GPS Vehicle / Phone Tracking

[valrene9600]

Using android phone

[Jess--]

Using android phone

all I can suggest is trying a different browser on your phone, here's what I see (from left to right... Samsung Galaxy S4, Ipad Mini (non retina), iPhone 4S)

[Burgiesburnin]

Red dot disappeared when I tried to zoom in.

I appreciate that this is just a demo but I would be on at this price, who wouldn't be?

[MtB]

Red dot disappeared when I tried to zoom in.

I appreciate that this is just a demo but I would be on at this price, who wouldn't be?

 

 

Well me for a start. Maybe I'm being dense but I can't see the point of it for boaters.

 

What IS the point? It's not as though theft of whole boats is a major problem is it? Will it create a cruising record for CCers perhaps?

[WotEver]

Red dot disappeared when I tried to zoom in.

I appreciate that this is just a demo but I would be on at this price, who wouldn't be?

It should be a red or green arrow designated "Demo". It's just above The Wash and it isn't a dot.

 

Tony

[Jess--]

 

 

Well me for a start. Maybe I'm being dense but I can't see the point of it for boaters.

 

What IS the point? It's not as though theft of whole boats is a major problem is it? Will it create a cruising record for CCers perhaps?

admittedly not many boats go missing, however quite a few generators and other large objects do vanish from boats.

while not boats a lot of cars / trailers etc get stolen, these trackers are small and cheap enough to install (and boaters do tend to quite often leave cars in out of the way places).

 

It could be a method of generating a cruising log for CCers if it had a method of exporting a logfile (maybe exporting only the first position recorded for each day / week).

 

from my point of view I operate equipment that can be removed easily by 2 men in a transit van (and by it's nature it's left in the open while it's not in use) so I use trackers to recover equipment if it walks (they are pretty well hidden). I set the server & system up for my own use but thought that others on here may be able to make use of it without needing to have the technical knowledge or cost of operating their own server

[zenataomm]

Demo suddenly jumped into the woods as I was watching ...... fox got it?

[Jess--]

If anyone want's to you can move the position of the "CWDF" marker by visiting http://track.gb7dl.co.uk/cwdf from a mobile phone (or other device with gps capability) and pressing save position.

[Tesla]

The commercials are very attractive. Would suggest that there are 4 things that would be nice features -

 

1 - alert if the device leaves a home geofence

2 - alert if internal battery charge is low

3 - alert if disconnected from charging source

4 - report to show daily/weekly/monthly distance travelled

 

It's a great idea, albeit with a limited market, I'm in as they say...

 

BTW, red dot disappears for me also, running Chrome on a Galaxy Tab 2.

[nb Innisfree]

Doesn't work with my Samsung Galaxy default browser, but does work with Firefox, shame really as I prefer the default browser as must some others.

[Arthur Brown]

Biggest use I see is proving a cruising pattern if challenged by CART. If the tracker says you have crossed the pennines then maybe you are not CMing near the station at Tring. Being able to download a logfile of significant periods would be most helpful.

[MtB]

Biggest use I see is proving a cruising pattern if challenged by CART. If the tracker says you have crossed the pennines then maybe you are not CMing near the station at Tring. Being able to download a logfile of significant periods would be most helpful.

 

 

This stikes me as the most useful thing it could do too. But we don't know if it can. Or if it can, what format the output comes in, or how credible it would appear to an enforcement officer or court.

[Tesla]

Maybe not much if the unit is removable but as per my point 4, a report showing distance moved might be accepted? It is better than nothing you would hope?

[Jess--]

The commercials are very attractive. Would suggest that there are 4 things that would be nice features -

 

1 - alert if the device leaves a home geofence - Already built into the tracker send it a text saying "HOME(password)" and it will set it's current position as home and send you a text if it goes further than 200m from that position (and again when it comes back)

 

2 - alert if internal battery charge is low - Already built into the tracker, starts alerting every 30 mins via text message if battery goes below 30%

 

3 - alert if disconnected from charging source - Tracker does not report whether it is on charge or not

 

4 - report to show daily/weekly/monthly distance travelled - planned to be added, although going too fine on the data will make it over-read distances due to gps positioning accuracy (watch the demo tracker for a few minutes, it's not really moving but it tracks in slightly different positions every time it updates)

 

It's a great idea, albeit with a limited market, I'm in as they say...

