[amervyn123]

Hi all,

Just thought I would share my recent experience with a little gadget I bought off Amazon. It's a GPS/GSM tracker device that comes with a microphone, gsm extended antenna, sirf star III gsp receiver antenna as well as wiring for ignition/horn/fuel pump and of course 12v power.

I didnt bother connecting any of the cables for the ignition/fuel pump etc, just wired it up to a continuous live and hid the device somewhere and mounted the gps and gsm antennas at a suitable location around the car, making sure they are not too visible.

Got myself a pay as you go sim card also and its working brilliantly. The power drain is pretty minimal and have had it in the car for a week now without driving it at all and still working fine.

The device is controlled by sending sms commands to it and it does all sorts of cool things...some of them are:

- geo-fencing
- call the device to listen to audio in the car
- call the device for it to cut out and send you the latitude and longitude and speed
- text the word "google" and it replies with a google maps link via sms so you can view on your smartphone
- setup gprs info so that it can send emails etc etc
- auto-send its position to you if it goes above a certain speed
- can set authorised numbers so it will only respond to certain numbers

etc etc etc

The manual has all the commands, however if you want detailed explanation of wiring etc, just have a look at the reviews on amazon and they give quite detailed information. I found it all helpful.

I quite like and the best thing is...its only about 30 quid. Can't go wrong with that.

So far I like it a lot and hopefully will be getting two more for my sister and parents

So hopefully someone finds this useful

Here is the product:

GPS Car Tracker with GPRS and Vehicle Theft Protection: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics

I am still in the process of writing an android tracker application for my car so that I can permanently wire in my old smartphone into my car. But hoping to use the orientation sensor also - which would mean if there is any movement detected, then the app would start to transmit its position using the gps sensor.

Anyway if anyone would like to check out the code or want to rip it and work on it, feel free

The code:

https://github.com/amervyn/VehicleTracker

:wavey:

 

[LongRat]

This looks excellent, I would definitely consider it for my car too. Thanks for the heads-up.
If you wire it into the ignition/fuel pump etc so you can take advantage of the remote stop commands or indeed anything else, please update this thread. It would be cool to see how well that worked.

 

[edamski]

Sounds great especially for the price. Is it insurance recognised do you know?

 

[amervyn123]

Sounds great especially for the price. Is it insurance recognised do you know?

To be honest, I haven't checked.

But I am quite certain it's not recognised by insurance companies. But if it is recognised, I would be extremely delighted...even if it means that it must be installed by an authorised electrician.

 

[amervyn123]

This looks excellent, I would definitely consider it for my car too. Thanks for the heads-up.
If you wire it into the ignition/fuel pump etc so you can take advantage of the remote stop commands or indeed anything else, please update this thread. It would be cool to see how well that worked.

You are welcome
Glad to be of some help, after all that's what this forum is about - sharing useful information with everyone.

I haven't had a chance to wire in the fuel pump/ignition stuff yet, but when I do and test it, I will certainly update my post here.

Cheers

 

[edamski]

To be honest, I haven't checked.

But I am quite certain it's not recognised by insurance companies. But if it is recognised, I would be extremely delighted...even if it means that it must be installed by an authorised electrician.

Yeah I can imagine it would be more expensive if it was, the important thing is that it's functional and controlled by you regardless if the insurance will knock a few quid off for it

 

[freakazoid3]

Sure could help if your car ever gets stolen :thumbsup:

 

[amervyn123]

Sure could help if your car ever gets stolen :thumbsup:

Yep definitely. It's always wired into live 12v...so when I'm at work I usually just check in on the car just to make sure where it'd at lol...
yeah I guess I'm kind of paranoid...

 

[edamski]

Haha I'd be doing the same thing

 

[jonnypolish]

After the spate of robberies as of late this could be a life saver.

That 32 that went missing a couple weeks back and a 260Z in Ireland this week!

 

[amervyn123]

Yep, I read about that 32. That was what prompted me to act on a solution to keep checks on my car regardless of where I am. I have been meaning to upgrade my alarm to one that can send me sms when there is an alert, but due to limited funds I needed to find an alternative solution. I'm rather happy so far. I have been quite paranoid since the missing of that 32...feel really sorry for the owner.

 

[Trev]

Why can't you use your current sim?

 

[amervyn123]

My current phone Sim? The pay and go Sim card sits inside the tracker and I set it up so that my phone Sim is an authorised number in the tracker...which means only my phone can send and receive commands and sms from/to the tracker.

 

[Trev]

Ah, now I see!

Thanks!

 

[amervyn123]

No prob

 

[tgo nz]

How long do you think it would take for this to drain the battery if the car is not being used if wired to live 12v?

 

[amervyn123]

It shouldn't use much more than the alarm. If you read some of the reviews for the product some people have tested the drain and say it's about 85ma as far as I can remember. All I can say is that I have had it for about 2 weeks and only drove the car during weekends...the device is still powered on and going strong. If you are worried about battery drain I recommend you purchase a 12v lead acid rechargeable battery pack..about the size of a small book, usually used for home alarms etc..and place it in car and wire the tracker into that...so it's completely standalone.

 

[ForgingEngineer]

This looks brilliant especially for the money. thanks for posting.

Just ordered one so look forward to playing with it.

 

[nigelGTR]

We looked at this unit and also the TK102B which is basically the same internals....we have been using 14 of these units for over a year in our trucks and vans and once used to the text message to 'ping' the vehicle, they are super simple and reliable.

Always buy with the car charger as this makes it dead easy to wire up..... basically they are all from China and we pay less than £20 per unit (on Ebay item number 221157175458

As our company phones are on Giff-Gaf -02 ...we use the Giff-Gaff sim card (which are FREE too if anyone wants a sim) just stick £10 credit on it and it lasts forever - (Giff-gaff to Giff-Gaff texts/calls are free)

 

[amervyn123]

This looks brilliant especially for the money. thanks for posting.

Just ordered one so look forward to playing with it.

No prob :thumbsup:

Just need to mention that when I was wiring mine, I accidentally touched the live wire to the chasis and blew a fuse...but initially didnt think about the fuse and I was panicking thinking I had fried my boost controller. Thankfully I didn't and I just had to replace the fuse and everything worked again. So, just be careful when you are doing the wiring with the battery connected lol

:wavey: