Tag: GPS Tracking

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.

Elderly Man Saved By SPOT GPS Tracker

One elderly man is very happy that his son had his SPOT GPS tracker with him when an ATV accident on an annual hunting trip left him unconscious and bleeding from the head.  The accident, which occurred in August this year, came just two days after the unique tracking device was active by his son.

The SPOT GPS tracker is a stand alone real time GPS tracking device that works in a way different from most tracking devices.  Instead of relying upon a cellular network to get its position data out so that it can be tracked it uses commercial satellites to relay this data to interested parties.

It is also specifically designed for outdoor enthusiasts who get away from civilization and cell phone signals.  It has a specially designed 9-1-1 button that will notify local rescue authorities that you are having an emergency and that you need assistance.  You can imagine how useful this feature is for people who in need of assistance when they are miles away from civilization.

Clarence Kolcun was 8 km away from base camp when he lost control of his ATV and rolled the vehicle on top of himself. When his son, Gordon, got to the scene of the accident his father was unconscious and bleeding from the head. Unable to adequately treat his father, he woke him up and drove the 8 km back to the base camp to retrieve the SPOT GPS tracker so that he could activate the 9-1-1 feature.

Twenty minutes after the 9-1-1 button was pushed, the Kolcun family was contacted by search and rescue authorities who inquired about the details of the men using the tracking device as well as some other identifying information like the make and model of their vehicle and the color of their ATVs.

This is by and large the strongest selling point for this type of GPS tracking unit.  Being able to mobilize help in such a short time span is paramount in being able to survive an accident. Clarence was unable to move and could sense that he suffered from internal injuries.  If there was no SPOT GPS tracker then help would have arrived much later than it eventually did.

As you might expect, the emergency personnel were able to locate the injured man and his companion and they were air lifted out of the bush so that the injuries of the injured could be treated.

SPOT GPS Tracker: SOS Device

This device is absolutely fantastic as an SOS GPS tracker.  Because it does not rely on cell phone signals it is able to work in a wide variety of circumstances that would not normally be possible with conventional tracking units.  This story is just one of the many different situations where a product of this nature did save the life of hunter, hiker, climber, or camper – and it certainly won’t be the last.

While these type of devices are certainly not perfect, they do provide a level of safety for outdoor adventurers that is unparalleled by any other device out on the market.  Just take a look at the coverage that this device enjoys:

SPOT GPS Tracker Coverage Map

This means that if you are on an adventure in Australia and you find yourself lost and stranded in the Outback without water and food all you need to do is press your 9-1-1 SOS button and you are going to know that the authorities are going to be notified of your need and given your GPS coordinates sot that they can find you and provide the help that you need.

This type of GPS tracking system is certainly not cheap.  As you can see, the device itself costs around $100 – but that is not the end of the cost associated with this device.  For 1 year of basic service you are going to have to pony up another $100.  While this may seem like a lot right now, I am sure that when something catastrophic happens then it will seem like nothing!

When it comes down to it, the vast majority of people are not going to need a device like this.  Thousands upon thousands of people go out into the wilderness each year and come home without incident.  They simply do not need a GPS device that tracks their movements and alerts family members of their whereabouts.  It is superfluous for these people.

But then every year there are dozens upon dozens of individuals or groups that could definitely benefit from this type of tracking capability.  They have a very serious injury in their party and the difference between life and death can only be a matter of minutes.  It is for these people that the SPOT Satellite GPS Messenger are some important for.

Who will these people be?  If you have an elderly person in your hunting or camping party, it could be you.  Or if you have young children on your back packing trip, it could be you.  If you have a first time climber going up the mountain with you, it could be you.  If you attempting a dangerous route, it could be you.  The thing is, it could be any of us at any moment.  We just never know when a stray rock is going to slide off a mountain and strike one of our companions, or a wild animal decide to attack, or a freak weather phenomena blows away all your gear.  Anyone could need the help of a SOS GPS tracker.

That is why we need to walk with out eyes open when we make these types of trips out into the wilderness.  If we have weighed our options and decided that we don’t need the assistance of a GPS tracking device to give us the extra sense of security then we should not buy one.  But when we want that little extra comfort of knowing that help is only a button away – that is when getting a SPOT GPS tracker is the right move.

How To Use GPS Car Tracking Systems

There are many different uses for GPS car tracking systems.  How you decide to use this technology and for what purpose is almost entirely case specific.  There are some things about this technology that do transcend your particular use of it, namely, that the device is going to be using the Global Positioning System to determine its location through the process of trilateration and that the device will either store this data locally (a data logger) or will send this data to a third party (a real time GPS tracker).  Once this data is ready to be processed, users will then interact with their GPS coordinates through a map interface that is going to resemble the ever popular Google Maps.

Each tracking company is going to provide certain features or UI bells and whistles that might appeal to certain submarkets of individuals looking to use a GPS car tracking system.  For example, a tracking system designed to monitor teen drivers is going to differ from a system designed as a theft recovery system even though the same fundamental process is going on in the actual GPS tracking device and in the GPS software behind the scenes.  But because the information that end users want is going to be different the different companies generally tailor their products for certain purposes.

What follows is a listing of some of the more common areas where a person may want to use a car tracking system, with each area having a few tips on how to best make use of GPS tracking to get the most out of the system.

Track a Teen Driver

When it comes to driving, one of the most important things for a parent with a teen driver to do is to make sure that they are correctly and safely operating the vehicle.  You often spend hours with your teen showing them how to drive properly, how to obey the speed limit, how to make safe lane changes, and how to maneuver the various hazards that driving throws at you.  Your efforts are painstaking and appear to produce a lot of results.

Little do you know, however, that once your teen is out driving alone or with their group of friends they turn into an entirely different driver.  They are reckless, risk takers who live in the moment without thinking about the potential consequences of their actions.  They get a little hot headed and that is very dangerous.

GPS tracking can be particularly helpful in assisting a parent both in determining their teen’s driving habits when they are not around and in monitoring their progress so they can discipline their teen’s driving appropriately.

But how can one use a GPS car tracking systems more effectively when tracking their teens?  Here are some ideas:

  • Make sure your teen is aware of the tracking device.  It won’t act as a deterrent to bad driving habits if the teen does not know that it exists.
  • Set very clear guidelines for how your teen should be driving the car as well as the rewards and punishments associated with good and bad driving.  Honest and open communication works best for teenagers and for parents, that way if you have to bring the hammer you can point to your conversations and show that you really meant what you said when you talked about the family driving rules.
  • Monitor your teen’s driving in small bits each day.  If you wait until the end of the month to look at the driving data then you will have to sift through 30 days of driving to find out if any rules have been broken.  It is much better to spend 5 minutes going over the GPS tracking software than it is to spend 3 hours at the end of the month doing it.
  • Get a real time GPS tracking device.  These are superior pieces of technology when compared to simple data loggers.  While real time trackers do generally have battery issues, this can easily be overcome by hard wiring the device to run off of the car’s power supply.  You will appreciate the ability to know where your teen is at any given moment of the day when they are using the car.

If you want to track your teen but want to do so very cheaply then you might want to consider going with a cell phone as your tracking device.  These powerful gadgets can easily be outfitted with some free GPS tracking software, making it some of the cheapest GPS tracking around.  You might not get a full fledged GPS car tracking system like you would if you went with a more commercial package – but GPS data is GPS data and you should be able to figure it out.

Monitor a Wayward Spouse

Another important use of car tracking systems is to help spouses find out the truth.  It is very sad some spouses cheat on one another (in my opinion this should never happen, but it does require a lot of explaining and now it not the place).  What makes it even worse, is that the cheating is often ongoing and done in secret – all the while the cheater is acting normal.  This can put the spouse who is being cheated on in danger of contracting various diseases in addition to being an incredible emotional and psychological blow.

As I have mentioned before, it is perfected acceptable for a spouse to track their spouse with GPS.  I don’t see it as any violation of trust and it certainly isn’t wrong.  Now you can do evil with GPS tracking, but that doesn’t mean that the actual act of tracking was wrong in an of itself.

For those that want to use GPS tracking to see if a spouse is cheating you might want to consider the follow things:

  • Get a covert vehicle tracking device.  Chances are that if you are going to be tracking a potential cheater then you want to do so in a way that will not let them know that you are tracking them.  There are plenty of small, highly portable GPS devices out on the market so you will have your pick. I would probably recommend getting a data logger since these generally let you track for much longer periods of time than a real time tracker would normally allow (weeks instead of days).
  • Be secretive. This not only goes for the GPS car tracking device you purchase, but also in how you go about installing the device, retrieving it, and monitoring your spouse’s activity. When you install the device do so at night or when the car is parked in a secluded location, like a garage. Retrieving the device should follow a similar pattern. Also, when you look at the tracking data on your GPS tracking software be sure that you hide your tracks. This will involve deleting any web browsing history that your session logged as well as the cookie that your log in created. This isn’t absolutely necessary, but is good if your spouse has a habit of checking internet histories.
  • Tell a friend about it. The last thing you want to do is keep the fact that you suspect your spouse of cheating and have installed a tracking device in their car a secret. Don’t just tell any friend, but only hold a very reliable, tight lipped friend with the information. That way you can release some of the burden from your own soul and get some input on how to go about doing things.
  • Don’t do something evil with the knowledge. Once you find out the truth on whether or not your spouse is cheating you need to make good decisions with that knowledge. If you find that they are cheating tell a close friend and get immediate help. The blow to your soul can be very grave indeed and you are going to need to do a lot of healing.  Just don’t make matters worse by doing something illegal, immoral, or dangerous to yourself.

In most instances, creating your own spouse tracking GPS is not going to be an option – so you might expect to shell out a good chunk of change to pull off this type of tracking effort. I think a safe estimate is anywhere between $150-$250 for the tracker.

Improve Fleet Performance

Another important use of GPS systems for cars is in the role of fleet tracking and management.  Since this is mostly a commercial application it is probably going to be outside the scope of most of the readers here, so suffice it to say that businesses of that employ commercial fleets of one shape or another can benefit significantly from having one of these devices employed.

Generally speaking, they offer a functionality and features that are hard to find in the consumer market and are designed to create efficiencies that most normal people are unconcerned about – like cutting down idling time, optimizing routes, and monitoring driver activity.  As such, I will keep my recommendations short and few:

  • Plan how to implement the system before you make your purchase.  If you need to talk with several different providers to see how they recommend you employ their system.
  • Roll out the plan to your employees in a non-confrontational manner.  They need to know that this system is going to improve the business, not be used to watch employees like Big Brother.
  • And finally, use common sense in how you move your workers toward an effective use of the fleet tracking system.  Not everyone is going to be gun ho about it at the beginning so make sure changes happen slowly but deliberately so that they can see the improvement first hand.

Fleet managers and business owners should really consider using car tracking systems since they have been shown to significantly increase the efficiency of fleets, reduce costs, and increase revenue.

Theft Recovery

Finally, the last category under which most GPS car tracking devices fall is theft recovery.  While it is certainly not the most common use of GPS in cars, it certainly is an effective one. Just imagine how useful it would be if you actually suffered a stolen vehicle?

You wake up and realize that your car is no longer in your driveway.  A small, sudden panic slow crescendos until your heart is beating so loud you can hardly hear yourself think.  A million thoughts scream in your mind until one voice calms them all.  “Check where your car is online.”

You race to the computer and log in to your online GPS car tracking system.  In the time it takes to boot up your computer and start using Mozilla Firefox you have an exact location for your car.  You immediately phone the police who thank you for your GPS coordinates and let you know that they are going to recover you car.

A few hours later, the police have recovered your vehicle and apprehended a suspect in relation to your car theft – all thanks to GPS car tracking.

Here are some tips to make sure that you understand how your GPS auto tracking device is going to work best for you and your theft recovery hopes:

  • Install the tracking device in a hidden location near the back of the car.  The reason I like the back of the car is that it is often not searched by thieves and might be out of range of any GPS tracking blocker that a thief might try to use.
  • Make sure that the battery is charged or is hard wired to the vehicle’s power supply.  The later option is a little more difficult if you do place your tracking device at the back of the car, so some might want to put the tracker at the front of the car anyway.
  • Use a reliable service.  Lojack is probably the biggest name out there when it comes to theft recovery systems, but there are certainly others.

A short word about home made theft recovery systems: it doesn’t seem wise to me.  There are a lot of things that could go wrong with a homemade GPS system, so making sure that you have all your ducks in a row is super important.  It is certainly possible, I just wouldn’t recommend it.

Conclusion

GPS car tracking systems are going to be the norm in a few years or in a decade or two.  This is without question the way that auto makers, cell phone companies, and personal GPS navigation device manufaturers are taking the consumer market.  As this happens we are going to see even more ways to use this new, fun, and innovative technology to make our lives better and create a more verdant future.

