Author: Joe Mueller

Understanding Real Time GPS Vehicle Tracking

We are living in an increasingly complex world where we are constantly bombarded with massive amounts of information every day.  Our world is not so simple as it once was, and while technology can be a great assistance to us in our endeavors to understand the world around us it can also be a hindrance.  Some technology is better left undiscovered by those that would seek to use it, the complexity that it takes to understand its function being too much for some people.  Luckily, real time GPS vehicle tracking is not this type of technology.

It is relatively easy to understand, and can be reduced to overly simplistic terms extremely well.  Even thought it makes use of some the most complex and powerful technology that the 21st century has to offer, the actual function of the technology itself is easily intelligible and intuitive. You can understand real time tracking without having to have the smallest bit of technical understanding. It may appear to work “magically” to some people, but it can be relied upon in its “magic.” The information it provides is easily translatable, meaning that people of all positions and stations can understand what the GPS tracking system is communicating.

Real Time Vehicle Tracking Basics

Even though you don’t need to understand much about how a real time GPS vehicle tracking system works in order to get some benefit from it, it is still a good idea to try and understand the way this technology works so that we can better ascertain its limitations and costs. We need to be thoughtful consumers if the things we buy are to have the maximum amount of positive impact on our lives or our business.

With all things GPS, we should start with the Global Positioning Satellites that orbit the earth. There are over 20 of these satellites continuously transmitting data on a specific radiowave frequency that can be read by specialized receivers. The information contained in these transmissions is critical for how portable GPS devices are able to calculate their position. The data contained is the position of the satellite and the time that the transmission was sent.

Once a GPS device has received enough of these signals (3 signals from 3 different satellites) it is then able to calculate its position using a process called trilateration. What it does is it takes the know location of three or more objects, in this case the GPS satellites, and uses the known distance from these locations, which is calculated by taking the amount of time between when the GPS signal was transmitted and when it was “heard” by the GPS tracking device and then multiplying that time by the speed of the radiowave, to find out exactly where the GPS device you are holding is.  It is a little complicated when talked about this way, but it is actually quiet easy to understand when properly explained.

This video does a great job of communicating the basic principles of how a GPS device figures out its position (it is made for kids, but the information is great):

The acting in this film is, in a word, terrible, but the information contained within it is pretty informative if you ask me.

Now that we understand how a GPS device calculates its position we now need to understand what give real time GPS vehicle tracking its real time component. After all, such things as GPS navigation, golf GPS, and data logging GPS do not have a real time component to their GPS capabilities. So what makes real time GPS tracking real time?

The answer to this question is found in cell phone technology.  Once a GPS tracking device has figured out its location it needs to be able to communicate that data to a third party so that tracking can occur in real time.  Otherwise the device is just a simple GPS data logger.  While some GPS tracking systems also employ radio signals to transmit the data to a tracking unit (such as the Garmin Astro GPS pet tracking system), this is not the norm and is not really feasible for vehicle tracking applications.  GPS vehicle tracking depends on cell phone technology to transmit the data from unit to server where it can then be processed by GPS tracking software.

Because real time vehicle tracking depends on both GPS signals from above and on cell phone signals from below there are some limitations to its ability to track a vehicle.  One of them is that if they are obstructed from receiving a signal from the GPS satellite then they cannot be tracked.  While GPS receivers have grown considerably in strength over the last several decades, there are still some issues with being able to receive a signal in some conditions.  Extremely inclement weather, traveling under ground in a tunnel, or even navigating amidst tower sky scrapers can affect your GPS’s ability to get a lock on your location. A-GPS (Assisted GPS) tries to mitigate these problems by getting help from cell phone signals and has proven to be more accurate than simple GPS, but even that is not fool proof.

The second limitation for a real time GPS tracker is the need for a constant connection to the cell phone grid. If a device looses cell phone reception is no longer is effective at being a real time tracker. There are several things that could result in a signal being lost, but the most common are that the area is remote and has not access to cell phone towers or that the terrain interferes with the signal, like in a gully or ravine.

Another thing about relying on a cell phone grid is that you generally have to pay extra fees for using it. Most real time tracking systems are going to come with a monthly subscription fee that can run you anywhere from $9.99 to $50 depending on how many location requests you make or the capabilities of your providers GPS tracking software. This can be a real back breaker for those that have barely enough to fork out the considerable up front device purchase price.

But if you can stomach the expense and have a need for GPS vehicle tracking then adding a real time tracker to your repertoire is going to be very nice. They are very powerful at what they do, and if you plan on tracking a vehicle that mainly uses the urban landscape for its activities you should have no problem getting a real time, 24/7 picture of the vehicles activities. If you can hardwire the real time GPS vehicle tracking device to the car or truck then you should continuous tracking capabilities. This set up is particularly useful for fleet tracking, car tracking, and teen tracking.

Fleet Tracking: The Commercial Application of GPS Tracking

As we have mentioned time and time again on this site, GPS tracking has a ton of different applications in a variety of different solutions.  It works great for lots of consumer focused tracking applications – the person who wants to track a spouse to see if they are cheating, the father who wants to track their teen to see how they drive, or the parent who wants to track their child to keep them safe from predators and other safety threats.  But up until now we have steered away from one of the most prolific and widely accepted use of GPS based tracking in the world – fleet tracking.

How Fleet Tracking Works

GPS fleet tracking works off all the same basic principles that have been discussed all across the this blog. It all begins with some satellites that are currently orbiting the earth broadcasting this signal that can be picked up by specialized receivers. These receivers than give that information to a small computer which does some math called trilateration that calculates the exact position of the receiver when it received the signals. This information is then sent to another part of a GPS tracking device where it is then transmitted wirelessly across the great expanses of space and time until it appears on a server somewhere.

On this server somewhere the position information is then ran through some fleet tracking software which makes the information palatable to a business owner or dispatch operator. This individual then uses this information to better run the business, route drivers effectively, monitor worker activity, or schedule necessary maintenance on vehicles. It is all rather simply yet amazingly complex. The process is simple and clearly defined, and yet the theory and technology behind the process is shrouded in mystery and even has the allure of a magic-like quality to it. For many people, GPS tracking just is and there is no need to explain it.

Fleet Tracking Software

But this is a good tie into talking a little bit about the nerve center of any good flee tracking system – the software package. Most GPS tracking devices are going to do a great job of calculating their position information and then sending it to a server somewhere for it to be processed. If you think about this information, which is usually just simple information like position coordinates, speed, and direction, it is not going to be very useful to a business person trying to make real time decisions that will benefit their company right now.

Sure, it would be good to know that your truck has just made a delivery to coordinates 30.299691,-97.951401 and that they are now heading south by southwest at 25 mph – but how is that going to help anyone get this truck to its next stop? It isn’t. A dispatcher would have to go to a mapping software like GoogleMaps and enter the information gather by the fleet GPS tracking device manually to find that they are on Hacienda Ridge in Austin, Texas. This is doable, but it will take a lot of time to find the closet truck to a new service call if you have a fleet of 3 or more vehicle.

This is where fleet tracking software comes in. All the things that you might want to do by hand with all the information you gather from your real time tracking device can be done automatically and displayed to you on the fly when using fleet tracking software. Want to get a birds eye view of all the vehicles in your fleet at any point in time? Want to know if any of your drivers have left their area of operation for any reason? Want to see if one of your vehicles has been idling for more than 30 seconds? This is the type of information that commercial grade GPS fleet tracking devices and fleet tracking software can provide you.

Heck, there is even a very decent free fleet tracking software package called OpenGTS. It is featured on our list of free GPS tracking software suites. It is open source and complete free to use. You do have to jump over some technical hurdles if you are not already familiar with setting this type of thing up, but for some companies this can be well worth the extra effort.

Using a GPS Fleet Tracking System Effectively

Now that we all know the low down on how fleet tracking works from a technical standpoint we should probably try and figure out how we can leverage this technology to make businesses better. If you are a business owner you are already having ideas pop into your head about how a GPS fleet tracking system can make your business more efficient, make more service calls, and end up making you a lot more money. And this is exactly the outcome that many small business owners experience when they install fleet tracking systems in your fleet. According to an Aberdeen group study, small fleets (1-10 vehicles) saw an completed work orders increase by 25% after two years of using a tracking system.

Here are a few things that a business owner can do to make the most out of their tracking devices:

  • Use it to identify wasteful employees – cutting off the fat from your operation or turning the fat into lean muscles through some disciplinary action will help you get more bang for your salary buck
  • Use it to more efficiently route drivers to new service calls – getting the closest driver to the service call will save the company two invaluable assets: time and fuel.
  • Use it to incentivize performance – getting workers to work harder by rewarding hard work is a great way to increase the overall effectiveness of an operation

And those are just a few of the ways that a fleet vehicle tracking system could be used to benefit a business. There are more too.

Isn’t This Crazy?

It is clear that GPS fleet tracking is a very effective way for businesses to streamline their operations, cut costs, and improve overall worker output. Finding a good fleet tracking solution is as simple as going to the internet and finding one of the many different service providers that have fleet tracking components in their arsenal of products. It might take some time to research the best service providers and best prices, but that is the type of investment that you need to make if you want to take your business to the next level with a fleet tracking system.

10 Reasons To Give GPS Car Tracking A Chance

Many people have heard about GPS car tracking, but they don’t even consider seeking out more information on the topic.  They might be intimidated, thinking that you have to have tons of technical experience and knowledge in order to even get a device like this out of its packaging.  Another might dismiss the concept out of hand, thinking that they would never have a use for this ability.  Still others might think that setting up a GPS tracking system for their car will cost an arm and leg, putting them in the poor house by just considering the option.  Well, for those people I would invite you to read on as I consider 10 reasons why you might want to get over your immediate rejections and give GPS car tracking chance.

1.  Car tracking  is cheaper than you think.

Sure, there is some forms of car tracking that are going to cost you an arm and a leg.  The portable GPS tracking device is going to cost you $100s and you will have to pay a significant tracking fee each month if you want to use the device to its full potential.  This is the situation that most people think about when they think about tracking a car and it is expensive.

But there are cheaper alternatives.  Cell phones make great tracking devices.  For under $50 you could get a cell phone, install some of the free GPS tracking software on it (see our list of free GPS tracking cell phone applications and software for providers), and your phone is now a car tracker.  You still have to pay a monthly subscription, but at least you get to make phone calls now too.  You can even hardwire the phone so that you have power to your phone at all times giving you real time, 24/7 tracking.

2.  Teens benefit from having a tracking device installed in the car.

Teens are crappy drivers.  They speed, take unnecessary risks, and make stupid decisions about how to drive.  But when we are in the car with them, they make great decisions and drive like angels.  By putting a GPS tracking device in their car you will be letting you teen know that you are there with them even if you aren’t in the passenger seat.

This way, if they break the driving rules you can crack down on them and help them take driving safely seriously.  More teens die every year from car accidents than any other cause, so ensuring that our children drive safely is a top priority of parents across the nation.

3.  GPS car tracking keeps spouses honest about their whereabouts.

Cheating sucks, and secrecy only lets cheating go on indefinitely.  With GPS car tracking you can ensure that your actions and the actions of your spouse are made clear to the other.  All actions must be accounted for and this will make communication between spouses open, honest, and verifiable.

GPS tracking for cars should never be used as a substitute for good communication or marriage counseling, but it can really help some people who suffer from serious trust issues.  Obviously if their trust issues are big enough there is no amount of GPS that is going to fix that, so make sure the whole marriage or relationship is being looked at as well.

