Category: GPS Tracking

GPS Tracking: Google And The Future of Cell Phones

Recently I read an interesting article in the local paper about Google’s entrance into the world of cell phones.  If you have not already seen the plethora of commercials out there about all the cool stuff the Motorolla Droid cell phone can do then you need to get your head out of the sand and watch some TV.  Heck, I don’t even have a TV and I have seen tons of commercials advertising this mobile phone aimed to take away some of the iPhone’s market share in the world of high-end smartphones.  If you think about, cell phones like the iPhone and Droid are the future of not only mobile communications but also the internet and GPS tracking.  The future goes through the smartphone.

Because of what is at stake here, the advertising has become downright cutthroat when it comes to pointing out the flaws of other phones and a competitor’s cell phone network.  If there was any doubt about this, then you have to look no farther than the following advert:

The message comes across loud and clear: iPhone = iDon’t ; Droid = iCan.  Everything about this commercial screams out against iPhone and tries to offer the Droid as an alternative smartphone.  They even get the same sort of feel that an iPhone commercial tries to give with their choice of music, all of which is used to enforce the message of the mobile phone commercial that iPhones suck.  Again, you can clearly see this for yourself by looking at this commercial that has the ubiquitous “iPhone commercial song” in it.

The cell phone wars are upon us, but do we ever stop and let ourselves ask the question, “Why?”  Why is Google, Apple, Verizon, AT&T, TMobile, and Sprint spending millions upon millions of dollars in an effort to come out with the most widely used smartphone and cell phone network?

The answer is money, plain and simple.  According to David Yoffie*, a professor at the Harvard Business School,  “The new paradigm is mobile computing and mobility.  That has the potential to change the economics of the Internet business and to redistribute profits yet again” (as quoted in the San Diego Union Tribune, January 5th, 2010, section C3).  People like Google and Apple want to corner the smartphone market because if they can do it they have the potential to ‘control’ the way people use their cell phones and the Internet.  This control is has the potential to make huge profits for whoever is on the cutting edge.

* This is pulled from David Yoffie’s bio page at the Harvard website:  Professor David B. Yoffie is the Max and Doris Starr Professor of International Business Administration and Senior Associate Dean, Chair, Executive Education at Harvard Business School.  Professor Yoffie’s research and consulting have focused on competitive strategy, technology, and international competition.

Google made their money on the cutting edge of Internet search.  Their search advertising business, Adsense, makes billions of dollars each and every year. Now they want to be able to ‘control’ mobile phone search and to be the premier ad service for these devices as well.  From this standpoint, you can see why there is so much fighting going on over cell phones and smartphones.

But what about GPS tracking, where does it fit in?

The answer really has two parts.  The first is that mobile technology and mobile Internet surfing is enhanced with positioning technology.  People like to be able to find restaurants that are near their exact location, get instant turn by turn directions from their cell phone, and to be able to surf the web or stream Pandora while riding the bus to work.  They love the Internet, they love GPS, they love cell phones and they love it when you can combine all three into a seamless user experience.

The second is that ads can be better served when a person’s location is know by the person serving the ads.  To a certain extent, companies like Google already are able to do this by taking information from a person’s IP address.  Their rough geographic location is then taken into consideration when serving them the ad.  For example, a person living in San Diego might get ads relevant to San Diego divorce lawyers when they are on a website that serves Google Adsense and is about divorce law.  To a certain extent, this enhances a users web viewing experience, improves the click-through rate for the ad unit, and helps Google make some money.

We have already seen how the Palm-Pre is trying to make use of GPS tracking to serve better ads and how this has caused quite a stir in the cell phone and Internet community.  Hopefully other phone companies are learning from the thrashing that the this phone has been getting and will let users know about how their location information is going to be used and give them clear and easy ways to opt out of this ‘service.’

Either way you look at it, GPS tracking is going to be a huge part of cell phones in the future.  The only question is who is going to be in the drivers seat of the smartphone era?

Who’s To Blame For Spouse GPS Tracking?

I got a very interesting comment that I assumed was in relation to my post on Tracking Your Spouse With GPS. I’ll quote most of it below, but the general gist of the comment was that if a husband is cheating on a wife then it is the wife’s fault for being fat, ugly, stupid, withholding sex, etc. I think that this is the most absurd comment that I think I have ever heard in my life – so it almost doesn’t even warrant a response. But just in case someone comes along and is convinced by some of the arguments because there is no rebuttal I have decided to write this post. It will also allow me to make a few comments on the topic of who is to blame for GPS tracking a spouse and what can be done once the cheating has been discovered.

Here is the comment:

MMM. . . which is the greater betrayal, banging some broad on the side, or surreptitiously sneaking a high tech digital tracking device on your spouse, without his knowledge.

One thing, as a husband who cheated on his wife and is now on his second marriage (with whom he was cheating, and who herself was cheating on her hubby), I can tell you what the problem is.

YOU. For you it is easier to get a gadget, catch him in “ultimate betrayal” and make it all his fault and turn him into your puppy, than it is to work on the real problem. Are you fat, uninteresting, do you nag, did you give up that whole “makeup” thing years ago for a comfy flannel nightshirt and sweat pants. More interested in the latest gossip from your neighbor than hitting the gym, and wearing something sexy with candles and a surprise dinner when hubby gets home? Did you stop doing that “other” stuff, except on birthdays.

Of course, he could have turned into a complete slob that you are no longer interested in. . . but then, ask yourself, if he is so disgusting you don’t want to do him, why do you care if he is doing someone else?

Skip the gizmo, go to marriage counseling.

The first part of his argument is to throw into doubt whehter it is actually more evil to commit adultery or to track your spouse without their knowledge.  He really doesn’t offer any arguments for why this is so, he just makes a naked assertion of the fact by posing it as a question.  Because of this, his point makes absolutely no sense to me and leaves me answering him like this, “The greater betrayal is banging someone on the side! Why don’t you see that?”

Then he begins his next paragraph with this wonderful gem:

One thing, as a husband who cheated on his wife and is now on his second marriage (with whom he was cheating, and who herself was cheating on her hubby), I can tell you what the problem is.

The person who wrote this comment is himself a cheater.  As a cheater, he is trying to establish himself as an authority on why a person might cheat on a spouse.  Because he cheated he must know the psychology of a cheater and must be qualified to tell us all the “real truth” about why a spouse might cheat and why it is a “greater betrayal” to track a cheating spouse.