Government GPS Tracking Implants: The Good

The other day, we looked at all the bad that government GPS tracking implants could bring about if it were adopted by a government and used with ill intent.  But that is not the only side to the implantable GPS debate – there is also much good that these devices can do.  Today, let us consider just what good could come about.

We have already clearly established that implanted GPS tracking can be extremely evil if used will ill intent, but we have spent no time discussing all the good that can come of having a world where implantable GPS tracking is possible.  The amount of good might still not compare to the amount of evil, but it is still at least worth our consideration.  If we find that the amount of good exceed the amount of evil that can be done then we should at least consider developing this type of technology.

Some of the more interesting and useful applications of this type of tracking include:

1. Catching Criminals

One of the main functions of governments is to maintain justice and to see the that the wicked are punished for their crimes.  As things stand, there is a lot that can help criminals escape prosecution – but probably the most important element that prosecutors need to do is to link a criminal to the scene of the crime.  We have made great strides at this as a civilization through the discovery of finger printing and DNA evidence, but we have not filled up all the holes in our judicial system yet.  If we could leverage a nation wide GPS tracking system that involves implanted GPS we would have a nearly flawless crime analysis tool on our hands.

The first step would be being able to track down suspects that could have potentially been involved in a crime.  Any murder of theft is bound to leave a GPS trail for the police to follow.  If the murder was a close range shooting or stabbing then all the police would need to do is pull up all the people who where at such and such location around such and such a time.  They then could evaluate each person to see if they are likely to be a suspect.

Once they have determined some potential suspects they would just have to get the real time position of the suspect using the GPS tracking device implanted in their body.  Tracking them down would then be as easy as driving to their location.  No costly stake outs.  No mistaken identities.

Even though the cost of the system as a whole would be very great, the cost saving for the police would be pretty significant.  The amount of time that it would take to identify suspects, locate them, and bring them in for questioning could all be taken care of relatively quickly, saving thousands of man hours and millions of dollars.

The number of crimes are not limited to theft and murder.  Essentially any crime that involves a location could be tracked using this type of system.  Speeding, illegal dumping, stalking, rape, kidnapping, abduction, abuse, and a whole host of other crimes could be handled in a much more precise and useful manner with the administration of a little GPS technology.

2. Improving Emergency Responses

Another huge benefit would be the improved nature of emergency response personnel.  Imagine a 911 call coming in from a small child, named Tim.  It is coming from 401 North Cumberland Lane and Tim has indicated that his mommy is laying on the floor and won’t get up and that there is a lot of smoke in the house.  Immediately, fire fighters and paramedics can be dispatched to the scene.  As they go their computers light up with information that there are 2 people in at the house.  They get a Google Map-like  satellite image of the house with small indicators as to the GPS location of each of the people inside.  They also get an elevation reading that lets them know if the people are in a downstairs or upstairs area of the home.

Armed with this information they arrive on the scene and are able to quickly enter the home and target the areas where the GPS indicated there were people in house.  A rescue is quickly achieved and the fire fighting begins in earnest.  If there was no GPS tracking implant in each of the residents the fire fighters would have to have done a thorough room by room search to make sure that there was no one else in the home – putting them at risk and increasing the amount of time that it might take to put ou the fire.

Medical emergencies would also be much easier to respond to if the paramedics had the GPS coordinates of the patient.  This is especially true when the patient is in a remote area or where there are a lot of people that might impair the paramedics vision.  Also, in transit to the patient the paramedics would have laser like instructions on how to get there and would not loose any time to wrong directions.

3. Improving Military Operations

In a military setting, troops would always know where friends are at all times and could avoid the costly and demoralizing “friendly fire” that has plagued soldiers in all modern wars.  While making use of the implantable tracking devices would require an integration of personal combat computers for each and every soldier, it is not unreasonable to assume that by the time we develop the technology to implant GPS devices in our bodies we will also have the ability to give each soldier their own combat computer.

This could translate the GPS data into helpful instructions that would give each soldier the ability to make lightning quick choices about whether their target is a friend or a foe in the most tense of situations.  It would also allow military commander to know exactly where their soldiers are at any given moment.  Captured soldiers could also be easily tracked, revealing the source of enemy prisons and detention centers.  Rescue attempts would be much easier to pull off and no men would ever be left behind.

4. Assist In Urban Planning

One of the key benefits of universal GPS tracking implants that are monitored and use by the government is that it would allow them to do a lot of civic planning and development.  They could analyze population densities and come up with plans to aid in the flow of individuals for work and for leisure.  An example of this might be a growing suburb of a massive metropolitan area.  After some analysis of the GPS data they find that the majority of people in this area use a major highway in order to head south into the city for work and for play.  They also realize that the other suburbs north also do the same thing, so there is a massive flight from the suburbs out into the city.  This causes a lot of traffic congestion and leads to a lot of pollution and stress.

The government could then step in and do one of a variety of things to solve the problem.  They could try and entice some business to relocate to a friendlier location for their employees.  A move north along the highway corridor would help reduce the overall south bound traffic and ease some of the congestion.  The government could increase the size of the highway corridor to improve speeds and accommodate more commuters.  They could improve the public transportation system to encourage more commuters to make use of this environmentally friendly, cheap, and efficient mode of transportation.

Information like this could also be used to make development decisions. If a particular region does not have the infrastructure to move ahead with a planned development project than the government can step in and intervene.  This will have a limiting affect on some types of growth, but overall I think that it would make cities better run, safer, and more “citizen friendly.”

Finally, governments could make better use of their land if they could know how it was being used by citizens.  If a park never was used or a library never frequented then governments could make the tough decisions to close these centers or to re-purpose them for a more efficient use.  In the end, I think that this would end up saving tax payers a lot of money and would make the government provide the services that the citizens need and want.

5. Increase Business and Governmental Accountability

Another important benefit of a nation-wide GPS tracking implant system is the increased accountability of business and government organizations.  For example, a government inspector is supposed to go around and inspect elevators on all the building in New York City.  Right now, there is very little accountability to make sure that they do that other than the people taking them at their word that such and such was done.  Another example might be a police officer who is tasked with patroling a particularly dangerous part of town, how are we to know he has been faithful to his duty and not just parked at a donut shop all evening?

If you introduce a GPS tracking system to the equation you come to see that there is little that these employees and government agencies can hide from the public (if the information is made publically available, which it would be under the Freedom of Information act).  They are held accountable for their actions.