4.  GPS tracking is great to have in case of an emergency.

We recently wrote an article about how using GPS vehicle tracking can save lives and this really is true.  Imagine how useful it would be to have an exact location to give emergency personnel who are responding to your husband’s heart attach  as he sits on the site of the Interstate.  Or imagine how easy it would be to help your frantic, lost spouse find their way to a familiar place if you could see their exact location on a Google Map.  This is the power of car GPS tracking and it makes a lot of sense to have something set up for a circumstance just like this.  Onstar is the commercial product for this, but you can easily make your own Onstar system with a cell phone.

5.  GPS tracking devices double as a theft recovery devices.

If a car gets stolen when it has a real time tracker installed you can use it as a theft recovery GPS.  All you do it find out the location of the vehicle and hand that over to authorities.  Heck, you could even give them your login information so that they can track the vehicle themselves.  Then, a few hours later you can be happy to know that the thief is in custody and your car will be returned to you shortly.  Now that is peace of mind.

6.  They are fun.

If you are a geek (like me) you will find having the ability to look at where you have driven on a map incredibly fun and satisfying.  All that data is just waiting to played with and all you have to do is log into your account and you have access to it all.  But the fun doesn’t end there.  There is also GPS art or GPS tracking for pets that can occupy your time as well if you feel up to the challenge.

7.  A GPS tracking system is educational and can be used to teach kids important information.

Math.  Space.  Electronics.  These are all things that a GPS can do to help children learn about the world around them.  While in order to teach kids these things through your GPS car tracking system, it is probably good information for you to know as well.  Simple things like trilateration, geosynchronous orbit, and chip technology are all words and concepts that people of all ages and education levels can and should learn about.

8.  They are really convenient.

We have already seen how these device can be the difference between life and death, but they can also help provide us with all sorts of convenient information as well.  If you have a question like, “I wonder where my wife is at with her errands today?” all you would have to do is log onto your online GPS tracking account and see exactly where she is.  The same is true of fathers coming home from work, or teens traveling to a friends house, or a family member taking a long road trip to visit.  The information isn’t necessary, its just convenient to know and can be easily accessed from a computer.

9.  GPS can help you fight a speeding ticket.

Police are out to get speeder because it increases city revenue and that is part of the police’s duty.  But we also know that the methods police use to identify speeder is shoddy at best.  Car GPS tracking systems are, on the other hand, not shoddy at all and provide very accurate speed information. If you can take your tracking information to court with you from your GPS tracking system then you are almost certainly going to be able to successfully fight your speeding ticket.

10.  They can make you better drivers.

If you are serious about analyzing your driving habits then you can use your GPS tracking system for cars to improve your driving habits.  Do you take the best route to get to your destination?  How is your speed up and slow down times?  Do you make good use of coasting to conserve fuel?  These are all questions that a GPS car tracking device can help you answer.

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How about you, what are some reasons that you can think of to give GPS car tracking a chance?

A Review of GPS Pet Tracking Systems

GPS tracking is getting small, and the smaller it gets the more uses we are thinking up. One of the more recent uses is GPS pet tracking. This works just like you might expect. The first think you do is you attach a GPS tracking device to your pet, with the most popular place for this being the collar of your animal. This is not the only place that a device could be attached, but it is definitely the most popular. Then, when your pet wanders off to an unknown location you simply go to your GPS tracking software and find out exactly where they are at.

Some GPS pet tracking devices make use of cell phone technology to transmit the location information from the dogs collar while other devices use radio signals. Each of these systems have their positives and negatives. For example, a device that uses cell phone modems will end up having a monthly subscription fee so that they can make use of the cell phone towers to transmit the information. It also means that your pet has to be within the reach of a cell signal for you to get information about where they are. The positive of this system are that the tracking can occur irregardless of your proximity to your pet. You could be in Paris, France and still know exactly where you pet is in Wasilla, Alaska as long as they have a cell signal.

For radio transmission models, the downsides include a higher purchase prices and a limited area of operation. Most models only let you track your dog up to a mile from your current location since this is the limit to the radio transmitter found inside the device attached to your dog’s collar. These pet GPS tracking systems do have a lot of upside too. The first is that they don’t cost a thing to operate. Once you purchase the device you won’t have to pony up any more cash for a monthly service fee. Another benefit is that you they can be used anywhere in the world as long as you are within range of your pet. Hunting in a remote area without access to a computer or a cell phone signal? Out camping with your pet in the wilderness? Exploring Antarctica? Then a radio transmission GPS pet tracking device is what you will want to take along.

Here is a short list of some of the available GPS pet tracking devices:

RoamEO GPS Pet Location System

The RoamEO GPS pet location system is a high quality tracking device that works on the radio transmission model mentioned above. It uses the MURS band at 154.60 MHz and has a functioning radius of approximately 1 mile. It also supports simultaneous tracking of up to three pets, making it great for hunters with a pack of dogs or a group of hunters moving together. It also works well for a family who wants to keep tabs on the family pets while they are out on an extended camping trip or who call the wilderness their home.

The LCD color screen is bright and easy to read in the sunlight. On the screen you will see your pet’s exact location along with their current movements and their current speed. If they are racing off the edge of the screen you know that your dog is getting close to being over a mile away and you better get going on find them. You can get all of the following on your LCD screen: your location, your pet’s location, distance in feet between you and your pet, your pet’s velocity in MPH, direction your pet is heading, a general compass to get your bearings, the location of your GeoFence if you have set one up, the battery remaining in the collars, battery life of the handheld unit, GPS signal strength, radio signal strength, and zoom scale.

The GeoFence feature allows you to set a GPS based “fence” for your pet. If they leave this defined boundary you will receive an audible alert so that you can go to the device and find out where your pet has wandered off to. This can be a real time saver for those that are going to be doing other things while they let their pets roam free.

