D
Deleted member 12676
Guest
well it's easy to shoot stuff down, so instead why don't you point us to something you think is worth its price?
if there's enough of a market for GPS solutions under $100, it seems like it wouldn't be that hard to order fifty sets of cheap components off alibaba. com and corner the market. anybody want to look more into this or want to collaborate on something like that, especially if we're both in the US, feel free to message me. I don't have the time or confidence to do that as a solo project, but it's an interesting problem I'd enjoy working on
stephen7689
Member
- Local time
- 7:13 AM
- Joined
- Oct 4, 2016
- Messages
- 31
Ebay sells key fabs that you can hide on your bike somewhere that connect to phones and computers to track the key fab they have no internal battery so they last forever
yeah but they rely on Bluetooth enabled devices - running the specific tracking app for the fob - to be within about 15-25 meters
GPS + GSM (cellular) functionality would be a helluva lot more robust solution
sweet, if these are cell & GPS based devices after all that's hella legit. I'm probably gonna end up getting one in that case
even cheaper is a bluetooth tileapp tracker. when out of range any of the 8 million tile user worldwide that come within range of your stolen bike (with tracker inside) will alert you moby to its location. just $25. see here theTileapp: http://ssqt.co/mecXgKM
Frankenstein
Deceased - Frankenstein 1991 - 2018
- Local time
- 7:13 AM
- Joined
- Jun 24, 2016
- Messages
- 5,035
You didn't even read any of the posts in the thread saying how bad of an idea that is have you?
8 million users worldwide... If every single user was situated in the United States that would divie out to just under a half square mile per person, your tracker needs to be within 25 feet of one of those people, if you look at the problem you'll see there's very little chance that a person with the app will come close enough to your bike, and even then it gives you a generalized idea where it is only for that moment it was in range, if it's on the move you're sol.
You'd be better off with an old iPhone and the cheapest data only plan you can get for it and piggyback off apple's find my iphone app.
Something I'm personally excited for is the new sherlock device that is a GPS tracker meant to be put in the bars, it will cost $141, comes from Europe, and to boot it comes with 2 years of service free!!!
They start shipping in 2 months, I've been waiting more than a year for them to announce a release date, and so in 2 months I can drop my old clunky GPS setup and hook this up with an easy to use charger that drops my 12v battery to a 5v source that is turned on at night.
Oh yeah, 2 week battery life per charge with normal usage, and can be turned on at any time with an app instead of remembering to throw a switch, the app also alerts you of a low battery in the tracker, too f***ing great!
MadModder
New Member
I know this is way old, but for people like me looking around that nay come across this, you can buy a tiny real GPS tracker that can use a SIM from any cheap GSM carrier for under $20 from China. Even better, if you have any experience with arduino you can also get very cheap GPS modules that also use GSM SIM cards for making contact and use something like a Digispark clone or Pro Mini to create a GPS tracker that can fit in the down tube of your bike and be essentially undetectable, and program it to send coordinates when it gets a text from you that way it uses very little battery, and with a simple circuit should be able to run off an 18650 or similar single lithium cell that is charged off the magneto. Definitely don't use Tile or similar products as stated though. They're little more than a gimmick in my opinion and aren't even useful really for anything other than being able to make your phone ring when you lose it inside your house with Bluetooth on and the app running in the background, which is something no one else mentioned... Not only does a user need to be near your bike, they need to have bluetooth on and have the tile app always running. Considering most smartphone users like myself close apps regularly to save battery and increase performance in the apps we're using at the moment, your chances are slim that all these variables will fall perfectly in place to find your lost or stolen item with that.
Frankenstein
Deceased - Frankenstein 1991 - 2018
- Local time
- 7:13 AM
- Joined
- Jun 24, 2016
- Messages
- 5,035
Actually it was mentioned in the post above yours about how bad of an idea tiles (and all the basic copies of) are. I think above that one as well.
Sherlock is $151 and comes with 2 years free service and costs less than 4 dollars a month after that to keep active, im sorry but there is no way you can beat the pricing considering its all been already designed and built for you, comes with an app, and to keep an active connection on anything else you would probably spend just as much monthly for the bare minimum (as in purely a text message based communication hub with the home built tracker, when used minimally.) Not to mention that Sherlock is is active responsive, it tells you when the bike is being disturbed, unless you program the Arduino to check for disturbances (which requires additional hardware to detect motion since GPS location can change even if the object didn't move an inch meaning it isn't reliable until it recognized a large change) you won't be immediately notified that your bike is being f***ed with, you'd only know after you go back out for it.
Also Sherlock is already small enough to fit inside the handlebars, you'd be hard pressed to squeeze something powerful enough into the same place which means you might have to cut a downtube open just to hide it.