Private corporations would be the same.  Imagine that some nasty industrial waste begins to show up in a natural preserve somewhere in the West.  How will the dumping party be held responsible?  Just go to the GPS tracking log and check out all the people that have gone to that area and find out what their speed was as they traveled there to tell who drove a car, who walked, etc.  Once you have that list you can interview each individual if there is more than one suspect or you could cross reference names on this list with others from a company payroll.  Either way, you will find out who did the dumping and the person they dumped for in no time at all.

How Will Our Future Look?

I don’t know about you, but I think that the future of GPS tracking implants is a little in the dark.  While this list of benefits is useful and good for society at large I just don’t think that it currently outweights the gross injustices that a government could perpetrate with this type of tracking system in place.  Citizens would have no privacy and absolutely no expectation that they would have any.  I could imagine a whole subclass of people that spurn the trackers and that are forced to live underground or in remote regions of the country in an attempt to evade the all seeing eyes of the government.

But this does not mean that all GPS implants should be avoided.  There might be a strong argument for personal GPS tracking implants, but perhaps we will visit that topic another day.

Government GPS Tracking Implants: The Bad and The Ugly

One of the most feared and most useful futures of GPS tracking technology is almost certainly implantable GPS tracking chips. We have all seen the bleak futures where citizens are under the constant supervision of some totalitarian government whose sole purpose seems to be to torment them.  It is a well established film genre that has deep roots in the cold war psyche of the Western world.  The world of Orwells’ 1984 would have been twice as bad if they could have had a GPS chip in each of the citizens in this dystopia.  One thing is clear, given just a few moments of reflection almost anyone can think of the mountains of evil that such a system could potentially generate.

But what about all the good that this system could accomplish, do we ever think about that?  We have been trained by our culture to overlook the potentially massive benefits that would also accompany such a system because of the possibility of abuse.  As a result, our fears could be causing us to throw the baby out with the bath water.

Is the development of GPS tracking implants something that we should consider doing?  Do the potential dangers out weight the potential benefits?

The Evil of GPS Tracking Implants

The number of evils that could be accomplished with this type of information is obvious and extensive.  I would generally think of classifying the issues in terms of two main ways of abusing the information gathered from such a system: (1) dispatching of government opponents, and (2) using private information for profit.

1. Dispatching of Government Opponents

One of the most insidious methods that a government could use a universal GPS tracking system would be to kill their citizens that opposed their regime.  Since they would know the exact location of everyone of their citizens it would be simple enough for them to dispatch a death squad that would easily be able to locate anyone anywhere.  The only “safe” place for such dissidents would be underground somewhere where neither GPS nor cell phone signals could possibly find them.  This would mean that even if the government did not kill someone, they would effectively remove them from being a threat by forcing them to spend their whole life underground.

A little less insidious but just as dangerous would be the threat of constant arrest.  If you  were to voice some concern about the government they could find all sorts of ways to get you into jail by using the information gather from your implanted GPS tracking chip.  They might arrest you outright, picking you up on the street as you make your way to the supermarket to buy some milk.  They might even rig a trial to get you arrested for a crime you didn’t commit.  All they would need is to have you at the scene of some crime – like a murder – and use the GPS location information to tie them to the crime.

A third way that government might be able to use GPS tracking information to hurt their citizens is by making public information about their personal, private activities.  If an opponent frequents a church, or goes to a psychologist, or has met with the same woman who is not his wife for the past year and a half at a hotel the government could make this information known by leaking it to close friends, relatives, or the media.  Also, their ability to identify and exploit known vices would increase dramatically if they had a repository of all know position data on a individual.

These are just a few of the ways that governments equipped with widespread, cheap GPS tracking implants could use the information to hurt their opponents.  There are more, but for now let us turn our attention to another form of government evil, profiting from its citizens.

2.  Using Private Information For Profit

In this case of government abuse the basic sin that the government would be committing is making public private information about their citizens.  They could do this in any number of ways, but I think mentioning three would suffice to give us a feel for the wickedness that they could do.

The first is that they could sell GPS tracking information to corporations to “improve” advertising targeting.  This was the impetus behind the Palm Pre cell phone tracking software debacle and is a desire that I don’t think is going to go away anytime soon.  Just imagine how much money they could make if they could sell data to every single corporation in the world.  They could tell car companies who likes to drive fast while in the highways, who generally travels with more than one person in the car, where they go when the travel, and how often they travel.  If the government could then correlate this data with tax returns then companies would have a picture of their potential customers that would enable them to provide laser targeted advertising.

This ability would be even greater if companies could also get live position data on particular individuals that they have targeted for adverting campaigns.   They could feed you ads with the aid of real time GPS tracking.  Imagine this for a second: You are driving down a lonely stretch of highway when you come upon a billboard.  On it is the following message:

Bill, you have driving your 2074 Ford Apocalypse 209,987 miles since your last oil change – don’t you think its time to get one?

Satan’s Auto Store is off of exit 22 and charges $0.03 for an oil change when you mention this billboard!

Now that is laser targeted advertising, and it is really creepy!

Similarly, companies could also use this type of information to identify potential markets and products.  If  a coffee company called Starmonies wants to identify a new set of real estate for to put up a store they can analyze foot traffic in downtown Los Angelos to help identify the point where the most coffee drinkers walk during peek coffee consuming hours.  Or a company might take advantage of GPS tracking data to find out if they can market a certain service in an area.  Either way, the government is going to profiting for your private information.

The third way that the government could use GPS information would be to manipulate the population for means of perpetuating government.  One very common method of population manipulation that already goes on is the redrawing of district boundaries for elections.  This would become even easier as the data would be much better than census data and could potentially be correlated to voting information (hey, it could happen), tax returns, and criminal records.  In the end, no congressman or senator would ever get kicked out of office because they could always just redraw the boundary until they have a plurality of votes.

Now That Is Wicked!

There is no doubt that a lot of evil could be done with GPS tracking devices that are implanted inside each and every citizen in a country.  The government and private corporations would have access to insane amounts of information about people that would would make the whole system scary if it were to be misused and abused.  Dissidents, opponents, and even society’s unwanted stand to suffer countless crimes against humanity if the whims of public opinion or political power were to turn against them.

Any scientist who would develop such a system should take warning.  Human nature is deceitfully wicked and without some serious checks in place there is no telling what type of authoritarian regime would be created when GPS tracking becomes this extensive.  It is worth development if such terrible things could be done?