If you like forest walks but your pet is often distracted by the random scent here and there and goes flying off into the wilderness then this pet tracker will probably be a good fit.

Garmin Astro GPS Dog Tracking System


The Garmin Astro GPS pet tracking system is very similar to the RoamEO device. It too transmits the position information of the dog via radio signals, but this time it is via VHF. The system includes a bright LCD screen and a tracking device called the DC 20. You keep the handheld LCD screen and your dog gets the DC 20. All you need to do to get the ball rolling with this system is to get it outdoors, turn it on, and attach the DC 20 to your dog’s collar or strap it on using a neoprene harness over its shoulders. Then you can just sit back and watch the tracking commence.

If you wanted, you could be updated with your dog’s position every 5 seconds with this GPS pet tracking device. This information will be breadcrumbed on your screen, giving you an electronic trail that your dog has taken. You can also switch to another view – the Dog Tracker page – where you will get an update on your dog’s current status. A dog’s status can be whether or not they are running, sitting, on point, or treeing a quarry. Great information for a hunter.

The Astro has an astonishing range of five miles (depending on terrain) and comes with a powerful GPS receiver that is capable of getting a satellite fix in the densest cover. You can also track up to 10 dogs at one time, making it much superior to the RoamEO even though it is being offered at a significantly lower price.

Also, since the Astro is a Garmin it has some of the best maps int he business and features some of the other features that one of their outdoor hiking GPS devices might have. It has a barometric altimeter, celestial information, a waterproof exterior, a microSD card slot of loading and downloading information, an area calculator, and a 3-axis compass. You can even get detailed city street maps and turn-by-turn directions making it the only GPS you will need when making a hunting trip.

Zoombak GPS Dog Locator

The Zoombak GPS Dog Tracker is essentially the exact same device that Zoombak sells as a personal locator and teen tracking device. As such, it uses cell phone technology to transmit GPS coordinates to the Zoombak servers where they make it available to their users in a variety of different formats (text message, email, Website). Unlike the previous two models, you always need to have access to the Internet to find your dog and your dog must always have access to a cell phone signal in order to be tracked.

The Zoombak also has a battery life of 5 days when on standby mode (when it is not transmitting any data) or it can send 150 locations. Most people will probably get somewhere less than 5 days and less then 150 location requests because no one immediately asks for 150 location requests as soon as they put fresh batteries inside their dog GPS.

The Zoombak is not for hunters or other outdoorsmen but is instead for more urban and suburban use. If your dog escapes your yard and is out on the lamb then this is the pet GPS tracking device that you probably want to use. It will enable you to find out where your pet is in reasonable amount of time, helping you recover your pet and avoid an unnecessary animal death.

GPS Pet Tracking Systems In Review

The main thing you need to decide when making a GPS pet tracking system purchase is what type of device you want, one that uses cell phone towers or one that uses radio signals to transmit information. The former is used mainly for lost animal recovery while the later is best suited for hunter, hikers, and adventurers who want to keep an eye on their pets. Once you have decided which one you want, finding a pet GPS tracking system that works for you is a piece of cake.

Vehicle Tracking Systems Can Save Lives

The power of GPS tracking is truly phenomenal if we let ourselves sit down and think about all the ways it can be used to improve our lives.  But it is not every day that an example of how a vehicle tracking system could save lives comes to the forefront.  On July 26, there was a terrible crash on the Taconic State Parkway in the State of New York that left 8 people, 1 woman and 4 children and three men, dead on their way home from a camping trip. Sadly, the tragedy could have been avoided if there had been an appropriate use of GPS or cell phone technology.

The details of the event are this: one Diane Schuler was driving five children home from a camping trip that sent them to upstate New York. She was experiencing some trouble seeing and had become disoriented (due mainly due to drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana) and made a phone call to her brother to let her know that she was not feeling well. Her brother told her to pull over and let him come and get her. The brother then called the New York State Police to get them to assist them in finding Diane Schuler.

This is exactly the point where a GPS vehicle tracking system would have been the perfect thing to help resolve the situation in a timely manner. If there was such a system installed in the car, perhaps using something provided by by one of the many different GPS tracking device manufacturers, then the brother would then just had to log into the account for the car and get all the details on the location of the vehicle. That would have made his call to the police much more useful. Instead, the police were forced to begin search the Taconic State Parkway in a effort to locate the vehicle being operated by the woman.

Another option other than having a vehicle tracking device installed in the car would be to use the cell phone as a tracking device. Many cell phones can be tracked using one of the many different free GPS tracking software packages made freely available on the Internet. All you have to do is make sure that your cell phone is compatible with the specific system that you are thinking about using, download the software, install it onto your phone, and begin tracking. You’ll want to have a good data plan if you plan on using it for everyday use – but in a situation like this you use it even if you don’t have a good data plan!

Heck, you do not even need a vehicle tracking system or a GPS tracking cell phone. All the lady would have to do is call 911 and stay on the line for a few minutes and the police would be able to have tracked down her location with ease. Even if she had just called and immediately hung up the phone the police would have had a ten mile radius with which to work with in locating her. The longer she stays on the phone the better the location information becomes. But it is pretty obvious why this particular lady did not call 911 – she was drunk and high.

This tragedy puts the use of GPS tracking into perspective. Getting a vehicle tracking system or enabling your cell phone for GPS tracking can be really helpful. For many, getting a vehicle tracking device is going to be cost prohibitive. We simply don’t have the $100s to spend on a system like that. These devices are definitely better suited for GPS fleet management and other commercial applications. And the car tracking devices that are within a normal consumers price range lack some of the features that make them useful for constant use. Since you never really know when a tragedy is going to strike you need a tracking solution that is going to pretty much be on demand. GPS tracking for cars just isn’t up to those levels in their current form.