However, all that his admission does for me is diminish his credibility.  He has admitted that he cannot be trusted.  He is a man who makes promises and breaks them when it becomes convenient for him.  This fact is extremely important it ought to inform how we should see everything else that he has to say.

The very next thing that he says is that the reason spouses cheat is because the other spouse is the problem.  Really? You broke your promise to somebody and then you say that they are the reason why you broke YOUR promise? I doesn’t work that way. The only person who can break a promise that they made is the person who made the promise.

What is going on is that he is trying to make his moral, intellectual, and emotional failure all about his spouse.  He calls her fat, uninteresting, a nag, frumpy, a gossip, and a prude.  Is that really true? Probably not.

Then he tries to show some compassion for the wife whose husband has cheated.  He suggests that maybe the reason that she is being such a prude and denying her husband her body is that he has turned into a “slob.”  But then he seems to think that since you don’t want to be intimate with him that this somehow give him the right to be intimate with some other woman!  After all, why would you care that a person who promised that they would be faithful to you is being unfaithful to you.  That really doesn’t matter does it? 

The commentor seems to think that breaking the marriage promise is no big deal – that marriage is something that is worthless and without deep meaning.  But that is exactly the type of thinking that I would expect from someone who has cheated and is without remorse. Marriage to such a person means nothing. They have proven it by their actions. 

He doesn’t seem to understand what marriage is and why people make vows to each other during the marriage ceremony.  A promise is a promise, and when you break those promises you have to take it seriously.

He then actually gives some good advice in the very last sentence of his comment.  Going to marriage counseling is a very important thing for a couple to do if they want to salvage a relationship after one spouse is caught cheating on the other.  Cheating is always a signal that a relationship has some sort of sickness within it, and finding out what that sickness is and working on its cure is of the utmost importance when you want to save the marriage.

But the sad thing is, most cheaters will not admit a need for marriage counseling until they are caught in their cheating.  And a spouse often cannot catch their spouse cheating without some type of GPS tracking.  When it comes to tracking your spouse there are really two different options available to wives and husbands who suspect that their spouse is being unfaithful.  The first is to track their cell phone.  A lot of the newer cell phones have the capability to be tracked by GPS if the proper software is installed on the device.  There is plenty of free GPS tracking software out there, but not all of it is compatible with every type of phone out on the market.  Also, a problem with a free tracking method is that they are generally not very covert – making it rather difficult to use it to catch your spouse in the act of cheating.

Another option is to track your spouse’s car with GPS.  GPS tracking for cars is a very popular application of GPS technology and has been used extensively by businesses to improve fleet performance and increase revenues. As a result of this usefulness, GPS manufacturers have tried to make these devices as cheap and accessible as possible to a wide range of businesses. A nice side effect of this effort is that it has made these devices available on the consumer market. While car tracking is a very effective means of tracking a cheating spouse, it is far from perfect. While the movement of a car does tell you a lot about a person’s activity, it is not the same as a cell phone which is often taken everywhere a person might go. However, what car tracking gives up in ubiquity it gains back in covert tracking capabilities.

Most car tracking GPS devices are extremely covert and can fit securely inside a wheel well or under the rear bumper. Unless your spouse has a habit of looking in these places there is often very little chance that they are going to find out that you are tracking their movements via GPS.

Whichever method of spouse GPS tracking you might decide to use, it is my opinion that you are well within your rights to track your spouse in this way. Some people might disagree with me, and it might be illegal in some states for spouses to track each other without their express consent, but that is my opinion. And the cheater bears full responsibility for their own cheating, they are to blame for their own promise breaking. They are the liar and are fully responsible for their own actions.

GPS Tracking, Cell Phones, and Augmented Reality

I really think that one of the future enhancements that is coming down the line for all cell phones is some sort of augmented reality. We are already beginning to see the beginning stages of this in the cell phone market and it is quickly becoming integrated with navigational GPS. We did a recent article on a navigation GPS app for cyclists on the i-Phone called ARider. It is really only a matter of time before we begin to see some very interesting and very useful GPS tracking cell phones with augmented reality. The question is no longer if this type of thing is possibly, but when it will be cheap enough to be made available on the mass consumer market.

Just think of the possibilities. A family could stay in contact with each other visually, spatially, and temporally. In order for us to see just how cool this type of GPS tracking technology will be we should come with some type of thought experiment that will allow us to wrap our heads around its coolness. We’ll assume that we have a family of 4 who all own cell phones. Mr. GPS is 45 and works as a high powered executive at a mid-sized paper company in the mid-Atlantic region of the Eastern United States. His wife, Mrs. GPS, works as a nurse administrator in a hospital in the center of the city. The couple live with their son, Wants-To-Be-Tracked, who is 11, and their daughter, Needs-To-Be-Tracked, who is 7. Wants is currently going to a college preparatory school, plays ice hockey on a traveling team, and loves to take their dog, Pet GPS, on long walks around their suburban neighborhood. Needs is a rambunctious little girl who loves to go exploring and is far too friendly with strangers.

This typical, upper-middle class family is fragmented and finds itself spending more time away from each other than they do together. If you don’t count the number of hours that each of them sleeps under the same roof, they probably spend about 15-25 hours together each week. Most of this time is spent eating, watching TV, or traveling in a car together. This is a sad state of affairs, but probably typical for many in their situation.

Anyway, this family is looking for ways to stay connected with each other and to make their lives more efficient. As it stands right now, it is hard for the working parents to know when their kids need to picked up and what they need to do each and every day. They have errands to run, children to shuttle, jobs to work, and a house to maintain. On top of all this, they are being bombarded by the media about all the terrible things that could happen to their children these days. In order to get all this done they need some technological help.

This is where a cell phone that integrates GPS tracking technology and augmented reality can be a real boon for this family. Imagine that Mrs. GPS has dropped Needs off at the park with some friends for a play date. While she waits for the date to be over, she heads on out the grocery store to pick up some frozen meals for their dinner tonight. While Needs is with some friends, she is also prone to wander and the mother who is there watching the kids has been known to try and pick up men while the kids play. Mrs. GPS wants to make sure that Needs is safe and staying where she is supposed to be staying so she busts out here GPS tracking cell phone with augmented reality to see what is going on.

The way that this device would work is that the cell phone that Needs has will be transmitting her location to the cell phone company. The cell phone company will then make that data available to Mrs. GPS on her phone. This data will then go through a mashup (a program that takes data from one source and plugs it into another program) that will put that data onto a mapping application, like Google Maps. Then, she will be able to see where here child is. It might look something like this, but instead of the fast food restaurants shee would be able to see her child’s location:

bionic-eye-gps-mashup-app

Now wouldn’t that be cool? Well, that is only just one of several different scenarios where this type of augmented reality integrated with a GPS tracking cell phone could be extremely useful.

Another is two lovers who want to make a make secret and spontaneous rendezvous. For this you would certainly need to let your lover track you and vice versa, but that shouldn’t be too much a problem if you are married to the person! Then, if you want to hook up with your spouse you just bust out your augmented reality cell phone and find out where they are in relation to you – then you head on over and track them down. This works particularly well if you are both at a large social function (like a club or party) or if you are in a park or other such venue. I recommend that anyone who is into this type of thing do this, it is like geocaching for love!

You might also want to use augmented reality GPS tracking in order to stay in contact with your friends and meet up at fun and interesting times. At the same party but don’t know exactly where your friends are? Simple bust out your cell phone and you can have an instant picture of exactly where your friends are. You won’t have to worry about losing your girlfriends by dancing with a cute guy, just make sure you have your cell phone on and you are good to go!

Still another way that you could use this type of GPS tracking technology is as an employers to track your employees. This could be really useful for any number of reasons, but is sure to improve overall worker productivity and to make your operation much more efficient.

More GPS Humor related to Augmented Reality

Here is a quick little video that take a small pot shot at GPS tracking cellphones and augmented reality:

Facebook Cell Phone Tracking Ad: Is This For Real?

The other day I was watching my wife play some Farmville on Facebook when I noticed this very strange ad in the left sidebar. From what I could tell by looking at it, it appeared to be a GPS cell phone tracking service. The text of the ad read, “Do you think your husband is cheating? Find out instantly where he is right now LIVE.” Doesn’t it seem like this is going to offer someone the ability to track their spouse with some sort of GPS tracking device?

Facebook GPS Cell Phone Tracking Ad

Well, I should probably come out with it right away. This is not a genuine GPS tracking service. It is a scam that is only going to end up costing you money in the long run and violating your privacy.  This Facebook cell phone tracking ad is designed to get careless people to opt in to receive text messages to their cell phone that will end up costing them money.

This is the way the deal works.  You click on the ad in Facebook and you are taken to a webpage that looks something like this:

Mobile Spy Cell Phone Tracking Landing Page

Pretty snazzy, right?  Looks legit, right?   Well, it isn’t.  A closer at the fine print at the bottom of the page will tell you exactly what you are going to be getting.  Here is a copy of what the website says:

*Service Explanation: By enrolling in TheMobileSpy.com’s service, you will receive three pieces of content. First, you will receive a report of the three most recent phone numbers to have searched for your location with our service. Second, you will be able to search three phone numbers by area code and prefix (NPA-NXX) to see their registered geographic area. Due to the nature of mobile phones and privacy laws, we will be unable to provide real-time location information. However, you will receive the most up-to-date information regarding NPA-NXX registration. Third, you will be enrolled in a periodical fun facts subscription on your cell phone. You must have cookies enabled for this service to operate properly. Remember, the numbers you search for with our service will be recorded and may be disclosed in someone else’s report!

For those that don’t want to read the big block of info you here are the three things that you get by handing over information about yourself and your cell phone:

  1. You will get access to three numbers that have searched for your number.  I’m not exactly sure what happens if no one has bothered to search for your number yet, but I suspect that nothing happens.  You are out of luck.
  2. You will also get to search for three numbers to find out “their registered geographic area.”  This, I assume, is code for saying that if the number you searched for is in their data base then they will tell you in what geographic the phone was registered.  But be careful, “due to the nature of mobile phones and privacy laws, [they] will be unable to provide real-time location information.”
  3. You get a lame “fun facts subscription” that will text “fun facts” to your cell phone for 6 dollars a month.  Now that is really lame.

If you are still confused about how this service works exactly, let me try and explain it a little better.  Since this ad was targeted to wives tracking their husbands I am going to use that throughout our example.  A wife is on Facebook – since everyone and there mother is on that thing – and she comes across this cell phone tracking ad while commenting on photos of her elementary school friends.  She is a little intrigued by the promise find out instantly where her husband is right now LIVE and clicks on the ad.

Step 1

She then goes to the website and fills out her information including her location and her phone number.  This information is then stored by the website in some database for them to use later.  After she submits her number, she gets information on all the people in the websites database that had searched her number in the past.  Since she has a relatively new number nobody shows up.  She feels good that she doesn’t have any crazy stalkers out there.

Step 2

She is then prompted by the website to ask about three numbers she is interested in knowing the location of.  She obviously enters her husbands number since that is what the ad is promising – being able to track her husband’s cell phone live – and she also enters in two of her best friends’ numbers just for fun.  The website then searches its database to see if it has information on any of the numbers that she searched.  It doesn’t, but it keeps track of her number and all the numbers that she searched.

Step 3

Sometime later she gets some stupid text from a strange number saying something like, “Penguins are really birds that cannot fly.  Isn’t that crazy?!?”  When she gets her cell phone bill at the end of the month she sees this strange charge for $5.95 and wonders where the heck it came from.

Step 4

This is where this service gets really terrible.  Let’s now assume that her husband sees a similar add on Facebook about tracking his wife’s cell phone.  He clicks through and fills out the stuff.  He puts in his number from step 1 and gets his wife’s number in the results.  How did this happen?  The website remembered his wife’s search so that it could use that information for future searches.  Now the husband know that his wife has been searching for him so he turns around and does a search for her.  He gets some information that he already knew about her location, like a zip code or something, and that is that.  He gets the same stupid text a little bit later and the $5.95 fee for this “service.”

A word from the wise, do not fall for this Facebook cell phone tracking ad!  It does not deliver what it promises and is not a GPS tracking service.  Instead, it is a scam designed to cost you $6 a month for the rest of your life you can’t figure out how to cancel this crappy thing.  Don’t waste your time, your privacy, or your money on this crap.

Cell Phone GPS Tracking Is Being Used By FEMA

According to the Sprint website, this telecommunications giant has made a deal with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) that will supply the disaster relief organization with 2,000 GPS tracking units for day-to-day field work and emergency use. The acquisition of the cell phone GPS tracking devices comes at an opportune time for FEMA who is required to have a vehicle tracking system in place by the hurricane season, a season which has all but passed. The addition of these devices should make FEMA much more agile and useful in the field, increasing their ability to serve the public by responding quickly and efficient to natural disasters.

