Cheap gps tracker

brokenant

http://item.mobileweb.ebay.co.uk/viewitem?itemId=250929102191&cmd=VIDESC&index=16&nav=SEARCH&nid=39402766204

Anyone used one. Are they any good? I have a couple of trailers in storage and thought they could be useful.

TrickyWicky

Might help to post a proper ebay link not one to the mobile version..

No idea about the performance but I was looking at these a couple of years back and I didn't find any bad reviews.

brokenant

Sorry about the link, only have access to phone while 'busy' at work. Try item number 250929102191

Crabman

Here's a normal link to the item:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/250929102191

forgotmyname

They work but for a trailer, How will you charge it?


Battery lasts 80-100 hours on standby, I guess depending in signal strength that could easily
be halved.

My old nokia phone used to get around 2 days on a full charge, Took the sim out and it lasts nearly 2 weeks.

TrickyWicky

forgotmyname wrote: »

My old nokia phone used to get around 2 days on a full charge, Took the sim out and it lasts nearly 2 weeks.

Thats a heavy duty processor in it then. My cheap little £15 phone from Tesco can go a full two weeks.

You don't think a tracker will be used for bluetooth, texting, playing ringtones, surfing the web, chatting to mates etc do you?

brokenant

Charging isn't a problem, ones an atlas tipper trailer with a standard car battery to work the mechanism, and the other is a horse trailer with living space and a 120Ah leisure battery.

TrickyWicky

You'll be alright then. The biggest problem will be the sim card / phone costs.

forgotmyname

TrickyWicky wrote: »

Thats a heavy duty processor in it then. My cheap little £15 phone from Tesco can go a full two weeks.

You don't think a tracker will be used for bluetooth, texting, playing ringtones, surfing the web, chatting to mates etc do you?

Not as power hungry as my new phone, But not many smart phones these days last more than a day or 2 on a standard battery, even with minimal use.

But shows that just taking the sim out extended the battery life a great deal. They say 80-100hours standby time. Just saying that may depend on network and signal strength.

Obviously the less you contact it the less power it uses. No mention of power consumption. So you might struggle to get a month out of a large car / leisure battery.

jaydeeuk1

TrickyWicky wrote: »

You'll be alright then. The biggest problem will be the sim card / phone costs.

Best bet imo is a T mobile PAYG simcard with 6 months internet for £20 (text 6monthsweb to 441). Also has decent reception around the country. Sure, a contract one might be a bit cheaper - have seen data only which after cashback work out at £10 or so for the year, but you won't want it to be nicked.

Cash-Strapped.T32

Yeah, I've also seriously considered these (and similar alternatives) for my bikes; Imo costs would be minimal; £10 top-up on a payg sim, 10p per text or so, will give 100x updates, ie; the device texting your phone with some information or other.

Really, for most people you'd only want to toggle it on at night & off in the morning, like you might with an alarm, such that it pings you if it's being nicked.
Imo it shouldn't ought to be contacting you all the time unless reporting it's co-ords in the case of a theft.

As long as you can send commands to it without it always sending a text back to confirm, then it should last almost forever (depending on how often the network stipulates you must use the sim).


I don't see why you need internet connectivity tbh, the thing contacts you by SMS unless there's some other functions I totally missed in that ad.

I also like the idea of them, because even if your vehicle is locked in an underground garage and it gets no GPS signal, the co-ords would read "00.00.00", right?

But then as soon as it emerges (ie; someone steals it), it gains it's actual current position "xx.xx.xx"
This would be a change of co-ords, indicating movement, thus you'd get notified straight away.

I've long been considering using a spare android phone for just this purpose, & either using an anti-theft app, or even writing one from scratch to perform functions I think would be useful.