That is why I am such a fan of cell phone tracking. These device can be used to track a person anywhere they have a cell phone signal, making them great little devices for GPS tracking. There are plenty of free software packages for people to use and we almost always keep them with us and keep them charged. If you want to find a way to get free GPS tracking for cars, then this is definitely the solution that you should be looking for.

Real time GPS vehicle tracking system are invaluable tools in helping us live safer lives. Sure, these tools are so powerful that they can be abused by the wicked and evil, but that doesn’t mean that we should abandon their proper use. I would encourage everyone to set up a vehicle tracking system in case of a roadside emergency – it could be a spare cell phone, your main cell phone, or even a stand along GPS tracking device. Just put one in your car and talk about your plan for using it in the event of an emergency. You’ll be happy you did if you even need it.

Child Tracking With Amber Alert GPS

One of the best devices on the market right now for child tracking is the Amber Alert GPS.  It is a small GPS tracking device than can provide real time updates on your child’s location and help you answer that all important question: where is my child?

With the Amber Alert GPS you get a very powerful GPS tracking device in a nice, compact package. Coming in at 1.77″ x 1.68″ x .78″ this is one of the smaller tracking devices on the market. You can easily conceal this in your child’s pocket, coat, or backpack without it being annoying to the child or easily detectable by someone seeking to do your child harm.

Even though the device is small, it does not loose any of the functionality that parents are going to be looking for in a safety GPS for their child. The position information is accurate and the number of ways that a parent can access this information is impressive. The following are all ways that parents can be alerted about the position of their child:

  • The call or text the Amber Alert GPS to ask for a position update.  If you have a web enabled phone you can see their position on a map right on your phone.
  • View a map of their location online in real time whenever you want to get an update.
  • If your child presses their SOS button you messages can be sent out to 5 phone numbers or emails, meaning that you and your spouse can be notified of the SOS on your phones and your email – this is a great feature for working parents who have to juggle different phone and email accounts.
  • If your child goes outside a predetermined GeoFence then you will be alerted of this movement via text message or email.
  • Be notified if your child starts moving faster than a predetermined speed that you set up.  This can be good for child safety, but is particularly helpful in tracking teen drivers and monitoring their driving behavior.
  • And finally, if the temperature exceeds or drops below a certain threshold there is also an alert that is sent out to you.  This alert can be modified and is useful for ensuring that your child is safe and comfortable.

In addition to all the location feature there are two additional features worth mentioning.  The first is the SOS button.  This button, as you might have implied from the bullet points above, will send out a message containing your child’s location when they press this button.  These messages will continue to appear every 5 minutes, giving you a fresh update of your child’s location.  This is obviously huge.  If your child had to press the button because they were being taken by a stranger then having their position delivered to you every 5 minutes will help you and the police locate your child extremely quickly.  Even if they are not taken, but only injured or scared, it is really nice to be able to get to them quickly if they are on the move without having to call the device to see where they are at.

The second important feature is something that the Amber Alert folks call “monitoring.”  This is a feature controlled by the parent that lets them listen in on what is going on around the child.  Again, this is a huge feature when something is going down with your child and they have pressed the SOS button.  If they are under attack you can hear the voice of the attacker or you can hear that your child is handling the situation appropriately and getting the help that they need.  Monitoring equips you with the knowledge that you need to make an informed decision about your child’s safety.

With all these positives about this child tracking device we have to talk about some of the negatives associated with it as well.  The first is a fairly short battery life.  This device can hold a charge between 18 and 24 hours.  While this is plenty of time in most circumstance, it can be  a hassle to switch batteries every day to ensure your child has full power for the next time they are separated from you.

But to be honest, this power issue is entirely expected.  When you have a device that is as small and concealable as the Amber Alert GPS and allows you to get real time tracking information you are pretty much guaranteed that the battery life is going to be relatively brief.  The technology just isn’t there right now.

If you decide to purchase the Amber Alert GPS  you are going to be getting one of the best products on the market for child tracking.  The device is not cheap, but you really do get a lot for the money that you pay.

Small GPS Tracking Chips

I know this may be old news to some of the GPS enthusiasts of the world, but there is this company from New Zealand that is making some really ridiculously small GPS tracking chips – and I mean ridiculously small.  The company’s name is Rakon, and they make GPS chips for all sorts of things, but most of their chips are geared toward GPS cell phone market.  The fact that these chips are so small is important for all those in the GPS tracking community for several different reasons, the least of which is that small GPS chips are freakin’ cool.  The others mainly have to do with the future of GPS tracking.

But before we get into all the cool future stuff, let’s understand a little bit about the GPS chips that Rankon is putting out there.  These are powerful chips that function at some of the highest levels in the consumer grade GPS tracking products.  They do an excellent job at handling weak signal and dynamic environments, enabling maximum GPS performance when you need it most.  Their chips work indoor and outdoors, under tree canopies or in canyons, on country roads or beneath sky scrappers.  And the best part about these chips is that they are really small.  One GPS chip comes in at 2.5 mm x 2.0 mm – yeah, that is right, millimeters.  That is 0.09843 inches x 0.07874 inches for all those who live in countries that still use the backword inefficient imperial system.

Freakishly Small GPS Tracking ChipNeedless to say, when a cell phone company wants a small GPS tracking chip to install in their cell phone they are going to consider the folks at Rankon.

But it is pretty obvious that people who want to create GPS tracking cell phones are going to look for a small GPS chip. They want to conserve space inside their phone so that they can make is as slim and sleek as possible. Consumers want something that is going to be easy to use – meaning that it is lightweight but sturdy, small but not too small, powerful but not power hungry, and full of features (like GPS navigation and GPS tracking) but not too hard to use – and by giving them a small chip to use in the phone a company like Rankon is empowering phone creators to dream big with their phone designs.