The devices being deployed are Motorola i365 phones (pictured to the right) and cost around $40. Here is a quick little blurb describing this rugged, useful mobile phone:
i365 Sprint GPS Tracking Cell Phone

Released for Sprint, the Motorola i365 is a rugged and durable handset certified for military specification requirements including humidity, blowing rain, dust, shock and vibration. It features Nextel’s push-to-talk communication for quick conversations with up to 20 members of families, friends, and coworkers. Featuring an embedded Global Positioning System (GPS) chip, the i365 uses E911 emergency location services to get audible and visual turn-by-turn driving directions, mapping locations, or conducting local searches.

This cell phone is a great fit for the conditions and circumstances in which FEMA does most of its work. Many more “refined” mobile devices just would not cut it in the harsh conditions where the Nextel i365 flourishes.

In addition to these 2,000 GPS tracking cell phones FEMA is also receiving access to two of Sprint’s products that are going to help them use these cell phone to their fullest potential – Nextel Direct Connect and TeleNav Track. Let’s now turn our attention to these two services and see just how FEMA stands to benefit from the real time tracking and communication capabilities that they offer.

What Is TeleNav Track?

TeleNav Track is a very useful and complete cell phone software package that can assist business and organizations in a wide range of activities related to highly mobile work forces, integrating workforce management, GPS tracking, and navigation features into one package.  The main goals of the software are to boost productivity, control costs, and the manage risk.

Boosting productivity is obviously the goal of any profit based business, but it is also an incredibly important characteristic of effective disaster relief agencies like FEMA.  GPS integrated software like TeleNav Track helps businesses boost productivity by doing three things very well.  The first is that it gets employees to locations quickly and effectively.   We are all very familiar with GPS navigation devices and how useful they can be in helping us navigate new and unfamiliar territory.

The second is that is relays the employees position back to a central dispatching center which can keep track of all the moving parts in the complex world of mobile businesses.  The idea of a central hub where information is gathered and then decisions are made is even more important in a disaster situation.  Not only does the data need to be sent from the GPS enabled cell phone, but information must also be sent to the cell phone so that field agents can be kept abreast of the situation and their tasks.  The ability to see all these moving pieces and to make good decisions with that data is the second benefit of a service like TeleNav Track.

The third and final think that this does is that it helps business reduce the amount of waste engaged in by employees. If employees know that you can know their exact location in real time then they are less likely to goof off when on the clock.  It is a very powerful tool as an employee to go up to an employee and ask them why they spent 2 hours parked at a shopping mall when they should have been out on the street working when they know that you know that that was exactly what they were doing.

In addition to being able to boost productivity, GPS tracking management systems like TeleNav Track also help you reduce costs associated with doing business.   Just think about this one a second and you will see several ways in which you can see an immediate benefit to your companies bottom line or help ensure tax payer dollars are being well spent (in the case of FEMA).  As was mentioned above, GPS tracking devices can help keep employees more accountable for their day to day activity.  This increases productivity because it gets people working more, but it also helps reduce costs because you will no longer be paying people to do nothing.

Another key element that TeleNav Track offers is the ability to do a lot of paperwork electronically.  The savings that this type of switch can generate is certainly nothing to sniff at.  Electronic time cards have helped companies reduce pay roll administration costs by as much as 80% – which is money that could be poured back into the business.  While this really doesn’t have much to do with the GPS side of these devices, it is the same information delivery system that sends the GPS coordinates from your cell phone that also sends out electronic documents as well.

And finally, many GPS cell phone tracking systems help companies manage risk by putting their eyes on their assets at all times.  They can know how many of their employees are out on the field, where their vehicles are, and make decisions about the best way to use these assets to better the business or to better serve the people.

What is Nextel Direct Connect?

Probably the best way to introduce you to Nextel Direct Connect is to show this video clip:

Aside from being a really cool feature for any cell phone, GPS-enable or not, Nextel Direct Connect also offers three main benefits to businesses:

  • Accomplish more quickly. Being able to connect quickly with co-workers to in just a few seconds to share information is powerful when decisions need to made quickly and information is in a particularly fluid state.
  • Keep conversations quick and simple. In and out conversations get more accomplished and force employees to boil down their content into potent sentences laced with meaning and information. Every word is heard and business can move at the speed of thought.
  • Talk to many at once.  Being able to send instructions out to 20 people at a time is something that few normal mobile phones can accomplish – yet this is exactly what the i365 cell phone is able to do with Nextel Direct Connect.

When this technology is combined with the TeleNav Track system you get a powerful one-two punch for the folks at FEMA.

Will FEMA GPS Cell Phone Tracking Work?

I certainly hope so.  The technology is certainly useful and I can see no good reason why they can’t make full use of these powerful cell phone GPS tracking devices to better serve the American people in times of dire need.  The combination of push to talk technology with the powerful GPS management software should provide phenomenal results for FEMA.  We’ll just see if this turns out to be a good use of government GPS tracking or if it ends up being misused and under utilized.  Only time will tell.

New Teen GPS Tracking Devices From Spy Centre Security

Spy Centre Security, a GPS tracking and “spy” device store has announced a new line of GPS tracking devices that they are marketing specifically for parents of teenagers.  According to their press release they have devices starting at $199 the “[make] it possible to get constant updates on your teenagers’ car.”  My initial thought was that if they have a real time teen GPS tracking device for that price then they are going to be pretty competitive in the tracking market.  The only other real time device that I am aware of is the Zoombak and that is retailing right now on Amazon for $125.  Most other real time trackers are going to cost from around $250 and up.

But upon further investigation, it appears that the claims made in the press release are a little misleading.  To those that don’t understand the distinction between a data logger (passive GPS) and a real time tracker (active GPS) could have been duped by the claim made by the following sentence:

At Spycentre.com we now sell GPS products starting at just $199 making it possible to get constant updates on your teenagers’ car.

(While this sentence does come from a site not associated with Spy Centre Security, it does contain their contact information and is very similar to a press release posted on the companies website on September 11, 2009. This leads me to believe that the message is legitimate.)

Consumers need to know the difference between a data logger and a real time tracker if they are to really understand how to best track their teen and to sift through clever marketing attempts of GPS manufacturers.

Teen GPS Tracking Data Loggers

A data logger is a GPS tracking device that simply records the position of the device at set intervals determined by the user or by the device itself.  In order to access the information that the device records, you must retrieve the device and download the contents onto your computer.  GPS tracking software then interacts with the data and plots it on an interactive Google Maps like interface.