Next we will turn out attentio to the good GPS tracking implants could do, but until then, just sit and ponder the inexplicable wickedness of man!

Spotlight GPS Pet Tracking Device

A few years ago I had the opportunity to watch three awesome dogs for a couple weeks during the summer.  The house I got to stay at was pressed up against a canyon and the dogs would love to run back and forth between the back yard and the front yard chasing rabbits and enjoy to cooler night time air.  On one night in particular, the dogs persisted in their barking a little longer than usual.  Curious to see what was happening I walked outside to check up on the dogs.

Boxer

Like I mentioned, the family I was dog sitting for had three dogs, a Boxer, a Bichon, and a Yorkie.  The Boxer was obviously the biggest of the bunch and she was the first one that I saw, here large frame and light fur was easily spotted in the dark evening air.  The next one that I saw was the Bichon. His white coat made him easily seen despite his small stature. However, the smallest of the dogs, the Yorkie, was nowhere to be seen.  I felt my heart sink into the bottom of my stomach as I turned around and ran back into the house – something had happened to the Yorkie.

Bichon Frise

I frantically searched for a flashlight.  It was after 10PM and there was no way I was going to find that dog if I didn’t grab a light.  After finding one I ran back outside and started shining the flashlight everywhere I could think the Yorkie could be hiding.  There front yard at that time had lots of low bushes that the Yorkie loved to run and skulk in when chasing rabbits, so that was my primary search location at first. I could not find her. Then, in desperation, I shined the light into the canyon. About 100 yards away from me I saw two glowing eyes starring back at me in the sage.  The Yorkie had been taken by a coyote.

Yorkie

I began searching the perimeter of the front yard in order to see if I could find a path that the coyote might have used after taking the Yorkie. I found what I thought was one and immediately started rushing down it in the hopes that the dog was still alive. I had not idea if the coyote still had the Yorkie or if it had eaten her already or it had just left her for dead somewhere in the brush. With flashlight in hand I made it about 20 yards down the canyon slope until I saw some small, glowing eyes in the brush. It was the Yorkie, laying still and motionless in the grass.

To make this long story a little shorter, the Yorkie thankfully survived the attack and it now living a healthy life. I think she survived mainly because she had a thick dog collar on that protected her throat and neck from the crushing of the coyote’s jaws.  She has even had a puppies since the attack and is doing extremely well.

But the reason I mentioned this story here is that there is a new GPS pet tracking device out that would have really helped during this stressful and scary situation. The name of the device is Spotlight GPS.  This GPS tracking devices is designed specifically with pets in mind and offers a variety of features that make it one of the best GPS pet recovery devices on the market.

There are two main features that would have been particularly useful in my case. The first is that the device has a GeoFence feature which will send the owner a text message and/or email when the animal leaves the designated home area. As soon as the Yorkie was taken I would have been notified via a text message on my cell phone that she had gone outside the yard. I could have been outside in a matter of seconds and gotten a much better hand on the situation. While in this case it would not have matter much in questions of life and death for the dog, it could have and that is why a GeoFence feature is so critical.

Also, if you are just dealing with the more common lost or stray dog this feature is very useful. You know almost the exact moment that your dog left home so you have a pretty good idea about how far they could have gotten from home. You could be able to be on the road back to your house in no time at all so that you can find and locate your pet. Since the Spotlight GPS is also a GPS tracking device you will have accurate real time data about where your dog is right now.  This information will prove invaluable for recovering your lost pet.

The second feature that I would have loved to have that summer night is the  bright LED beacon that is visible from 100 yards away.  All I would have had to have done if the Yorkie was equipped with a Spotlight GPS was to text “spotlight on” to a certain number and the light would have turned on automatically.  The light would have served as my pet locator.  I wouldn’t have had to fumble around for a flashlight because the light would have led me straight to her, saving me precious time.

If you are interesting in buying the Spotlight GPS you should also know that the upfront price tag is not the only cost associated with this GPS locator.  They also have service plans ranging from $15 a month to $7 a month, depending on the number of “emergency events” that you want to have covered.  The plans range from 100 events per month to 25 per month.

There are certainly other useful features to the Spotlight GPS that make it a great buy. The battery last for an impressive 10 days, making it one of the longest lasting pet tracking devices on the market. It also partners with the American Kennel Club for the recovery of animals and works very well with implanted RFID pet microchips. The device is also water resistant so it can stay on outdoor animals as long as they don’t go swimming in a pool, river, or lake.

Overall, the Spotlight GPS pet tracking device is a useful addition to an animal lover’s pet safety system. It fits easily onto your pet’s already existing collar, making it a great collar GPS tracker. Those that can afford it will love the convenience and reliability of this A-GPS tracking device.

How To Find A Lost Cell Phone With GPS Tracking

I lost my cell phone. Help!

We have all been there before – our precious cell phone has suddenly gone missing and we have no idea where it is.  We do a quick check of all the places that we normally put it; it isn’t there.  We rehash every event from the time we last remember having our mobile phone to the time when we first noticed that it was missing.  Where did we go?  Who were we with?  What was I wearing?

We try calling our cell phone in the hope that the ringer is on and that it is somewhere nearby.  We pace frantically through our home and run out to the car in the hopes of hearing our awesome ringtone.

But when all of this fails us, we are simply left with worry.  All we can do is hope that some switch will flip in our brain and we will all of a sudden “remember” exactly where it is.

How can we increase the likelihood of actually finding a lost cell phone? GPS tracking!

Here’s how this technology can help:

Lost Cell Phone No GPS Tracking

  1. Have a GPS tracking app on your phone. This will either need to be already installed or you will need to install it remotely (see here for tips on remote installation).
  2. Access your phone’s location using the web. Most tracking apps have some sort of web interface through which you can access your tracking information remotely. Do this; it should tell you where your phone is.

Yes, finding a lost cell phone by using a free tracking apps is that easy. In our tests of various apps we have found that the whole process can take just a few minutes to complete, even if you don’t already have the software installed on your phone. Conditions do need to be right for this to work process to work. They include:

  1. Your cell phone must be on.
  2. Your cell phone must have a connection to your network or be connected to WiFi.
  3. Your cell phone must be able to get messages from GPS satellites.

If you fail in any one of these items you will not be able to us GPS tracking to find your mobile. Sorry.

