best theft prevention gps locators?

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Messages 1 - 12 of total 12 in this topic

nah000

climber

now/here

Topic Author's Original Post - Sep 17, 2018 - 08:01pm PT

anybody have any strong opinions/experiences with this subject?

ideally a device would be small, cheap, and with minimal monthly fees...

[been ripped off a few too many times lately, both professionally and personally and would like to throw a few locators in some choice locations... my spontaneous donations to the union of unemployed meth heads, local 666.666, are beginning to piss me off...]

anyway, two, or even three or four, bits would be appreciated.

zBrown

Ice climber

Sep 17, 2018 - 08:27pm PT

I live on the border and someone stole an old washing machine that I was going to give away.

I was kinda pissed and was going to put up a sting operation, but never did.

The devices are widely used in the trucking industry , but that's about alll I know

Review here

https://www.capterra.com/freight-software/

For pets, not cheap

Tractive GPS 3G

$75 + $5/month

https://tractive.com/us_en/pd/gps-tracker-3g?utm_medium=link&utm_source=blog&utm_campaign=Microchip_EN_GPS

Jon Beck

Trad climber

Oceanside

Sep 17, 2018 - 08:32pm PT

My brother has heavy haul trailers that they steal for the tires. He has used trackers to recover trailers before they get stripped. How about a cheap smart phone on a family plan. Friend of mine used one to figure out where his son was dealing drugs. Register the phone on your google account and get real time location

JLP

Social climber

The internet

Sep 17, 2018 - 08:37pm PT

Kind of useless w/o cellular, which means there needs to be attachment to a vehicle’s wiring or you need to recharge it every few days and the day you forget is the day it gets stolen. What are you tracking?

zBrown

Ice climber

Sep 17, 2018 - 08:53pm PT

Speaking of batteries.

Back at the end of the sixties people were advocating embedding bombs in the superstructure of new buildings with digital watch timers allowing way distant detonations.

Well, they're still with us (do not try to blow up your thieves at home)

2015 article

The Casio F-91W is more than two decades old, but it’s still a favorite with terrorists. The iconic digital watch has a reliable timer that’s perfect for setting off bombs.

https://qz.com/505187/terrorists-around-the-world-love-this-classic-casio-wristwatch/

sween345

climber

back east

Sep 18, 2018 - 06:46am PT

The Tile https://www.thetileapp.com/en-us/how-it-works could be effective for your needs.

As any good bloodhound will tell you, the sooner you're on the trail of your quarry the more likely you are to find them.

For a long term solution to theft you might consider the banking industries paint bomb. It serves the dual purpose of educating and identifying the perps.

Flip Flop

climber

Earth Planet, Universe

Sep 18, 2018 - 06:54am PT

Dewalt has a product.

JLP

Social climber

The internet

Sep 18, 2018 - 06:58am PT

I have a tile received for free as a promo - kind of useless but better than nothing. Very small and longer battery life, but uses a bluetooth signal so you’ll either have to walk by every house in the hood or rely on others using the app as well - and among all of them someone passes every house in the hood - otherwise it’s probably gone forever. Probably a lot better in the city than the country.

nah000

climber

now/here

Topic Author's Reply - Sep 18, 2018 - 06:05pm PT

good stuff...

what do i want to use these for? depends on the price and size. ie. i'd like to start with a couple vehicles, but if i could get them cheap enough [say $50 for device and first year of tracking] i'd probably throw them in a few tools, job boxes, etc as well... short answer is it's vehicles, a construction trailer, on site job boxes, and tools/gear [in that order of importance] that i'd use them for depending on ease of use, size and cost...

specifically regarding a few of the suggestions:

tractive: requires charging every 3-5 days. this is a no go, as i need at least a couple weeks charge life for it to be of use to me. a monthly recharge would be even better. everything else i saw about it looks sweet for my situation, though.

smart phone: hmmm... that's an interesting one. i'm going to look into that further... with the right setup it could be a winner.

tile: yeah, i'm familiar with that one... and i'm tempted to use that as a tier two type solution due to their size and price... hide them in a few tools and if you can't find it with bluetooth, oh well, it was at least worth a shot... but in general i need something more robust for the tier one issue.

dewalt mobilelock: that's an interesting one... $240/yr in monitoring is pretty pricy. that said based on a quick perusal being able to have it monitor 10 devices is pretty interesting and could make up for the high fees... will continue to look into that as well.

thanks and if there are any more ideas out there, i look forward to them... some interesting ones i hadn't come across have already been brought up, so...

thanks.

Jon Beck

Trad climber

Oceanside

Sep 18, 2018 - 06:28pm PT

The Tile concept is worthless. Even the more expensive one that tried to crowdsource the tracking is useless. I carried one in my car in a dense urban area for a week, location was never picked up.

This company offers one that the batteries last a year. Low fees. 179 inlcudes the first years fees.

https://gpsandtrack.com/equipment-gps-tracker/?gclid=CjwKCAjwxILdBRBqEiwAHL2R8xVqvzMGEO8oNXcq6PYIv9ZgEnRKE6BDOg3knpXYiap9TNTlypToihoCiYIQAvD_BwE