Canmore USB GPS Tracking Stick

This type of tracking is great when you only need to know somethings trip after the fact.  For example, if you enjoy launching hobby rockets and you want to know how high and how fast your rocket travels then using a data logger is a great way to get that information.

One of the newest types of data loggers to hit the market are GPS tracking sticks.  These devices are as large as a USB stick and very similar in build and shape.  They even have a male USB connection built in for a simple downloading process.  Just plug the device in and watch the software take over and do the work of analyzing the data for you.

Certainly powerful stuff, but not what most parents think of when they want to know where there teen is. These devices can be great for getting a good understanding of your teen’s driving habits – but they are not good for knowing where your teen is when they are late in getting home. They are not good when a natural disaster strikes and you need to know where your teen is right now. For that, you would need a real time GPS tracker.

With that said, a data logger is what is currently being offered for $199 on the Spy Centre Security website. I wonder how their tracking stick compares with this $145 one from Amazon?

Teen Real Time GPS Tracking

A real time GPS tracking device is one that is able to send its position information from the device to a third party so that the position of the device can be seen in real time.  This is what most parents are going to think about when they are looking into GPS trackers for their teenager.  They are also fairly expensive devices that will end up costing you hundreds of dollars up front and a regular subscription fee for the data transfers between your tracking device and the company’s servers.

The real time trackers available through Spy Centre Security are certainly expensive.  The cheapest models that they offer run $450 and have a service plan of $30 a month according to the press release mentioned above.  The first year of use will run $810 – a steep price to pay for being able to track your teen’s car with GPS.

The Cell Phone Tracking Solution

The obvious solution to this issue is to find a cheaper, real time tracking solution for parents of teenagers.  The best solution that I have come across is to turn a teen’s cell phone into a GPS tracking device.  Many of today’s cell phones already have a GPS antenna inside the phone that allows them to pick up GPS signals from outer space, eliminating the most obvious hurdle off the get go.  And since most teenagers want the latest and greatest cell phone you know that they probably already have a GPS enabled cell phone on them right now.

All that you now need to do is download some GPS tracking software for cell phones and you have a fully functional GPS tracking system in the palm of your teen’s hand.  There are plenty of paid services out there for parents looking at a paid option.  Most cell phone carriers offer something that you can take a look at that will add a nominal monthly fee to your cell bill.

Another option open to parents is to go with free GPS tracking software for cell phones.  This might take a little more work on your part of monitoring and installing the system, but can you beat free?

In the end, whatever you decide to do with your teen is really up to you.  Teen GPS tracking devices are relatively new, but that should not deter parents from taking advantage of this new and powerful technology to help them raise honest, law-abiding children who drive safely and come home on time.  While some might balk at tracking their teen with GPS, here at GPS For Today we feel like there are plenty of reasons why parents have every right to track a teen driver.  If you are interested in reading more about what we have to say on this topic here are some of the more important articles:

Keruve 2010 GPS Tracking Systems For Kids and Alzheimer Patients

Keruve, a Spanish GPS tracking device manufacturer, has recently announced its Keruve 2010 GPS tracking system. This system will build off of its already existent GPS tracking watch and portable GPS tracking receiver. The way the current model works is that the person who needs to be tracked wears the GPS wrist watch that is part of the system. Then, when the tracker wants to know where the trackee is, they just press a button on the receiver and they are given the person’s location to the nearest street address.

This is a relatively simple concept to those that are familiar with personal GPS tracking systems, but something that might sound revolutionary to those just becoming aware of this powerful technology.

But the new Keruve 2010 improves upon this design in several different ways. For starters, there has been improvement on the appearance of the GPS tracking watch that is part of the system. Now there are far more models to choose from including three watches for men, two for women, and a unisex model. All watches now have larger numbers for easier reading by young and old users alike.

It also now includes no less then four positioning systems to cycle through in cases where, for whatever reason, the most accurate GPS system is not available. While the most accurate is still going to be GPS bases, it also features a Keruve indoor position finder when the personal GPS tracking watch is unable to find a GPS signal, a VisionCellid location system, and a GSM network system. This is very useful because in almost any circumstance you are going to have some idea where the watch is.

They have also made some significant improvement to the GPS tracking receiver. There are now clearly labeled buttons on the touch screen, making it easier to find what you are looking for. They have expanded the display to 4.2″ and increased the font size of the displayed addresses to improve readability. A new ergonomic design rounds out the receiver improvements.

While the already existing model was a solid, though expensive, real time GPS tracking system, the improvements introduced by the Keruve 2010 should provide a better user experience in both terms of ease of use and functionality.

Keruve GPS Tracking System Marketing

Below are a few of the ways in which the Keruve tracking watch was marketed in the native Spain. The commercial below is in Spanish, but I have translated the information about the video into English using Google Translate with some minor clean up:

Presentation Keruve. Keruve as a direct locator specialist for people with Alzheimer’s disease in the first stage. With the Keruve GPS watch, a person with Alzheimer’s can continue walking as they did before, and the family with the receiver can know where the Keruve watch is whenever they want.

As you can see, people on the other side of the Atlantic run into the same problems that Americans do. We all have children that can get lost in the mix and milieu of people in our modern societies. We have older relatives whose bodies have outlived their minds and suffer from the crippling disease of dementia, with the most common manifestation being Alzheimer’s.

The next video is more of a news story and is particularly focused on the use of the Keruve GPS tracking system in Alzheimer’s patients:

Demonstration of the Keruve personal locator at the residence Santa Elena in Seville, Spain. Video provides an explanation of performance and interview with one of the inventors and the director of the association of relatives of Alzheimer patients in Seville, Spain.

Now that we have seen that this device is marketed both as a child tracking system and an Alzheimer’s tracking system let’s briefly discuss both of these applications.

Keruve GPS Tracking System For Kids

Tracking systems for kids are nothing new on GPS For Today. We have seen the Amber Alert GPS tracking system and how it tries to provide reliable information for parents on the location of their children. Unlike the Amber Alert GPS, the Keruve GPS tracking system for kids uses a watch rather than a stand alone tracking unit. This has its advantages and disadvantages.

The first advantage is that the watches are now much more natural looking than they were before. One of the biggest issues that people have with GPS tracking watches for kids is that they are often too bulky and obviously a safety device. Not so with the Keruve GPS watch. It has a sleek design that makes it look like a real watch. Though it might be too large for the wrists of the smallest children, it should work fine for teenagers and some pre-teens.