Understanding How GPS Tracking Works For Cell Phone Recovery

If you have not already heard, GPS stands for the Global Positioning System and is a series of satellites that emit a radio signal that can be read by specialized GPS receivers. These receivers use the information encoded in the radio signals to do a little math called trilateration.  Once that equation is done, the GPS device will know its exact location on the globe. Pretty niffty, right?

GPS systems have become increasingly smaller over the years and have made their way into pretty much every single smarphone on the market.  Chances are, if you own a newer cell phone that runs Android or iOS then you have GPS in your phone.

GPS tracking occurs when the position information is gathered by the device. This information is either stored locally or sent out from the device of the network. The former process is called data logging, and is only GPS tracking of a sort.  The latter process is what most people think of when they talk about GPS tracking and is often referred to as real-time GPS tracking. If you are trying to find a lost cell phone they you are trying to use the second variety.

Once the cell phone has found its exact location using GPS (or by a very similar mathematical process using cell phone tower signals) it can send that information out over the wireless network to which it is connected. The cell phone only needs to be on.  Most tracking programs will work behind the scenes with little to no action taken by a user.

Therefore, the cell phone must be on so that it can process the signals it is receiving from the GPS satellites and talk over the cell phone network. It must have a network connection of some kind to send the information that it gathers from the satellites.  This information then travels across the network to the company that is helping you track your phone. Finally, it must be able to get messages from the GPS satellites in order to find its position in the world.  If it has no position information it will have nothing to communicate.

Finding A Good (Free) GPS Tracking App To Find Your Phone

Finding the right app for your particular brand of phone is definitely not easy.  The biggest problem is choice, especially for Android users. You might want to check with your phone’s particular app store or see one of these posts for potential apps:

  1. Our post on How To Install GPS Tracking Apps Remotely To Find A Lost Or Stolen Android Cell Phone also contains a list of all apps that can be downloaded and installed to your phone remotely that we have personally tested on our Android phones.
  2. We also have a list of applications and software that can be downloaded here: Free GPS Tracking Applications and Software
  3. We have still another list of free options out there for cell phone tracking

Also, if you feel like paying for something that you could do for yourself for free then you could always go with a one of your provider’s tracking plans. I have seen a family plan for a little as $5 a month depending on your current service agreement. While this is a nominal payment, it is ∞ more expensive than free! If you can get the same service for free, why not do it?

A Final Word: Data Plans

No matter what your final choice for an app is, you are definitely going to need to have a data plan that will allow for the transmission of data across the network.  Most people already have one anyway (you own a smartphone, after all).  Those that do not have a data plan are often not worried about losing a phone that only costs $40 to replace!

Data plans are important because your cell phone will have to send the information about its position across the network if you want to track the phone in real time. You can’t find your lost cell phone without your cell phone telling you where it is. It can’t do that if it doesn’t have any way to send its coordinates out over a wireless network.

I would even recommend getting a pretty robust data plan because of all the fun and interesting apps that it will let you experiment with. For example, cell phones are great for a variety of fitness activities A lot of people take their phone with them anyway when they run for safety purposes, listen to music, or make phone calls.  Why not also use it to track your runs? There a ton of apps out there that track distance, average speed and time spent running.  Most even use websites that let you share workouts with friends or stay accountable to an online community. (Check out review of Endomondo for just one app in this market.)

This is just one additional application.  There are many more, from social apps to navigation apps, that can leverage the power of GPS to make life easier, more interesting or just plain fun.

Related articles:

How To Use GPS Real Time Tracking Effectively

Here is a quick little story ripped from the headlines about the effective use of GPS real time tracking:

According to reports coming out of Boston, police recently made use of GPS real time tracking system to seize 360 pounds of marijuana and to make 3 arrests.

Upon executing a search warrant at a certain location, the police found a crate containing the illegal substance. After a brief field test that verified the contents of the crate, they were then able to get a second search warrant that allowed them to place a special GPS real time tracking device that allowed them to follow the crate to a new location.

The three suspects in the case were also observed trying to move the crate by loading it into a van. It was at this time that DEA agents made a move and captured them.

According to DEA estimates, the 360 pounds of marijuana would have had a street value of around $700,000.

There are a few different interesting aspects of this example that I thought were worthy of note. The first is that the police obtained a warrant to install the real time tracking device inside the crate. We have seen in two different cases where the use of GPS tracking has come under direct attack in the court system. Earlier this year, a Wisconsin court ruled that warrantless GPS tracking is legal. Then a few months later, a New York court ruled that warrantedless GPS tracking is illegal. It is no wonder that the police in this case wanted to play it safe and get a warrant before installing any GPS device.

It is also rather interesting the speed with which the police were able to get a warrant. I don’t have a time line sitting in front of me, but it sure sounds like the police were able to get what they needed in just an hour or so after discovering the illegal drugs. That is pretty fast, but is probably related to the fact that they verified that the substance in question was actually something that is illegal to posses.

The second important thing is the the police actually chose a GPS real time tracking system for this particular situation. When you want to track something that you want to take action on, like a fleet vehicle or a teen driver or a distressed spouse, then you need to have some real time information in order to take action on. Sometimes data logging GPS trackers will simply not cut it and you need something that is going to give you on demand information. The police realized this in this situation and choose an appropriate tracker. Are you doing the same for your tracking needs?

The third and final interesting thing is that the police let the criminals engage in enough activity to sufficiently incriminate themselves before swooping in for the arrest. If you are being tracked by the police with GPS then the last thing in the world you should be doing is committing a crime, but because the police were covert about they were able to install the device and catch the criminals read handed. This is important for those of use who will want to do some covert GPS vehicle tracking ourselves. Are we being wise about our device placement? Are we making sure we are in a position to take action on our real time data?

It can be a very fruitful exercise to examine the effective use of GPS tracking devices. It will help our minds better understand all of the useful applications of the great technology and examine our own practices. When we examine how we make use of GPS technology against these real life examples we are better able to see our own shortcomings and see areas for improvement. If we are using GPS real time tracking, do you think you can see any ways to improve your own use of this powerful technology?

Track Your Spouse With GPS

This is a pretty touchy topic in the world of GPS tracking. Some people think that tracking your spouse is the worst thing that you could ever do in your entire life. Others think that it is a fine thing to do given certain permissions from all parties involved. Still others feel like any form of tracking, even covert GPS tracking, is acceptable because of the agreement made by the couple in the covenant of marriage.* Our feelings about spouse GPS tracking are as varied as just about anything can be.

* Perhaps this should be added to the marriage vows: “.. in GPS tracking and out of GPS tracking …” What do you think?

