GPS Tracker for £50-£100

[DavidJ]

Just reading MB&Y March addition and page 90 (top RHS) implies that you can buy a GPS Tracker for £50-£100
Has anyone got one? and do you have to subscribe to 3G or GPRS or such like (My boat's in Spain)
I've done some searching but can't find such a cheap and cheerful product.

[SteveE]

Just under a £100....

http://www.handtec.co.uk/product.php...armin-gps-72-h

...this what they were referring to??

I have one of those, cost me a lot more than £100.00 works really well, even in the car...

[nimbusgb]

I have several. 1 in each of 2 cars and one on the boat. Here's one for http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/GPS-GSM-GP...item4aad3c14b8

You need to get a PAYG sim card. Get one that you can top up from a land line so you can do it from the UK or a cheap monthly contract.

The device will do tracking via SMS or via a 3G internet link. It's actually quite easy to set up to have you boat permanently sending gps position to a remote server every 10 seconds or so. Doing it this way fits well inside the data allowance with most sim cards.

[DavidJ]

That's amazing Nimbus
Did you use the oil sensor option?
How do you read the location, a point on google earth or just data from a server.
Any idea how long, say, a 10mb top up would last? or how much a month it costs for data.

Steve and Fantasie thanks for your replies but it was the security tracker I was after, perhaps my original request was not explicit enough.

[SteveE]

David, I have just got a new Blackberry and it like my iPhone has the new tracking software on it, if you hid a Blackberry on the boat and had it constantly connected to a battery all you would need is a cheap BB £100, and a PAYG simm card with £10 on it, if the boat was stolen, by default so would the phone, and BB would track its location?

[DavidJ]

David, I have just got a new Blackberry and it like my iPhone has the new tracking software on it, if you hid a Blackberry on the boat and had it constantly connected to a battery all you would need is a cheap BB £100, and a PAYG simm card with £10 on it, if the boat was stolen, by default so would the phone, and BB would track its location?

Ah! now that's interesting. I have played with the "find iphone" function on my iphone but hiding an iphone would be too expensive. I guess you track the BB on your PC and that the app isn't available on Apple products....or maybe it is?

[SteveE]

Here is the iPhone version: http://iphone.appstorm.net/general/a...-or-ipad-free/

BB do one like this, it uses the 3G to locate, and BB's are cheaper than iPhones, and apparently you can track via a PC?

[Andrew38]

Last week a local was in court for receiving stolen goods - an Ipad. The 15 year old owner had used this app and tracked down the unit, following a burglary at his home, to outside a house about half a mile away. Called the police and two Ipads were recovered - so it definitely works!

[nimbusgb]

I send out data every minute. About 100 bytes are transmitted ( speed, position ID etc ). There is some overhead in maintaining the 3g connection but a months worth is a couple of meg. In the uk i have multiple vodafone contracts for family phones and I got a deal on mobile data cards for £5 / month for 1 gig - much much more than required to listen in to a device every second of the day.

The raw message can just be read and cut and pasted into google maps to give you position.

I have a few bits of Java that run on a server and allow me to log in and see where the boat is / has been.

It wouldn't take much to give your unit access to the server and you could use it to translate your signals if you want.

Using a phone is ok but not quite as simple and twice the cost. In addition the ebay units allow you to 'listen-in' to who is on your boat! I have not used the panic button or oil pressure input beyond testing them. I reckon if my boat moves while I'm not there it's being nicked so not much point!

[DavidJ]

Thanks guys and Nimbus for your very detailed reply, much appreciated.