Another advantage of a watch is that they are usually on the wrist of your child. Sure, sometimes kids take off a watch when they play – but the Keruve is not able to be taken off unless they have a special tool to do so. Without that tool your child will be wearing that watch until you take it off from them.

Some disadvantages of a watch are that they are easily discovered and removed by kidnappers, they suffer some serious wear and tear if your child is a boy and they like to adventure, and that they must be worn to be effective. While these disadvantages can all be avoided, it does take a considerable amount of effort to do so.

Keruve GPS Tracking System For Alzheimer’s

A relatively new and novel idea is to use GPS tracking for Alzheimer’s patients. This is a great idea since a good portion of those that suffer from this form of dementia will “wander” at some point. There can be little that is more disturbing than loosing a elderly relative who appears to be healthy and sane but is unable to remember the recent history. They can sometimes suffer greatly when they are lost and separated from their loved ones and familiar surroundings. Real time GPS tracking systems are designed to help track down Alzheimer’s suffers quickly so that they can be restored to comfortable and safe surroundings.

GPS tracking watches for Alzheimer’s patients work well because they are attached to the wrist and if the patient has had a long history of wearing a wrist watch they should have no problem wearing this GPS device. If they do not regularly wear a watch then it might be difficult to get them to do so on their own. If this is the case you might want to pursue other avenues of tracking them or talk with your doctor to come up with ideas on how to introduce a new routine into their life.

Keruve 2010 GPS Tracking System Screen Shots

Here are some screen shots from the Keruve 2010:

Keruve 2010 GPS Tracking System Larger Numbers

Keruve 2010 GPS Tracking System Location ProcessKeruve 2010 GPS Tracking System Look and Feel

As you can see the Keruve 2010 GPS tracking system is an interesting bit of technology. Marketed as a child and Alzheimer’s GPS tracking watch it offers effective tracking services in a user friendly and Internet-less environment. Wherever you have a cell phone signal you can use the Keruve GPS tracking system, making it great for those in urban settings who want to track a person via GPS.

Protect Rental Properties With GPS Tracking Devices

When you own a rental property in a remote location you need to find a way to safe guard your investment, especially if you have high value furnishings on your property.  Some owners have turned to installing GPS tracking devices on high value items, such as flat screen TVs, to help reduce the number of thefts as well as to help the police track down their stolen property.

These owners, located in Sevier County, a county in Tennessee which is home to the famous Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, came up with the idea to install the GPS trackers after a rash of break-ins swept the county.  One owner reported having over 5% of all his holding broken into over a two or three month period.  Another described having to deal with a break-in every two to three weeks.  The object of these burglaries were flat screen TVs and plasma TVs that were put inside these vacation rentals for use by guests.  Unfortunately, the criminal element realized this and capitalized on the secluded nature of these properties to make off with thousands of dollars worth of merchandise from many cabins scattered across the mountainous terrain.

The problem simply does not end with a stolen TV.  In order to get inside the rental the thief must do considerable damage to the property by busting a window or damaging a door.  This can cost owners $100s or even $1000s in damages – and that is on top of the money that needs to be spent to replace the stolen TV!

There is a relatively low cost solution to these problems: install a real time GPS tracking device onto the items likely to be stolen.  This will help you recover stolen property, reduce the number of thefts on your property, and help you reduce your insurance rates depending on your insurance provider.

GPS Tracking Devices For Theft Recovery

Theft recovery is a well established use of GPS tracking devices.  For this type of tracking you are going to want a device that is going to be able to transmit the coordinates in real time when asked to.  You are not going to want a device that tracks on a continuous basis.  The reason for this is that this type of real time GPS tracking device is going to run out of batteries very quickly and need to have them replaced on a regular basis.  This is fine if you only have 4 or five properties that are all right next to each other, but when you have a 100 or more properties that are spread out over a significant amount of space it would become a  full time job just to make sure all the trackers had enough battery power.

Instead, you are going to want to get a device that only becomes “active” once it is moved.  There are many different models that have this feature so you should have plenty to choose from.  Once the device has been activated it will alert you to its movements and will either send you periodic updates on its position or it will allow you to send the device SMS messages asking for a new position to be sent to your mobile phone.  Once you are certain your device is on the move you can then send the information along to the police who can then arrest the individual and put them being bars.

The following video is a news story that is featured in our GPS tracking videos section that highlights how these devices can be used:

GPS Tracking Devices For Criminal Elimination

The thing about installing a tracker is that you not only recover your stolen property but you also catch a criminal and put them behind bars.  Theoretically, this will lead to a reduction in the number of crimes since the number of people actually engaging in this illegal activity are going to be unable to do it from behind bars.  There is a similar phenomena in GPS tracking bait cars used by police where some cities have seen dramatic reductions in the number of car thefts as the bait cars have seriously cut into the criminal element in the cities.

In addition to eliminating know criminals, it also creates a atmosphere where this type of theft is discouraged.  Remote cabins seem like the perfect place to perform thefts, but when the whole area knows that cabin owners employ remote GPS trackers then they will think twice about doing something stupid on your property.  This means that GPS tracking units promote less crime now and less crime in the future – a win-win-win for the community, law enforcement, and you.

GPS Tracking Devices For Reduced Insurance Premiums

Insurers like to be safe.  If they think that ensuring your property is risky they will end up charging you more for your insurance then you probably want them to.  Also, having regular break ins will also increase your premium, costing you thousands over the course of your policy.  A good way to combat this increased cost is to start using real time tracking devices.  As was mentioned above, this will help reduce the number of break ins and will and help you recover your property which will help keep premiums low. But you also might be able to get a discount with your insurer if they know that you are using a GPS tracking device in your rental property.  Saving money is always great, so why not ask?

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Protecting your rental properties with GPS tracking devices makes a lot of sense for individuals or companies that are in a region that has a particularly high break in rate.  These devices are becoming increasingly available and are fairly inexpensive for those that are just looking for a real time tracking device that will become “active” upon movement.

GPS Navigation For Cyclists With The iPhone

Wild and crazy Zeptotools has come up with an ingenious way to incorporate an iPhone’s GPS navigation application and an HMD display with the act of riding a bicycle, creating the first cell phone based bicycle navigation system that I am aware of.   They call this system ARider.

While there are many, many detractors of this system – the folks over at Zeptotools do deserve some credit for putting together a prototype of their idea even if it doesn’t prove to be commercially viable.  One has to admit that what they have done in combining these technologies together is just plain cool and that the world of cell phone navigation, GPS tracking applications, and the iPhone will never be the same.

