GPS bike tracker

hold on... if the whole idea of this is that it'll sort of make a bleeping noise and transmit its signal to gps tracking systems, what's stopping some clever bastard thieving people getting into the loop and recovering it before you do?

i dont know gps so maybe thats not possible..

asm hold on... if the whole idea of this is that it'll sort of make a bleeping noise and transmit its signal to gps tracking systems, what's stopping some clever bastard thieving people getting into the loop and recovering it before you do?

i dont know gps so maybe thats not possible..

hmm, dunno about the bleeping bit- surely the point of it would be to silently get a location-lock before the thief has a chance to run a scanner over it. Stealthy stealthy.

yyeahh... i think a stereotypical hollywood bleep accompanied by a flashing red LED wouldn't be a very good idea in these circumstances.

saying that, a really, really loud alarm (you know, those ones that make your brain seep blood out your eyes and ears) could be funny- at least it'd attract some attention. maybe an alarm that goes off once the wheels have rotated 10 times say, to avoid false alarms. maybe not.

heh heh

I think (based on no knowledge whatsoever) that it only starts to transmit once it has been activated as stolen. Or at least that should be the case. And maybe can only be tracked by someone who knows the 'code' they are looking for. Kind of like a password on wi-fi.

I may still be talking james bond mumbo jumbo but this is how it 'should' work. Damn we needs an expert.

the alarm sound is maybe not such a good idea. But there are existing networs where the device would send a signal to a mobile phone and you could track it on a map on the intrnet. Its just a question of negotiating with the companies that own those networks

yes - can the bleeps. the mobile network operators already know where you're phone is, it's just not that easy to get at the data for obvious reasons. If you put stripped phone in a bike and it was stolen, you'd probably have to go through the police to get at the tracking data, unless we could come to some sort of arrangement with the network operators. As long as you could prove that you're trying to track something that belongs to you then I can't imagine it would be a problem.

On the other hand, people are writing applications for mobile phones that use your current position to tailor their operation, so it might be relatively straightforward to program a stripped phone to call in with its position at regular intervals, or perhaps in response to a signal you send if the bike is stolen. Hmm.. must look into this - will get back when I have more info!

Here's how a car system works: http://www.trackstar.co.uk/vehicle-tracking-explained-trackstar.aspx

http://www.mymobileguardian.com/

http://www.auto-txt.com/info.php

Would need greater range than this but a stamp sized chip sounds good for concealing on a bike.

http://www.tech.co.uk/rungsberry/general/blogs/2007/02/15/loc8tor-plus-tracking-device-finds-lost-pets

i am just going to strap one of these around my top tube...........

http://www.breitling.com/orbiter/breit97/eng/emerg.html

So they steal your bike AND your watch..

hippy So they steal your bike AND your watch..

surely, i mean surely you detected the irony in my voice?

.. and you did not see the sarcasm in my reply? :) for here and ;) for above.

You must have missed my earlier comment about everything I type being sarcastic.. even the serious stuf..

Hi - I am in the final testing stgaes of a GPS tracker for dogs - its small at only 50mm x 35mm x 7mm and can use a variety of differnt capacity/sized batteries - Iwould be very interested in talking to you guys about developing a suitable soluton for bikes

Sounds good what do you need to know?

Power drain has been a big issue for GPS units - until recently, the idea of having a GPS that went more than a day on a battery charge was a bit of a joke. However, I was at a conference in Malta a couple of weeks ago and saw a presentation from the CEO of a company that seems to have solved this problem:

http://www.air-semi.com/

I quote:

*A GPS receiver built using Air’s GPS receiver technology need never be switched off. Always-On™ technology means that the power consumption when tracking the location of the device is around 2 orders of magnitude LOWER than conventional GPS solutions.

This has two important benefits:

CONTINUOUS LOCATION: For the first time, mobile, battery operated devices can be continuously aware of their location. In addition to supporting established applications such as navigation, this will stimulate a new generation of proactive location based applications and services which don’t need to wait for an input from the user.

INSTANT LOCATION: When first enabled, conventional GPS receivers can take many minutes to calculate their location (depending on signal conditions). An Always-On™ GPS receiver is continuously aware of its location – hence the location information is always instantly available on demand.
The availability of Instant and Continuous location information in all kinds of mobile, battery operated devices including cellphones, cameras, watches, games consoles (and many more …) will find an unimaginable number of uses beyond just navigation.*

They develop chipsets for OEMs - one big market for them is digital camera manufacturers, so that you can geotag every photo you take. They don't mention bikes here but it's an obvious extension.

plonk the transmitter in the top tube.
use the frame as an earth connected to the device [as is done in cars, motorbike and so on] and run an insulated terminal to a point in the frame that will enable you to charge it. good place is to use one of your bottle holders attachment hole or cable hanger braze on.

the device would also have expanding sides and will be installed just like "stents" are in patients with coronary constrictions. a relatively simple thing to do.

to install you would slide the device into a tube to compact it so you could squeeze it into nocks and crannies by sliding the containing tube into the frame in a place of your choice. push the device out, it expands and becomes static and unmovable.

the big ask is the size of the device. it has to be small. smaller than your average GPS unit, but they are made with controls to be hand operational and a screen. If you slimlined the device and chucked all the non necessaries away i can see that it would be a great deal smaller.

then to simplify things further you would create a sister program that would constantly monitor and save the movements of the bike to a remote server and log up to the owners choice a said time frame of data. this would prevent the actual unit from having to do anything else but sending a signal, thus enhancing battery life. the satellite would send the coordinates to the remote server, not the GPS unit as is what usually happens.

I cant see any other "proper way" to make this actually useful. This i can see would be expensive, needing online data space, unless there would be a way to make your computer the remote server which is probably out of reach of the average person that this product would be aimed at.

I also cant see the use of having manually operated GPS that only works at the owners will. tracking the bike would then rely on the person continually asking for coordinates instead of it being automatic as i suggested.

it needs to be powered by a dynamo!

your a clever man kelvin. lol.

Did you get this finished/production?

Saw one for 117£ yesterday but am intersted to find out more.

Does any one know of reviews of this type of kit?

Thanks from newbe.

new product
no idea if any good but free ones available and they state cheap

http://techiefans.com/how-to-track-your-bike-in-case-of-theft-using-your-mobile-phone/

Wouldn't a 'tile' take care of this? Sorry if I missed something.

https://www.thetileapp.com/en-gb/?utm_source=AdWords&utm_medium=CPC&opt=SEM&gclid=CI7zp4ehhM4CFVW7Gwodv-oOTw

Actually @dicki that ^^ looks good too.

Someone needs to get a kinetic one off the ground, batteries suck.

I'm thinking about getting a cargo and I'd like to explore putting a tracker in it. Maybe somewhere hard to spot like in the bb shell.

@Skülly Did you manage to find a decent tracker?

I am getting my new cargo bike delivered next month and I want to have a tracker in case it goes "missing".