50 hours is not a problem. In the normal 5 minute update interval, people say the charge lasts for 3-5 days depending on if the place you have it is nearly out of range of the satellites which makes it struggle to connect running down the battery.

You can set up "Geo-fence zones" via USB connection, so that it launches into that per second tracking mode when it moves out of that zone. So I am going to take a laptop down to the bike rack at the pub, set up a zone within about 30 feet around it and set it to text and email me on my Android phone if it leaves that area. It will be switched into that per second mode at that moment as well. Fast enough for me to get running down the street with a couple of buddies. I also set up a "geo-fence" within my garage.

Tomorrow I will try shoving it inside the seat post to see if it can still get a signal. I wonder as well whether I could rewrap my handlebar tape to hide it, it is small and weighs nothing. Just slightly fatter than a 5-pack of Wrigley's gum, like about 8 sticks.

There are some limitations as you can see - you have to plan ahead to have the battery charged, and for many thefts it might just be useful enough to use the "on - demand locate" mode which is very easy on the battery. When you discover the bike is gone, hit the button on your phone and go get it. The unit is pretty sturdy looking, it is made to put on a dog or cat collar.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004HFRA7A/..._26725410_item

If anybody stole your bike they would rip the GPS tracking device off immediately. It's not like a car where you can hide it in the trunk. Maybe hide in a bag? I wouldn't mind having one for my Domane 5.2 with new Zipps...