Small GPS trackers: Anyone use them?

Looking for a GPS tracker for my car. Ideally something I can hide in the frame, or under the carpet, or deep inside the dashboard. It would be ideal if I could set a virtual fence that would notify me when the car crosses outside of it.

Any of you have experience with something like this? Cutoff switches are great, but I want to make sure I can locate my car ASAP if anything happens.

Any suggestions? Might be a good compare-and-contrast article for GRM, see which of the cheapest systems off the most bang-per-buck?

What's her name?

I've seen how this ends. Murder suicide. Jealous husband places magnetic tracker up under rear bumper of wife's car during divorce. Followes her every move makes comments to her letting her know he knows everywhere she's been. Eventually she comes to the dealership saying she thinks there's a tracker on her car. Dealership gives her the crazy eye, but takes a look over the car anyway. Finds tracker. Writes car up for only a oil change and hands the tracker off to her. Jealous husband finds his tracker isn't tracking and looses it. Kills her and himself is psycho rage.

True story. I was the tech who found the tracker. Saw her on the news the next week.

But yes, trackers are available and can easily be hidden up under a plastic bumper cover and still get signal just fine.

Verizon will sell you Hum, which does all that and more. But it plugs into obd2 so not exactly hidden

Har Har, funny guys.

Sorry to hear about that woman and her husband, you did the right thing and couldn't have known that would happen.

Back to the problem at hand: I've seen far too many project cars and race cars get stolen, from members of this forum and others. We all know how unhelpful insurance is, especially when there isn't a car to buy back from insurance to help offset the cost of a build. I really, really don't want to be in that position.

RevRico wrote: Verizon will sell you Hum, which does all that and more. But it plugs into obd2 so not exactly hidden

E30 doesn't have OBD2, so that's out. Neither does the MGA.

LoJack is pretty damn expensive

I'm curious too. There has been quite a few stolen E30's going around lately and would like to protect what I have plus other cars. This would be a good thing to know what works if it should ever happen.

Spytecgps is working fine for me.

m_walker26 wrote: Spytecgps is working fine for me.

But at $25 a month, that adds up quickly. Cost of the device + two years of service is enough to pay for LoJack forever. Still, a decent budget option that could be moved from one vehicle to another.

There are articles out there showing how to build one at home with the different microcontroller boards that are popular on the market (Arduino or whatever). You have to pay for the GSM connection, but I think you can get one that is a really low flat rate, like $3/month, and only charges you a little (like $15/month) if you actually send and receive data with it. So if you set a GPS fence with it, and never went outside the fence with the unit powered on, you would only keep paying the $3/month. I think Adafruit sells that through Ting. The base board, the GSM component, and the GPS component shouldn't be more than $100 in hardware I don't think.

PS I've never done this and I'm afraid I would be of no help pulling it off.

Trackimo may help you with that. Its small and you can hide it inside your car's dashboard.

Jamey_from_Legal wrote: There are articles out there showing how to build one at home with the different microcontroller boards that are popular on the market (Arduino or whatever). You have to pay for the GSM connection, but I think you can get one that is a really low flat rate, like $3/month, and only charges you a little (like $15/month) if you actually send and receive data with it. So if you set a GPS fence with it, and never went outside the fence with the unit powered on, you would only keep paying the $3/month. I think Adafruit sells that through Ting. The base board, the GSM component, and the GPS component shouldn't be more than $100 in hardware I don't think. PS I've never done this and I'm afraid I would be of no help pulling it off.

That sounds awesome, I'll look into that.

LoJack seems to make more sense the more I look into in. My insurance rate will go down $23/month, so in 2 years it will pay for its self.

I agree that a GPS tracker is the best antitheft solution. If you want to build one yourself, I think the best balance of easy and cheap right now is a raspi zero with a GPS receiver and cell modem attached via USB. But an old Android phone might be easier, it has everything you need already built in.

BTW, your GPS antenna won't work if there's metal between it and the sky.

mr2peak wrote:

Jamey_from_Legal wrote: There are articles out there showing how to build one at home with the different microcontroller boards that are popular on the market (Arduino or whatever). You have to pay for the GSM connection, but I think you can get one that is a really low flat rate, like $3/month, and only charges you a little (like $15/month) if you actually send and receive data with it. So if you set a GPS fence with it, and never went outside the fence with the unit powered on, you would only keep paying the $3/month. I think Adafruit sells that through Ting. The base board, the GSM component, and the GPS component shouldn't be more than $100 in hardware I don't think. PS I've never done this and I'm afraid I would be of no help pulling it off.