 

BTW, red dot disappears for me also, running Chrome on a Galaxy Tab 2.

Please check that you are zooming into the right area on the map, you want the green circled area NOT the red

[Tesla]

Please check that you are zooming into the right area on the map, you want the green circled area NOT the red

Ah, got it. Yes works a treat and shows direction. On point 4, just being able to present lat/longs on a report, with as the crow flies distance is still good I think, from a personal log perspective and also if the need arises to show movement to CRT etc.

[cuthound]

 

 

This stikes me as the most useful thing it could do too. But we don't know if it can. Or if it can, what format the output comes in, or how credible it would appear to an enforcement officer or court.

Playing devils advocate, how would they know it wasn't in a car rather than a boat.

[Jess--]

Ah, got it. Yes works a treat and shows direction. On point 4, just being able to present lat/longs on a report, with as the crow flies distance is still good I think, from a personal log perspective and also if the need arises to show movement to CRT etc.

although it's not measuring distance you can make it show history

on a PC (not a phone)

click the blue bar at the bottom where it says "reports"

Select the tracker from the "Device" drop down

Set a date / time range and hit "Show"

[MtB]

Playing devils advocate, how would they know it wasn't in a car rather than a boat.

 

 

If it was in a car, it would be moving too fast.

Either that or you'd need to be driving your car around at narrow boat speed, next to canals only, for several months.

 

Probably less effort to actually do the CCing!

[David Mack]

although it's not measuring distance you can make it show history

on a PC (not a phone)

click the blue bar at the bottom where it says "reports"

Select the tracker from the "Device" drop down

Set a date / time range and hit "Show"

 

Ooh that works! Is there any way to display that path on a map base? Or to export it as a kml/kmz file for display in google earth/maps?

 

The website uses a Bing aerial photo. Is there an option to use alternative map/aerial photography bases e.g. google maps?

 

I tried the site using my Blackberry (native browser). It was slow to load the login screen, but when I entered the users name and password and clicked on login, absolutely nothing happened. A problem with the BB browser?

[Jess--]

there are currently no export functions.

 

I am working on moving the backend database over to sql server rather than the file based database it's currently using (then I can get access to the data from via other methods and it should become fairly simple to create export functions).

 

current maps are Open Street Map, Bing Road (listed as Bin Overlay) and Bing Aerial

other maps are being worked on (Ordnance survey and Collins Bartholemew are next although they only work for the UK and only at certain levels of zoom).

 

No idea on the blackberry browser... Sorry.

[Tesla]

although it's not measuring distance you can make it show history

on a PC (not a phone)

click the blue bar at the bottom where it says "reports"

Select the tracker from the "Device" drop down

Set a date / time range and hit "Show"

Yep that works. More than adequate I would say.

[Jess--]

I have been doing some more thinking and working on the tracker system over the past few days and have fleshed out a few more details of how it will operate (both from a back-end view and from a users viewpoint).

 

Trackers will be supplied preconfigured with a new giffgaff sim installed (this will need activating with giffgaff before use).

 

Trackers can work with sims from any mobile network that supports GPRS (note that this excludes the Three Mobile network) but would require SMS messages sent to them to configure Access details for that network (APN, Username & Password)

 

Trackers will be set initially to report their positions once per hour (full instructions on how to change this setting will be provided).

 

Users will need to send the tracker one sms message to set the mobile number that the tracker will treat as "admin".

 

For each tracker an account will be created on the system using a username and password of the IMEI number of the tracker, once the owner has logged in using these details they can change their login details to anything they prefer.

 

New accounts will have an initial validity of 1 year and 2 weeks (this is to allow for up to 2 weeks before the tracker is used to ensure that the user gets a full years validity), renewed accounts would be for 1 year.

 

Accounts will be treated on a per device basis, this means that multiple user logins can be configured to view the same device or a single login can be configured to view multiple devices

 

Positions recorded by the tracker will be saved for 1 year from the date they were recorded (i.e. a position from 1st Jan 2016 will be deleted on 2nd Jan 2017)

 

Accounts that have expired will still be able to log into the system to view historical positions (subject to the 1 year deletion) but any new positions from the tracker while the account is in an expired state will not be saved.