This is the cool factor of this technology right now, but there is a lot of potential upside to having really small GPS chips for the future. One is that this technology can be used to help people keep track of their pets. Small GPS tracking chips for dogs could be implanted somewhere under the skin on the back of the dog and if coupled with the right technology this could provide real time GPS tracking of the pet’s whereabouts on a 24/7 basis.

The extra technology that you would need to generate to make something like this isn’t too hard to dream up. You would just need an ability to communicate wirelessly with a cell phone tower. This is technology that is already being made smaller and smaller. Today there are watches, which are much smaller than cell phones, that have the ability to make phone calls over the wireless networks that dot the countrysides of the world. I can only see this technology getting smaller and smaller too until one day it fits within a 2.5 mm x 2 mm space.

The next technology that would be needed will be some sort of power supply that is renewable and persistent. That way the small GPS tracking chip and the cell phone transmission component could be in constant use – giving it its 24/7 real time tracking capabilities. For this, I can think of two solutions. The first is to make this power source solar – so during the day the device works off the sun and then during the night is runs off stored power from during the day. This is probably a less than ideal solution since batteries never seem to have an infinite life cycle – heck, some batteries can’t even last a few months let alone 10-14 years that a dog is alive. The second solution is much better but much harder as far as I know – it is to harness the heat produced by the dog and use it to power the two devices.

This would be an incredible solution and would allow for tracking of all sorts of animal life. You could use it in a dog, but you could also tag all warm blooded animals with this type of GPS tracking chip and cell phone device combination in order to get huge amounts of position information for use in scientific research. Our ability to understand the movements of our companions here on this earth would grow at an incredibly pace.

This type of technology would also make these GPS tracking chips for children too. In fact, it would probably enable a future society to be able to know the exact location of every person in the world at the exact same time! If I wanted to get all 1984-esque, if there was a small microphone on the cell phone component then you would know where everyone in the world was and what they were talking about at any given moment. Now that would be something.

So in one way it is really cool that GPS tracking chips keep getting smaller and smaller, but in another way it is really creepy and a little unnerving. I know that technology is essentially amoral, but people sure as hell aren’t and I would hate to see what people would end up doing with this type of GPS tracking.

Cheap GPS Tracking

Cheap GPS tracking is fairly easy to come by these days and it can be spelled in two words: cell phones.  While this isn’t the only form of cheap GPS tracking devices it is by far the cheapest and easiest way to track something.  There are a lot of options when it comes to how you want to turn your cell phone into a GPS tracking device, but there are only a few that are going to get you the most bang for your buck.

They can be used as cheap GPS vehicle tracking – the cheapest in fact.  For just a fraction of the cost of a professional grade tracking device you can get a lot of the same features that you would want when tracking a vehicle.  While you won’t get some of the features with a cheap cell phone solution, you will still get tracking information that can meet your needs.

The way it would work is like this:

  • You buy a cell phone that is compatible with one of the many free GPS tracking programs available – these cell phones can sometimes be very expensive, so make sure that you get one of the cheaper, inexpensive ones.
  • Go to the website of the application that you are going to be using and find out the specific instructions for the software that you want to use – this will be device specific.
  • Once you have downloaded and installed the software you are ready to set up the cell phone in the vehicle that you want to track.  If you are able, use a cell phone charger specifically designed for your mobile phone.  This will make your phone track whenever the car is in operation without the need to have to remove the phone.
  • When you want the vehicle to be tracked just turn on the cell phone and start up the software and you will have all the GPS tracking data that you need.

This set up is great as a way to provide cheap GPS tracking for cars.  You can use it to do all sorts of real time tracking, including:

  • Monitoring a teen driver who is just starting out and who needs a helping hand to drive safely.
  • To track a spouse who you might expect of cheating.
  • Assist a business effectively route their vehicles.
  • To help a spouse know when someone is going to come home from a long trip

I’m sure there are a lot of other reasons that a person might want to use a cheap GPS tracking system, but those are the ones that I can think of.

Now this system is certainly cheap, but it is not free.  There are several costs that you are going to have to consider before you take the plunge.  The first is the cost of the cell phone itself.  While some of the phones compatible with free tracking are pretty expensive, you can also get cheap mobile phones on a pay-as-you-go plan.  If this is your preference, this will just cost you around $40.

After the cost of the phone itself you are going to need a data plan that will support your data usage.  Real time GPS tracking can only occur when a device is hooked up to a network that will support the data transfer.  This could be a web enabled phone or one with GPRS.  Either way, you are going to want have a pretty robust data plan.  Depending on the cell phone provider you use this could run anywhere from $30-$50 a month.

In the final analysis though, buying this cheap GPS tracking device will probably only work at about 60% the functionality of a device purchased and run by a tracking company.  It will be enough for some uses, but will lack the functionality that some people are looking for and need.

When To Use GPS Tracking Sticks

GPS tracking sticks are extremely small and portable GPS tracking devices.  They resemble a USB memory sticks in appearance and generally have a male USB connection built into the device.  These devices are data loggers, meaning that they passively record their GPS coordinates at set intervals and store the data on the device’s memory.  In order for the owner of the device to be able to access this information they need to recover the tracking stick and download its contents onto their computer.

As I am sure you have already inferred, these devices are made for certain types of GPS tracking.  These devices excel at helping you know where someone or something has been and are very good at being concealed discretely because of their size.  It works great for a runner who wants to accurately measure their daily runs and cannot afford a more expensive GPS running watch.  Parents can use it to track a child or a teenager to make sure they have been where they say they have been.  These devices can also be used by different type of R/C hobbyists who would like to know things like the height traveled by a rocket or plane, or the distance traveled by their car or boat.  This device can even be used by employers to make sure that employees are making appropriate use of company property.

