GPS - tracking a stolen car

[ichthos]

Does an economical GPS device exist that can be installed in a car so that it can be tracked if stolen? Can someone educate me on this? Anyone have such a device currently in their car? What is the typical range and price of such a device?
Kevin

 

[DrEntropy]

I thought Lo-Jack was it. Now it seems there are OnStar features to do it but those are "built-in" so no other help from me.

Tho it IS an interesting idea.

 

[RickB]

About 15 years ago I helped put together a system consisting of a GPS transceiver kind of radio and a web site where you could track vehicles of any type.

This used a "private" set of gps satellites (yes there are more than one gps system up there martha).

We had them on Helicopters, C-130 aircraft, ships and sailboats, 40 foot tractor trailers (for FEMA), Lots of things. Project died due to lack of focus by the people in charge of "marketing".

It was pretty cool work, you could see in real time what & where & how fast and at what altitude your 'assets' were doing.
The devices were even capable of sending and receiving email and we had software that worked with MS Outlook.

Moral of story, doesn't matter how cool your project is - get paid upfront.

I should imagine there would be something out there for the general public by now.

 

[Jim_Gruber]

LoJack

 

[davester]

I was daydreaming the other day about how if carjacked I could just throw my iPhone under the seat. I could then easily track it from any computer using the "where's my iPhone" feature. It seems to me that pretty much any smartphone can be capable of this though the iPhone is the only one that I know of where it has been implemented.

There was actually a recent news item in San Francisco where a thief on a bicycle snatched a woman's iPhone out of her hand. It turns out that she was some live tracking software (not the "where's my iPhone" one), ran back into her office where her colleague was tracking the phone and had been puzzled by her sudden increase in velocity, called the police and they cornered the thief 10 minutes later and dragged his sorry ass off to jail.

 

[PHerder]

A company I was doing some computer work for had a problem with someone(s) "borrowing" some of their lawn tractors afterhours. This company displayed some of their equipment outside and secured it with a extension cord looped thru something (like the steering wheel spoke) so you had to disconnect the extension cord to move the equipment (and thus setting off the alarm system).

They installed a monitored GPS system in one of the tractors and made the tractor look like it wasn't secured properly (i.e. the looped the extension cord around the steering wheel but not thru it) so the people "borrowing" the equipment would find that tractor instead of any of the others. It was also not too accessable so that it didn't look too good to take.

One evening, the monitoring company called the owner and asked if they were moving that piece of equipment since the monitoring company could see that it was moving. They were not moving it so the monitoring company conferenced call the police with the owner on the line and reported the theft of the equipment and while on the line gave a minute by minute play by play of where the equipment was going. That info was relayed to a patrol cop who drove into the guy's house while he was trying to unload it. Can you say, RED HANDED?

This was ~ 10 years ago!

I have heard about systems you can buy for your trailers and you can log into a web site and see exactly where it is at any time. I was at a trailer store looking at enclosed trailer ~ a year ago (or so) and he showed me where his trailer was that was delivering something in another state. We could see that it was going ~ 75 mph (the guy at the store state something like, I will need to talk to him about his speed...)

They are out there, just how much you want to pay for the equipment and the monitoring. LoJack is not monitored until you report it missing and then they can turn it on to locate it. Costs has to be lower for that kind of service.

LoJack is even in laptops now so with the equipment that small you could hide it just about anywhere.

YMMV.

Paul