Zeptotools is an iPhone app developer who has created some very slick, very interesting applications. There current applications include ZeptoPad, ZeptoLiner, IRCon, iShodo, BullCam, Quick Pigeon, and Montblanc Pen. The short video to the right gives a really good impression with the type of stuff that these guys are putting out. Everything about it, the music, the cinematography, and even the way the people are dressed gives you all you need to know to understand what these guys are about. Cool stuff. Chic. Web 2.0. Etc.

ARider does not stray from this feel.  While still in the prototype phase, the design is sleek and appealing.  And even though they use Scotch tape to attach the HMD to the bike helmet it still looks really cool.  Here is a video of the GPS system in action to give a little flavor of what this device actually looks like.  It was put together by the folks at Zeptotools so you know it is going to have a cool music score (which it does).  So here it is:

Pretty cool if you ask me. A working prototype for cycling GPS navigation.

The Detractors

With anything so visionary you are going to get people who want to hate on it. The ARider GPS navigation system is no different. Just take a look at some of these comments about this revolutionary GPS tracking mapping device:

Putting your expensive smart phone on top of your bike helmet seems like a good way to destroy it and possibly yourself too, if you get into an accident, which is in turn made more likely by adding distracting displays to your field of view.

And this one:

Dangerous to your expensive iPhone and useless. The only way this would be slightly useful is if you were in a new, unfamiliar city. Urban cyclists, after a year or so of riding, don’t need a map to tell them how to get around their city. In fact, most of the pertinent information to cycling isn’t on any map, let alone Google. Isn’t cycling wonderful because of the freedom? Why would we want to make it more car-like and stick a HMD in front of us?

And another:

As a cyclist, I must say this is a great way to get badly injured while cycling. It’s bad enough to text while driving, but to be distracted on a bike is insanity.

This pretty much sums up the voices of dissent who are too short sighted to see just how cool this thing is. As a regular bike commuter I think that this devices is incredibly cool and could be extremely useful for a whole host of applications, not just GPS navigation related.

ARider and GPS Tracking

One of the coolest things about this application is that it offers an augmented reality.  Apache helicopter pilots experience the same sort of thing when they pilot their helicopter.  The main machine gun mounted on the underside of the helicopter is controlled by the turning of the head of the gunner.  His vision is completely augmented by his helmet and it does take a lot of training to get used to the effect that this has one’s vision.  But that doesn’t mean that this is bad.

For example, not military personnel say, “That sure seems like a good way to crash a multi-million dollar helicopter and waste all the man hours we spent training that pilot.”  That is just silly.  The fact is that augmented reality is powerful and useful tool for incorporating electronic inputs into our realm of experience.

Bionic Eye GPS TrackingI can imagine something like this but use it in relation to people.  Bionic Eye, an iPhone app, already augments reality with business locations.  What would prevent someone creating an application that works together with a GPS tracking application that will give you an idea of where actual people are in your field of vision?  Now that would be fun, useful, and interesting to use.

You could always know where friends and family are at any given moment with the aid of GPS and an augmented reality.  All you would have to do is look in their general direction and you could get a really cool visual of exactly where they are in relation to you just the photo to the right suggests.

The applications for this technology would be robust.  How easy would it be to keep your kids safe in a theme park if you could get a visual idea of how far away they were at any given moment?  You wouldn’t panic if your child gets lost in a crowd or is briefly separated from you.  All you would need to do is use your GPS tracking augmented reality to come up with an idea of where they are at.

The same is true for Alzheimer suffers, teen drivers, spouses, friends, important assets, and the list goes on and on.

So I think that the work by the folks at Zeptotools is really, really cool and could impact not only the world of GPS navigation for cyclists, but also impact how people begin to interact with their position in a way that is currently only being utilized by the military.  Once GPS tracking augmented reality feasible in the day to day of life I think that it will catch on like wildfire and change the face of GPS tracking forever.

Zeptotools: http://zeptotools.com/

GPS Tracking For Real Estate Agents and Prospective Home Buyers

If you are prospective home buyer or a real estate agent who wants to get on the fly, real time house price data then you might want to check out Smarter Agent, a GPS tracking application for real estate prices on your cell phone.  There are several products that Smarter Agent offers that couples the power of GPS position data with the public record information that would be very useful for home buyers and real estate agents alike.  It appears that the application has both free and paid components, letting you give the service a shot before you upgrade to one of the different paid services.

Free Real Estate GPS Tracking Services

From what I can tell from the website and my own playing around, you can get the Homes For Sale cell phone application for free from their website.  This software will turn your GPS-enabled cell phone into a powerful home finding tool.  All you need to do is install the software onto your phone and then take it with you to the neighborhood that you would like to buy a home in. With just the press of a single button you will have a map display of your location and the location of the 10 nearest homes for sale around you.  Users can zoom the map in or zoom the map out so they can get a tighter or wider view of the listing and surrounding area.  If you want to see more information about the home then just scroll to and take a look.

If you would prefer to see things as a list, this free GPS cell phone application lets you you do just that.  It lets you see the top 10 properties that are the closest to the exact location where you are standing according to the cell’s GPS tracking chip.  The list view allows you to view property details, plot results on a map, save your search, or expand it to see additional properties in your vicinity. There is even the ability to save your search if you thought that the listings were particularly important to your home search.

Smarter Agent’s Homes For Sale also displays some detailed information about each listing if you want to give that a look.  You can see such things at the house’s address, the sale price, the number of beds and bathrooms, the square footage of the home, the estimated mortgage given certain parameters like interest rate and down payment, and the taxes that the home owner pays when that information is available.  This information can be huge for those that are just getting acquainted with an area and want find out where some of the houses for sale are located.

In all, this is a great way for people looking for a solid GPS real estate application to get their feet wet for free.

Paid Real Estate GPS Tracking Services

The main reason that Smarter Agent is offering their Homes for Sale application for free is that they are hoping that people will buy their premium product, Recently Sold Homes. For $4.99 a month you can have access to information about the closest homes sold within the last three years.  The information available from this GPS application includes the last sold price for homes nearby, the last sold date, and the square footage of the home sold.  As you can imagine, this can be very helpful information for getting an understanding of how competitively prices some of the current homes for sale are.

