GPS trackers for bikes

any of the members have one fitted to their bike incase of theft? If so are they any good?

i have one of these http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Realtime-GPS-GPRS-GSM-Tracker-For-Car-Vehicle-Motorcycle-Tracking-Device-Spy-Bug-/290703596054?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item43af48da16 with a giffgaff sim in it. Works a treat! (hidden in bag lining).

Does it use ebike battery voltage as suppl? I bought one that said 12v to 48v, but when I connected it to 36v, it just fizzed with smoke.

I think most are designed for car batteries, 12V-24V supply.

This one says it goes up to 75V it's on my 36v A2B. And haven't had it blow up yet!.

Plus as well as sms alerts you can track it online.

 

I found one that fits in a seat post and one that replaces the head set cup both around the £98 mark

http://www.integratedtrackers.com/GPSTrack/Products.jsp

http://www.integratedtrackers.com/GPSTrack/Products.jsp

It requires a pay as you go simm card. I wonder how much that is a month to run. On top of the cost for the tracker, insurance and a good lock my be a better option.

It requires a pay as you go simm card. I wonder how much that is a month to run.

I looked into a Tracker about a year ago, bought a cheap one off of ebay about £20 - £25. Same ones are on there for about a tenner now.

 

I got a cheap Sim card from GiffGaff, fairly sure there was no monthly charge, all you had to do was send or receive a text every so & so months, can't remember the exact contract details but it was negligible.

 

Never got around to fitting it however played with it & was thoroughly impressed with the technology for the price.

I've found the integrated trackers website myself when looking for a tracker yesterday. I see 6 issues with it from my research:

1) their website has not been updated for 2 years - makes me worry about their continued existence

2) I can't find many recent reviews - see point 1

3) the headset tracker replaces the headset bolt and is made of plastic which someone has reviewed as having cracked due to the inability to tighten sufficiently to hold the bike together correctly.

4) the headset tracker is currently out of stock with no indication of when it will be available

5) the lamp tracker can be easily removed

6) the seatpost tracker has not yet been released, but it replaces the existing seatpost and is therefore not suitable for anyone who is enjoying the benefits of a nice suspension seatpost.

 

The cheap ebay trackers may work well - but do they work reliably, and can the be made to fit inside the bike somewhere hidden - e.g. in the handle bars where no one would expect it.

 

From what I see, a tracker needs to be:

a) reliable (so it you can be certain it will be transmitting of your bike is pinched)

b) discrete (so a theif won't see it and remove it)

c) long battery life - or able to charge a battery for it from the ebike battery, so it will allow tracking for 1-2 weeks after a theft.

d) small - see point b

 

Still looking and thinking.

 

What do you have Wander and where have you put it?

I

From what I see, a tracker needs to be:

a) reliable (so it you can be certain it will be transmitting of your bike is pinched)

b) discrete (so a theif won't see it and remove it)

c) long battery life - or able to charge a battery for it from the ebike battery, so it will allow tracking for 1-2 weeks after a theft.

d) small - see point b

What do you have Wander and where have you put it?

It was a cheap ebay one such as this.

 

As I said I never got around to fitting it however I was thinking along the lines of within the motor casing on the Bosch system. The internal battery only lasted a few days from memory however I was considering tapping into the 36v bike battery.

 

Obviously if your bike was stolen without the e-bike battery & the internal battery was flat then it wouldn't operate however once reconnected then it should spring into life again.

 

Software was quite clever from memory. You could send it a text from a mobile & it would ping back accurate co-ordinates which you could put into Google Maps. You could also set it so if the bike went outside say an x mile radius of your home then it would text you. There were other options like real time tracking, send a text when going over a particular speed, motion sensor & a few other features that I've probably forgot. All of this was programmable just by sending a text.

 

Here's a user manual, not for the one I bought, but gives you an idea.

TK102-2_User_Manual.pdf

You'll spend forever charging it unless you get one that can run at battery voltage.

You'll spend forever charging it unless you get one that can run at battery voltage.

Yep, ebay one I linked to had input range of 9-38V.

 

I think that you MUST tap into the bike battery as if not then inevitably your bike will get stolen when the GPS battery is flat!

 

One extra feature I've remembered. You could send a text which would open a microphone on the GPS. Provided it was within earshot of the miscreants you could listen in to their conversations!

I don't see a GPS module in that tracker. I'm pretty sure it only works on GPRS/GSM, which gives an accuracy of a few hundred meters.

Yep, remember reading all about that at the time.

 

In practice the one I played around with was very accurate indeed.

I guess it depends where you are relative to the phone masts.

It requires a pay as you go simm card. I wonder how much that is a month to run. On top of the cost for the tracker, insurance and a good lock my be a better option.

I know that at any orange shop you could get a free sim card over the Web, bring it in and top it up for even 20p -perhaps you still can with ee.

There seem to be some which claim to contain gps and be accurate to 10m but not all do.

i have one of these http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Realtime-GPS-GPRS-GSM-Tracker-For-Car-Vehicle-Motorcycle-Tracking-Device-Spy-Bug-/290703596054?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item43af48da16 with a giffgaff sim in it. Works a treat! (hidden in bag lining).

How big is it Paul? Could it be easily concealed on the bik under a rack? Or somewhere more well hidden?

Sewn into the (false)lining underneath my saddle with the wires going down my seatpost then into the frame battery.

 

But keep it quiet ok?

Used an expensive garmin tracker and a cheap one from ebay with sms location sending. Garmin was super. You pay an amount per year to garmin and you see a live dot moving on google maps just like 007, ni sim card needed, it connects via gps to a garmin server which sends you the location in real time. The cheaper one is not a moving dot, you get the location when you send a text. The links i have seen here look very expensive and work just like the cheap ones from ebay.