In essences, these work great for tracking anything that you don’t need to know its position right away.  If you can track it and then get it later, a GPS tracking stick can be a cheap alternative.

But these sticks are certainly not going to be very useful in some types of tracking applications.  Here is a quick list of some of the types of tracking this device is NOT really that good for:

  • GPS fleet tracking – Fleets need to have real time information on the location of their fleet if they are going to be able to route vehicles and monitor their activity efficiently.  Getting all the data after the fact is not going to provide the performance that a business in this situation is going to require.
  • Friend tracking – There are a lot of friend tracking application for the cell phone, many of them free, but you can’t run any of them on a GPS tracking stick.  You are certainly able to tell where a friend has been with one of these devices.  This, however, does not help you when you want to see which one of your friends is at the same mall as you or if they are at the same party.
  • Teen driver tracking (in some applications) – Some parents are going to want to be able to check on the status of their teen in real time.  A tracking stick will not let you do this.  It will help you monitor your teen while they drive the car and give you the tools you need to enforce your family driving rules – you just can’t do it in real time.
  • Real time spouse tracking – If you are interested in following your cheating spouse to the scene of the cheat then you don’t want to use a tracking stick.  GPS tracking cell phones would work great in this application, just not tracking sticks.
  • Property recovery GPS – If you want to recover stolen property then a data logger is definitely not the GPS tracking device that you want to go with.  While the property is in the hands of the thief there is no way for you to access the GPS information being gathered by the device – making it useless as a property recovery GPS.

As you can see, GPS tracking sticks are useful and powerful data loggers and should not be used for real time tracking.  As far as GPS tracking devices go, tracking sticks are among the smallest and most easily concealed of all the trackers.  They take up just a few inches and could easily be mistaken for a USB memory stick if they were to be “discovered” while being employed as a covert tracking device.  If you don’t need immediate access to your tracking data and need a small device that will get you solid GPS data then a GPS tracking stick is certainly going to meet your needs.

Is Free Cell Phone Tracking Really Free?

We are all aware of the many different free GPS tracking software applications that are available for cell phones. The different developers and tracking companies who provide this software have done so out of the goodness of their hearts and the hope that the advertising in the application or the up sell market is going to make them some money. Even if they do not monetize these tracking systems they are at least hoping that the reputation they establish will benefit them in some other way in the future.

Either way, you have a market today where there are dozens of 100% free to use cell phone GPS tracking systems. But the question is, are these free cell phone tracking systems really free?

I think that as we look deeper into this issue we are going to find that the answer is that it depends on a person’s particular circumstances. But in order for any of the discussion of cost to make sense to us we first need to establish a basic understanding of how free cell phone tracking actually works.

How Free Cell Phone Tracking Works

When coming to this question we need to divide our understanding into two distinct parts. The first is how does the cell phone determine where it is in the world. The second is how does the cell phone communicate that information to outside parties. Once we understand these things we will see just how free free GPS tracking really is.

For the first part we need to look at the principle of trilateration. This geometric rule says that if you know your distance from three or more known points you can determine your exact location. Cell phones that can be tracked tap into this geometric principle via GPS. The way this works is like this:

iPhone GPS Tracking
iPhones are extremely popular and can be used as GPS tracking devices.

Certain phones (iPhones, Blackberries, and other smartphones) have a GPS receiver installed in them when they are made. Once the phone is bought and activated by a user the full functionality of the GPS can come alive, all it needs is for the cell phone to be turned on (some GPS functionality, like GPS tracking, will also require that the cell phone be receiving a signal, but more on that later). If you do not have a GPS-enabled cell phone then you cannot take advantage of the free cell phone tracking available for download on the Internet.

The second part we need to understand about GPS tracking with cell phones is how these devices transmit the position information that they gather from the GPS. For this, cell phones are going to need to have access to one of two things: the Internet or GPRS. Once the cell phone has its location from the GPS receiver it will then process filter it through the free cell phone tracking software. This software will package the information in such a way that it can be made available online for the for the users friends or family to view.

If the free online GPS cell phone tracking software is a real time tracker, this information is going to be sent in a nearly continuous basis for as long as the program is running on the phone and the phone is receiving a signal from a cell phone tower. If either of these items is lost, so is the real time tracking ability of the software.

So now that we have a cursory understanding of how free cell phone tracking services work I hope that it is fairly clear how this can be less than free for some people. The main points of cost are in the cell phone itself and in the data plan that you must have in order to make use of the tracking software.

The Costs: GPS Enabled Cell Phones

The free, online GPS cell phone tracking software ceases to be free when you have to upgrade your phone to one that is compatible with the software and that has GPS installed in it. Some of these phones can be pretty pricey. An iPhone 3G will run you $99 and a Blackberry Curve can run you $129. This is certainly not free. Now if you already owned one of these mobile phones then downloading the free GPS tracking software onto your mobile phone isn’t going to cost you anything extra.

This is why up above I mentioned that the answer to the question posed in the title of this article was, “It depends.”

The Costs: The Data Plan

The second cost that is going to be associated with GPS cell phone tracking is going to be that data plan on your phone. I recently looked to see if this was something that my wife and I should get on our cell phone plan. She was about to get a free upgrade for her old phone and some Blackberries were available. But in looking at the data plans her carrier offered it would cost an additional $30 a month. Since we wouldn’t have gotten the data plan otherwise this seemed like a lot of money to us.

As a result, she went with another phone instead (the LG Envy) because there was no use in getting the Blackberry since we weren’t going to pony up the cash for the data plan. Paying $30 a month will quickly turn into $360 over the course of one year. That is a lot to be paying for a “free” GPS cell phone tracking service.