While this information is not going to be incredibly precise, it is still helpful for those that are new to a region to get an idea of what is going on in a region’s real estate market.  If you are just starting out with a real estate search then you might want to consider getting your GPS tracking cell phone out and installing Homes For Sale.  If you like the way it works and are particularly interested in homes in a certain area then you might want to buy the Recently Sold Homes application as well.  The $4.99 might save you some considerable time in your searches.

Compatible Sprint GPS Cell Phones

Homes for Sale is available on the following Sprint mobile phones:

  • Blackberry Curve 8300
  • Blackberry 8800 World Phone
  • Blackberry Pearl
  • Blackberry Tour
  • LG 535
  • LG LX 550 Fusic
  • LG LX570 Muziq
  • LG lx400
  • LG Lotus
  • LG Rumor
  • Motorola KRZR K1m
  • Motorola RAZR V3m
  • Motorola SLVR L7c
  • Motorola RAZR2 V9m
  • Palm Pre
  • Samsung A900
  • Samsung A920
  • Samsung M500
  • Sanyo Pro200
  • Samsung M610
  • Samsung M620 UPSTAGE
  • Samsung A727
  • Samsung M520
  • Samsung Instinct
  • Samsung Rant
  • Samsung S30
  • Sanyo 6600 Katana
  • Sanyo 7400
  • Sanyo 7500
  • Sanyo 6650 Katana 2
  • Sanyo 8500 Katana DLX
  • Sanyo 8300
  • Sanyo 8400
  • Sanyo M1
  • Sanyo 7050
  • Sanyo Pro700

Compatible AT&T GPS Cell Phones

Homes for Sale is available on the following Sprint mobile phones:

  • Apple iPhone
  • Blackberry 8100 Pearl
  • Blackberry 8300 Curve
  • Blackberry 8800 World Phone
  • Blackberry 9000 Bold
  • Blackberry Pearl
  • LG CU400
  • LG CU500
  • LG CU575 Trax
  • LG CU515
  • LG CU720 Shine
  • Motorola KRZR
  • Motorola SLVR L6
  • Motorola SLVR L7
  • Motorola RAZR V3
  • Motorola v365
  • Motorola RAZR2 V9
  • Motorola V3xx
  • Nokia 6085
  • Nokia 6555
  • Samsung A437
  • Samsung A707
  • Samsung A717
  • Samsung D407
  • Sony w300i
  • Sony w580i
  • Sony w810i

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GPS tracking is becoming more and more important for cell phone users as more and more applications are becoming available that allow users interact with the world around them in such a way that they get what they want, when they want it, and where they want to get it.  We are becoming a mobile society, GPS and cell phone technology are giving use everything we could every want when it comes to have relevant, location-based information in real time.

Subprime Lenders Get a GPS Tracking Solution Just For Them

Owners of  Buy Here Pay Here (BHPH) car business have a new weapon to lower skips and repossession.  It is a new GPS tracking device from Proconn and it is called The CUBE.  The new, credit card sized tracker is available through Proconn’s subprime automotive finance brand GoldStar GPS.

This technology could not be making it onto the market at a better time, consider the economic climate we are in and this quote from a business owner in the industry, ” … BHPH used car dealers [are] closing their doors all around me….”  Business all around are feeling their profit margins shrink and find themselves needing to run a much tighter ship.  GPS tracking has historically been able to provide this for all sorts of business in types of circumstances.

Why Use GPS Tracking In BHPH?

GPS tracking devices have been proven to be incredibly useful already in several similar applications. Probably the most similar use that I am aware of is in the theft recovery market. In particular, police have been very successful using GPS tracking bait cars to recover vehicles that are specifically designed to get stolen. BHPH GPS tracking works in much the same way.

But what does this doe for a BHPH car business owners? Here are a few benefits:

  • Lower the cost of repossession by saving time – If you know exactly where a vehicle in need of repossession is, you save tons of time in the search process. You can find the car in just minutes and have it towed away in no time at all.
  • Get a grip in your assets management – another major issue that some owners face is having too many cars out and not enough resources to keep track of them all. Once you reach a certain number of vehicles on the road you need some help keeping track of them all and a GPS system is just the thing the doctor ordered.
  • Increase your loan portfolio with less risk – The obvious outcome of the two reasons mentioned above is that you can increase the number of cars that you lend at a reduced risk to yourself and your bottom line. This means that the company can bring in more money, which is always a good thing.

The Cost of The CUBE and GoldStar GPS Tracking

Now the question remains, how much does all this cost? The short answer is that it depends. There is no cost mentioned anywhere on their website and a Google search did not generate any results.

This is to be expected since most business-to-business deals are negotiated. You can certainly contact GoldStar GPS for more information on their pricing structure.

GPS Tracking Features

The CUBE GPS Tracking DeviceWhat is clear on the company’s website are all the features that come with their GPS vehicle monitoring system. Here is a quick run down of some of the feature that this car recovery system sports:

  • Daily Location Report – You will automatically be given the location of the vehicle that you own at least once a day.  This is a “free” location check and will not count against the total number of locates you can make in a given month.  The information is also stored to create a vehicle history so that you can easily get an idea of where the vehicle has been while out of your possession.
  • Stop Report – Another way to get information on your vehicle is to set up stop reporting.  Once a device is no longer in motion for a specified period of time the device will send the location to you so that you can know where the vehicle is making stops.
  • trakSMS™ – This is a wonderful feature for the The CUBE GPS tracking device.  It is a way for a user to remotely control certain aspects of the vehicle’s GPS tracker.  With a simple text message from any text capable cell phone you can find out the speed, direction, and address of the unit as well as have the ability to lock or unlock the doors  and to cut the engine.  How would a person evading repossession like that!
  • Warning Buzzer – This feature lets car owners send a buzz to car users letting them know that a payment is due soon.  If payment is late, dealers can then disable the vehicle.  Fear is a great motivator to get payments in on time.
  • Real-Time Alerts and Notifications – The GoldStar GPS tracking system lets you set up custom alerts that will notify owners of when the car is on the move or whether or not the car has traveled outside one of the six owner generated GeoFences.  This is great when you think a customer may be trying to skip town with your car.
  • State-of-the-Art Mapping and Imaging – This vehicle tracking system utilizes the latest and greatest in GPS tracking software user interfaces.  You can either use Google Earth or Microsoft Virtual Earth to see the units location in a wide variety of views (road map, satellite, or hybrid).

This is a well rounded device that is relatively easy to install and incredibly powerful for business owners looking to improve their profit margins and ensure the safety of their business by keeping tabs on their assets. If you have never though about using a car GPS tracking device for your BHPH car business then now is the time.