Personally, I am somewhere between allowing covert GPS tracking and permission based tracking. The way I look at it is like this: When a couple gets married they are making a solemn vow to each other to be there for the other. They are committing to be together with their spouse until they die, no matter what types of circumstances come their way. We say “for richer or for poorer” and “in sick and in health” among many other vows and promises. What we do in this is make declarations that I will be married to you and provide for you and protect you no matter what comes our way – whether poverty or riches, sicknesses or good health. Marriage is for a lifetime.

As such, there is a great degree of responsibility between spouses to be faithful and serious about their marriage relationship. You should try and make things work as best as you possibly can. All of your effort should be on working with your husband or wife on growing deeper in love and in building your trust and respect for each other. You should work tirelessly on making the other happy.

But there are some instances where husbands and wives violate the bond of marriage by being unfaithful to their spouse. They hide the unfaithfulness and keep it a secret from their spouse. This is to be expected, but I think it is the right of the cheated upon to find out the truth. In such cases I think that GPS tracking is completely within the rights of the spouse who is being cheated on in order to find out the truth about their spouse’s activities. It should not be used to stalk, or hunt, or harass. Only to find out the truth.

With that said, I also think that spouses should be up front about this type of thing with each other. Going into marriage they should make an agreement with one another that if ever the other in the relationship expects some form of infidelity then they have the right to do some covert GPS tracking.

In most normal circumstances I do think that most couples should adhere to the “mutually agreed upon” principle of spouse GPS tracking. This just makes a lot of sense to me and my understanding of how marriage should operate. Aside from suspected cheating, a spouse should never track their other just because they want to. This would be a violation of trust and the promises made to the other at the altar.

With all that said, there are a lot of cool things that couples can do if they decide to use GPS tracking together. Here is just a smattering:

Create An Environment of Safety
When you are separated from your spouse, GPS tracking is a great way to stay connected and help them feel safe. If they know where you are at any given moment they can provide a lot of support for you. If you get attacked, they can come to your assistance. If you get injured, they can find you without having to call you and have you give them directions. Also, if a natural disaster were to separate you from each other all you would need to do would be to check on their location via the GPS tracker that you have on them and you can find out exactly where they are and be reunited with them. GPS makes a ton of situations easier to cope with.

Be Able To Give Great Directions and Assistance
One situation that often occurs is getting lost. We find our self in a new place and our bearings get a little off. All of a sudden we find that we are in a neighbor we have never seen and don’t know how to get out. It might be late at night and we may be feeling our heart rate rise as we drive around looking for some type of help. Instead of having to spend hours working out of this situation all we need to do is call our spouse. They can find out our exact GPS location and plug that into a mapping software like GoogleMaps. They then could give us turn by turn directions on our way home and out of our scary predicament.

Wouldn’t that be neat?

Get Fit Together
One of the most common things that spouses try and do together is get fit. GPS tracking can help spouses keep each other accountable even if they don’t have a schedule that lets them workout together. Just do your daily run, hike, or bike with your GPS tracking device and some free GPS fitness software and you can have a detailed log of your spouses fitness activity. If you go all out and buy a device like a GPS running watch it will let you even share your workouts between devices. If you want to keep pace with each other and you own a GPS watch like the Garmin Forerunner 405 then you can use the virtual partner feature on this device and even “race” against your spouse’s recorded time!

Spouse GPS Tracking Devices

Probably the best way for spouses to track each other with GPS is through the cell phone. There are dozens of free cell phone tracking applications out on the market that will make your tracking very cheap if not entirely free. While these cell phone programs do require a GPS enabled cell phone and a pretty big data plan if you want to have continuous real time tracking, they do provide stellar results given the price for the software (free!). If you don’t already have a GPS cell phone and you don’t have a data plan, it is still probably the cheapest form of GPS tracking out there right now. You can see our list of free GPS tracking software and cell phone applications for more information and phone compatibility.

If you don’t want to go with a cell phone to track your spouse with GPS there are stand alone device that you can use, but these are often much more expensive and simply not as useful as a cell phone. They might be necessary if you want to do covert GPS tracking on your spouse, but most people aren’t going to need to tracking their spouses in this way.

GPS Car Tracking Device’s Effectiveness Highlighted By Musician And His Lost Violin

What would you do if you lost something worth approximate $500,000 (£300,000) in a taxi cab? Well, a GPS car tracking device helped reunite one musician who lost his concert violin in a taxi cab that brought him home late one night after a long day of practice for his New York city debut. Tired and barely awake from his strenuous day of practice, the young violinists careless left the cab without grabbing his violin. Shocked and in a panic about the loss, he quickly realized his mistake and immediately called the police. The police were then able to contact the taxi cab service that brought the musician home and access the GPS car tracking log of the taxi that that brought the musician home. Thank God for technology and honest taxi drivers!

Here is a quick video of the musician, Hahn-Bin, telling his story on the Early Show. GPS tracking isn’t mentioned in the video, but it helps you get the gist of what went down.

This little episode really helps us understand some of the overall benefits that we can experience when we begin using GPS car tracking in a much larger scale. These benefits include:

Better customer service from service fleets.  GPS fleet tracking is often seen solely as something that will help companies better manage their own fleets and be more efficient in their routing capabilities.  It is no doubt that taxi cabs benefit a great deal from this ability to route the closest taxi to a call on the fly – it ensures that the company saves the most money on gas and can make more service calls, both of which will end up increasing the company’s revenue.

But what is often overlooked by many who want to use  fleet tracking is that it will also help them be better at serving their customers.  Would this taxi company have been able to track down the violin in less than 12 hours if they had not had real time car tracking devices installed in their cabs?  I doubt it.  It would have taken them forever to find the taxi that drove Hahn-Bin to his apartment because they would have had to rely on traditional method of finding the cab rather than on GPS tracking technology.  Hahn-Bin would have had to go down to the local police precinct and looked through a bunch of taxi driver photos and even then he might not have recognized his driver.

With GPS tracking this was all taken care of because all the cab company had to do was plug the pick up coordinates and the drop of coordinates into their GPS tracking software and the would have had the cab ID number of the car in question. Then all they had to do was get a hold of the cabbie and get the violin back into the hands of Hahn-Bin. Now that is great customer service brought about by GPS fleet tracking.

More accurate and effective law enforcement assistance. Another thing that this episode highlights is how much more effective the police can be when they have GPS assistance. Sure, it can also be a little scary when you start giving a government entity information like your GPS coordinates, but it can also be extremely helpful if those people are actually seeking your good and not your harm.