That sounds awesome, I'll look into that. LoJack seems to make more sense the more I look into in. My insurance rate will go down $23/month, so in 2 years it will pay for its self.

My cousin's very glad he got his. He's got muscle cars and no off-street parking. Whenever there's a construction project nearby he can pretty well count on an attempted theft. He's also had good luck with a hidden kill switch for the fuel pump.

I use an iTracker 2 for when I'm traveling with cars in the trailer. It uses 2G, which ATT had until Jan, 2017. I now have an additional cheap Sprint data account. I only use it 7-8 times a year so I pull mine out, so that may not be what you're looking for. You can put a geo fence around it, and control it with your cell phone. It starts texting you immediately when it leaves the fence. I loan it to friends, and they enjoy the peace of mind on the road. Once set up, very easy to use. It does need a non-metal view of the sky.

I have the "tile" tracker for my keys. It works pretty well in the city. I don't know about more rural areas. But a box of four is about $70 and they last about a year.

Dogdish wrote: I use an iTracker 2 for when I'm traveling with cars in the trailer. It uses 2G, which ATT had until Jan, 2017. I now have an additional cheap Sprint data account. I only use it 7-8 times a year so I pull mine out, so that may not be what you're looking for. You can put a geo fence around it, and control it with your cell phone. It starts texting you immediately when it leaves the fence. I loan it to friends, and they enjoy the peace of mind on the road. Once set up, very easy to use. It does need a non-metal view of the sky.

Non-metal view of the sky seems to be the normal requirement. Hard to get that in a car! Might be able to hide it in a bumper.

Tile doesn't have enough range at 100' to be much use unfortunately.

mr2peak wrote: Non-metal view of the sky seems to be the normal requirement. Hard to get that in a car! Might be able to hide it in a bumper. Tile doesn't have enough range at 100' to be much use unfortunately.

I should have clarified. The unit has external GPS and Cell antennas. I'm kinda lazy, so I just cable tie them to the unit. If I put the tracker in the car, that is in my metal trailer, it doesn't work well. If I hide it in the cab of the truck, it works fine. You can install those cell and GPS external antennas anywhere you want. I wanted something mobile, so I didn't permanently attach the external antennas on the truck.

I do other things to try to prevent my truck from disappearing in the first place. This is my last resort if all other systems fail. I like the unit for the peace of mind it gives me on the road. I use a layered approach.

After the car has been stolen, it's a race to find it before damage is done. I think I'd rather stop it from being stolen in the first place, which is why I'd rather go with a fuel cut off switch, hidden from sight.

Joe Gearin wrote: After the car has been stolen, it's a race to find it before damage is done. I think I'd rather stop it from being stolen in the first place, which is why I'd rather go with a fuel cut off switch, hidden from sight.

A hidden fuel cutoff is a good engine immobilization system, but it seems that at least half the times a race car is stolen, it was taken on or in a trailer...a GPS tracker is more help there.

How about [an old canoe] that's easy to hide and looks good.

I've thought of doing the same thing as a real-deal anti-theft. Inside the frame won't work if the car has a metal frame, it'll block the signal. Under a bumper or better yet the dash will work.

My idea was to use an old Android phone with a charger wired to always-on power, then use my choice of software to track the location. I'd have it connect over wifi (when parked at home, so it will check in regularly and I'll notice if it dies) plus have it send the location over SMS if given a secret command. Maybe over cell data full-time if I had the money.

Edit: Whoops zombie thread.

Have any good trackers come out in the last 2 years since this thread died ?

Or cheap Sim cards to use in them ?

In reply to californiamilleghia :

You can get a data only ProjectFi Sim card which operates on Sprint and T-Mobiles networks. No monthly fee just pay as you go data.

I doubt you'd even use a gig of data for something like this if it were properly setup. In that case it'd be under 10 bucks a month.

On our old British cars we used to run the hot lead to the ignition through a dash switch - like an unused fog light switch or something.  Unless you knew about it, you could never get the car to start.

Didn't stop some kids from the local reserve pushing an unstartable car about a mile, so the GPS locator is still a good idea.