 

Before an account expires a reminder email would be sent a month before expiry with a further reminder not less than a week before expiry

 

For those that want to track a mobile phone rather than a physical tracker free Apps are available for IOS (Apple) and Android (including a covert app on android) to use these apps all that would be required would be an account on the system.

 

There will be (hopefully before the end of March) a reporting system built which will allow exporting of data to either CSV format (for import into other software) or KML/KMZ format (for use with google earth), it is intended that this will export data between a chosen date range giving the choice of either "All Positions" or "First Position Each Day"

 

The current address of track.gb7dl.co.uk is being used for development, the system will be moved to a dedicated domain name (which has yet to be decided), when this change takes place the track.gb7dl.co.uk will provide details of the new address to be used.

 

Current pricing plan is as follows...

£30 Purchase of tracker (+p&p £4.00 UK if required)

£10 Annual Account.

Payment would made be via BACS

 

Could I ask that if you are interested in one of these trackers that you send me a Private Message on here, this is to help me gauge demand and get stock of the trackers / giffgaff sims in place with the plan to start shipping in late March / early April (note that I will not ask for payment until I have trackers in-hand and ready to ship)

[tidal]

It's as or more efficient and certainly cheaper than some commercial products I have seen.
I've just (6 months ago) converted a pet tracker to fit on a family motorbike and that cost nearly £100 2nd hand

 

i would think a few people might be interested at that spec and price

[Guest]

I have been doing some more thinking and working on the tracker system over the past few days and have fleshed out a few more details of how it will operate (both from a back-end view and from a users viewpoint).

 

Trackers will be supplied preconfigured with a new giffgaff sim installed (this will need activating with giffgaff before use).

 

Trackers can work with sims from any mobile network that supports GPRS (note that this excludes the Three Mobile network) but would require SMS messages sent to them to configure Access details for that network (APN, Username & Password)

 

Trackers will be set initially to report their positions once per hour (full instructions on how to change this setting will be provided).

 

Users will need to send the tracker one sms message to set the mobile number that the tracker will treat as "admin".

 

For each tracker an account will be created on the system using a username and password of the IMEI number of the tracker, once the owner has logged in using these details they can change their login details to anything they prefer.

 

New accounts will have an initial validity of 1 year and 2 weeks (this is to allow for up to 2 weeks before the tracker is used to ensure that the user gets a full years validity), renewed accounts would be for 1 year.

 

Accounts will be treated on a per device basis, this means that multiple user logins can be configured to view the same device or a single login can be configured to view multiple devices

 

Positions recorded by the tracker will be saved for 1 year from the date they were recorded (i.e. a position from 1st Jan 2016 will be deleted on 2nd Jan 2017)

 

Accounts that have expired will still be able to log into the system to view historical positions (subject to the 1 year deletion) but any new positions from the tracker while the account is in an expired state will not be saved.

 

Before an account expires a reminder email would be sent a month before expiry with a further reminder not less than a week before expiry

 

For those that want to track a mobile phone rather than a physical tracker free Apps are available for IOS (Apple) and Android (including a covert app on android) to use these apps all that would be required would be an account on the system.

 

There will be (hopefully before the end of March) a reporting system built which will allow exporting of data to either CSV format (for import into other software) or KML/KMZ format (for use with google earth), it is intended that this will export data between a chosen date range giving the choice of either "All Positions" or "First Position Each Day"

 

The current address of track.gb7dl.co.uk is being used for development, the system will be moved to a dedicated domain name (which has yet to be decided), when this change takes place the track.gb7dl.co.uk will provide details of the new address to be used.

 

Current pricing plan is as follows...

£30 Purchase of tracker (+p&p £4.00 UK if required)

£10 Annual Account.

Payment would made be via BACS

 

Could I ask that if you are interested in one of these trackers that you send me a Private Message on here, this is to help me gauge demand and get stock of the trackers / giffgaff sims in place with the plan to start shipping in late March / early April (note that I will not ask for payment until I have trackers in-hand and ready to ship)

Jess I am still interested.

 

Can I just check that it can be configured to send a text as soon as it is moved or would it wait until the next scheduled text was sent?

 

If that makes sense?

[Señor Chris]

I've just (6 months ago) converted a pet tracker to fit on a family motorbike and that cost nearly £100 2nd hand

 

You can buy these trackers new for less than £20.