In this case, the police were able to respond in a very timely manner thanks to the GPS tracking device for cars installed in the taxi cab. Just imagine what type of good they could do if they also had the GPS coordinates of every one in a given city? They would be able to find out all the people who were in a 1 mile radius of a murder or other violent crime, helping them track down witnesses and gather information on suspects in the case. While information like this could also be used for evil and it is probably decades before such technology would even be possible, it sure would be a great way to reduce crime or at the very least punish criminals faster.

Increased honesty.  If people know that you can be very certain whether or not they are lying they will generally be much more truthful with you. When you have a GPS tracking device for a car installed in your personal vehicle you are probably going to be much more honest with someone when they ask you where you have been driving. When there is a high level of verifiability there is also a high level of honesty.

This is one reason why covert GPS vehicle tracking can be a mixed bag. Sometime it is necessary to help us understand what someone (maybe a spouse or a rebellious teen) is doings, but other times we would just rather have them stop being self destructive and be honest with us. I foresee that as GPS tracking become more prevalent in GPS cell phones and other portable GPS devices we will also see an increase in the level of honest that we have with other people in our lives. This honest is will make the whole world a better place.

These are just a few of the types of benefits that we can see when GPS car tracking devices begin to become even more prevalent in society.  Sure, there is still a long way to go, but this example of the returned violin is a very promising story if we are to develop into a society where GPS tracking is used for the greater good rather than as a tool in the hands of evil. We still have a long way to go before we can say that GPS tracking is safe, but I think that one day soon we just might be there.

How To Evaluate a GPS Tracking Device

There is a sea of choices when it comes to GPS tracking devices today.  You have a wide range of tracking manufacturers to choose from as well as a great many providers to sift through in your search for the tracking system that is best going to fit your particular needs. This task can seem a little daunting to someone just starting out in the world of GPS powered tracking, but if you let a few controlling principles guide you in your decisions then you should be able to easily navigate this sea until you have found port with GPS tracking system that works out best for you and your needs.

One of the main problems that people suffer from is an abundance of choice. While we think we like to keep our options open, the human mind can only filter and process so much information at any given time. If we simply stare at the 20-50 different GPS tracking devices that exist on the market then we are going to get nowhere fast. We will despair of finding a device and either choose a suboptimal tracker or not even make a purchase all together. I hope that was follows is a series of useful filters through which you can sift through the many choices available to you in your quest to evaluate the GPS tracking device that is best for you:

Determine if you need real time tracking or if you are content with data logging. This is mainly going to depend on the type of tracking that you want your device to do for you and will generally be a very person specific question. Some applications just do better with a real time tracker while others do just fine with a data logger. I like to think of it this way, if you need to know information as it happens then you will want a real time tracking device. If you are fine with figuring out where something has been after the fact, then a data logger is going to meet your needs just fine. Fortunately, there are personal GPS tracking devices that fall into both camps. It is also often the case that a tracking provider will provide both data logging and real time devices for their customers to purchase.

Choose a tracking device with the appropriate battery life.  After deciding which style of tracker you are purchasing it is time to begin considering the battery life of your device. As I am sure we all know, most electronic devices are limited by their power supply or battery life. If they have week batteries then it doesn’t matter how great the device is, we simply can’t use it for that long or else the battery will run out. If we had to speak in general terms, most data loggers will have a longer battery life than a real time GPS tracking device. This is mainly because real time trackers have to communicate their information via a cell phone modem which is an extra drain on the device’s power supply. Some real time trackers overcome this problem by hardwiring the device to a power supply. This is particularly common in GPS vehicle tracking devices that are used in commercial applications. While this is also possible for other uses, like tracking a teen’s car or possibly even tracking, it is most often used for fleet vehicle tracking.

Choose a a GPS tracking device that is going to be the appropriate size for your proposed tracking purpose. If you are planning on doing any sort of covert GPS vehicle tracking then you really need to think about the size of the device. Something that is small and easily attached to or hidden under your target is a top priority since covert tracking only really works as long as it goes undetected. Once the target has found the device they will be able to remove it or change their behavior, resulting in skewed results. Generally speaking, you are going to want a portable GPS tracking device. This will allow you to move it various locations as the need arises and even track multiple targets over a short period of time. If the device is not portable then will lose some of the tracking flexibility that you might be looking for.

Find out if the GPS tracking software run by your company is going to meet your needs. As you might suspect, there is a host of different GPS tracking software packages that really cater to different tracking functions. For example, a child GPS tracking device is not going to have the same user interface or software package as a GPS car tracking device. They are used for completely different purposes by different types of people. They most certainly gather their information the same way (via GPS satellites and a process called trilateration), but what they do with this information and how they present it to their customers can sometimes be radically different.

The reasons for this are pretty obvious. The information a parent might want to gather from their child GPS tracking device is going to center around the location of their child. Have they stayed within their specified GeoFence? Where were they at 3:30 PM today when they were supposed to be home from school? Did they get to soccer practice on time? These are the types of questions that a parent is going to want to know and this is the information that GPS trackign software geared for child tracking devices is going to be able to provide.

Similarly, GPS car tracking devices have their own set of metrics that need to be reported and they will have software that provides that to end users. Things like vehicle speed, lane position, and past locations are all wanted by car tracking users.  This is obviously different information than what the child tracking folks want and will therefore result in a different type of tracking software.

Even among different providers of the same type of tracking service you will get different GPS tracking software packages and features. Be sure to check out screen shots of the tracking system and see if they have a live demo for you to explore. There is nothing more important than getting a hands on feel for how the software will actually work and how you will interact with the information that your device will communicate.

Finally, consider all the costs involved with your new purchase. Real time tracking devices generally cost more up front and have a reoccurring subscription that you have to maintain if you are going to continue to use the device. This subscription generally costs just as much as a cell phone plan (around $40) if you want to have true real time tracking. Data loggers, on the other hand, do not really have any reoccurring costs and they generally are significantly cheaper than real time trackers. While they don’t have a lot of the same cool features that a real time GPS tracking device might have, they are just as accurate and just as useful for certain tracking applications.

    In the final analysis, choosing the right GPS tracking device for you is going to be very situational. What might work for one person is not going to work for another. But if you follow these simple steps and use them as a framework through which to evaluate your GPS tracking purchase you should come out on the other side with a useful tracking device that fits your particular need for that particular situation.