Can GPS Tracking Truly Be Free

But this leads us to another important point – GPS tracking is probably never going to be free in my lifetime. There are too many powers that be that have a vested interest in making me pay for this type of information. If it is not the GPS manufacturers, it is going to be the cell phone companies that I would be using to send my position information wireless to my wife who would be sitting at a computer, checking out where I am online. At almost every point in the system there is someone to pay. So, if you are already paying all those people then you can say that your cell phone tracking is free – but it is not truly free.

GPS Tracking Systems For All Facets of Life

If you have ended up going out and buying your own personal GPS tracking device you are going to come to a point when you are going to begin to need to get your tracking house in order. You will be flooded with a mountain of data about the location of the person, pet, or asset that you are tracking and you are going to need to turn all that data into meaningful information. Your device is going to need to fit inside of a meaningful system of interpretation.

Fortunately, most GPS tracking devices already come with a built in system that will help you analyze the raw data captured by your GPS. A car tracking system will put the data on a GoogleMap like interface and so will a covert personal tracking system. If you are using a fitness GPS tracking system like the Garmin Forerunner 405 or Edge 705 then this too will come with software that will help you turn the raw data of your workout into something that you can actually do something with.

And this brings us to a very interesting thing about GPS tracking, there is a system for tracking almost every aspect of our lives. You can track yourself when you are driving, working out, playing with your pets, or working and you can do the same for any other person that you love including your spouse or your children. With all this GPS tracking going on, it is no wonder that we have a hard time keeping it all straight in our heads.

So in order to help us all get a better understanding of the GPS tracking systems out there here is a list of the different types of systems:

GPS Car Tracking System

There are two different types of GPS car tracking systems. One system works in real time and transfers information from the tracking device via GPRS to a server where you can access the information once it has been filtered through a GPS tracking software package. The second type of car tracking system involves the device simply recording the location data. The user will then have to retrieve the device and manually download the coordinates from the device to a personal computer that has GPS tracking software installed.

Each system is going to have its benefits and draw backs. For starters, real time GPS vehicle tracking systems are extremely powerful and can provide actionable information for a person tracking a car or other type of vehicle. If you need to know where something is right now so that you can route a company vehicle or to get your teenager help then you need real time tracking. But there is a serious drawback with this type of tracking system – it costs a lot of money.

Not only do you have to buy the hardware for this system, which can be pretty expensive as far as GPS devices go, but you also have to pay for a tracking software and data transfer system. This can be as little as a monthly cell phone bill to hundreds of dollars per month. But for the people that need this type of tracking service is there is nothing better.

Another potential drawback to this system is that the battery life of these devices can be severely impaired by constant communication with the tracking servers. Sending messages via GPRS while constantly computing position information from the GPS satellites orbiting the earth is not conducive to long battery life. Even devices that transmit data every 5-10 seconds can only last several hours under these conditions.

The data logging GPS tracking system is different. It often can provide continuous GPS tracking for long periods of time, dwarfing the battery life of a real time tracking device. These devices are also relatively inexpensive – costing under $200 for some makes and models. This makes GPS tracking an option for many more people who could benefit from this type of service. It is also great for tracking something covertly since you won’t have to go and replace the batteries in the device very often.

The downsides of this device is that you have to wait until you recover the device to get any of the information recorded by it. If you are trying to monitor a teen driver this simply won’t be a practical car GPS tracking system for you. You might wait weeks before finding out that they went 60 mph in a 35 mph zone and that type of activity has to be punished immediately.

However, there are plenty of applications for both GPS car tracking systems that will inevitably make them both viable candidates for a variety of tasks involving tracking with GPS.

GPS Child Tracking System

Almost all useful GPS child tracking systems are going to be in real time or, at the very least, on demand. These might be a kids GPS watch, a piece of clothing that has a GPS device installed, or a stand alone device like the AmberAlert GPS. The way these work is that you install the device on your child. The tracking company then makes the devices location available via the Internet of mobile phone.

If you are at work you can check up on your child’s location. If your child doesn’t come home from school on time you can check on their location. Pretty much anytime that you are interested in know where your child is or you are concerned about their safety you can check up on them.

Many child tracking systems are going to employ GPRS. GPRS is a cell phone technology that allows for the transmission of information wirelessly. Some devices will even use GPRS to determine the devices location, making it a GPRS tracking system.

GPS Fitness Tracking System

Still another tracking system that can be used by a person is a fitness GPS tracking system. One might use a specialized fitness device like a Garmin Forerunner 405 to gather information on a workout or training session. The GPS, often in conjunction with a heart rate monitor, will record all sorts of useful things and then once it is downloaded onto a computer turn that hard data into something extremely useful for serious athletes. They will be able to see graphs, charts, and maps of their workouts – interacting with their bodies in a way that they never would have been able to without a GPS.

The vast majority of fitness GPS devices are not real time trackers. Instead, they are simply data loggers. If you think about, there is really very little reason for a fitness device to provide tracking in real time since the person wanting to see the information would be outside doing the exercise. It would kind of defeat the purpose of the tracking.

GPS Dog Tracking System

The final system that we are going to cover today is going to be dog GPS tracking systems. If you were unaware that you can track a pet with GPS then now you know that it is possible. In fact, Zoombak, a prominent dealer in personal GPS tracking devices, has re-purposed their device for the express purpose of serving as a dog tracker.

When you think about this, it makes a lot of sense. Dogs tend to wander around, and if you live on a lot of land or in an area without a lot of private fences then your dog can really wander far away. This can be very alarming for children and people who have a dear attachment to their pet. Companies have realized this and made pet GPS tracking systems a reality.

There is nothing particularly special about these devices other than you can do everything that you could do with a person with a pet. Almost all pet trackers are real time GPS tracking device since it really doesn’t do you much good to know where a pet has been once you know where they are right now.

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GPS tracking systems are only going to be expanding in our lives. It is time we got used to the idea of using GPS for all of these various activities and got along trying to figure out what is the best use this tracking capabilities and how we can make society better with them in place.