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recommend me a tracking device


elkroeger

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Anyone using those little tracking devices? Track your car, bike, suitcase, dog, kid, spouse, employees, drone.

 

Considering getting one for my (collectible) car. Which brands do you like? Or am I better off with Lojack?

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'd suggest you check on the range of these other tracking options. I haven't, but my gut feel is that they are short-range solutions, like, say, within Bluetooth range. LoJack obviously isn't. I've had LoJack in a few cars, never needed to use it, but only one of them was anything that spent a lot of time parked. I think LoJack has its own battery, not sure if it recharges from the vehicle power system. But check with them on that. It obviously doesn't do you any good if the battery will be dead when the car is stolen.

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Are you talking about those little Bluetooth “tiles”?

 

When I looked at them last (a few years ago?) they relied on people having their specific app running at least in the background, and one of those people had to be in the vicinity of your “thing” to get a current accurate location.

 

Are there ones that can position off WiFi networks now, the way google and Apple can cross reference location to lists of known networks? Do the Bluetooth devices share location info between brands?

 

If neither of those are the case, abd if you are thinking of theft recovery, I wouldn't expect them to be much help. If you just want to remember where you parked it, or you want to see which direction the thief was headed, maybe.

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Yeah, thanks guys. I've looked around a bit, and kinda decided that Lojack is the way to go. Trackimo was one that I thought stood out. Uses cell phone service to send out a location signal. Can be powered from the vehicle. The problem I see is that these and similar devices have monthly service fees (pays for the cellular service). I understand the need for the fee, but it's just not economical compared to lojack, which has a high up front cost, but no monthly fee. That trackimo has one of the cheapest subscriptions at $5/mo. but I've seen others up around $45/mo. Yikes!

 

I could see using such a device for various purposes - some of which might actually be quite useful! But not long term, with theft prevention/recovery as the primary objective.

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I'm using Trackr for the keys for my various vehicles and to locate my phone. I have put my phone and keys down and walked away from it around the house several times. It's worked to locate both.

 

Thankfully, I haven't had the opportunity to use the device long range. They say that there's a network that involves others who have the app active on their phones and if you report one of the devices as "lost," their phone will pick it up and transmit it to the network. Then you'll get a message telling you where the device is.

 

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