Here’s something that is well in planning. but it is still rough and is NOT the final workings but you can do this now if you wanted.
Buy a cheap and nasty small mobile phone ( a £9.99 one ) any network . You need enough credit to send 1 message .
Wire in to the battery a charger and have the phone under the seat . The phone does nothing except poll out and stay charged,.
Using something like www.bikelocate.co.uk ( Lee’s company ) you can pole the phone in the bike and you know which area the bike is in… Now baring in mind that phones work inside the back of vans and inside buildings you’ll be able to know “roughly” where the bike is until the phone is found and turned off ( am talking to a few people about making something that doesn’t have a keypad etc etc and can be mounted IN clocks - this will be a cheaper packaged solution ) …
Baring in mind is its on an industrial estate police will know where to look, also they need a rough location they know the boys of the area… And lets not forget I can keep polling the phone to get a direction of travel.
If someone can PM me their mobile number I’ll do a test tonight and we’ll see how accurate it is… Mine currently says
Lee is within 464 meters of Stratford, London, E154AE at 10:57 PM 24-February
I have cross posted this from the stolen stealth K5 thread. I would appricate feedback in that thread.
Lee thats a great idea, but what do u mean ‘pole’ does the phone need to send a message in order to work out its location or can u say call it and work out where it is??
Lee could be very good this.Is it necessary to have something that needs to be plugged into the battery or could we find a battery that needs charging just once a week.?
when it pole’s out, its what your phone does automatically to let the network know your about… you know the sound your phone makes when it’s next to a speaker.
As for calling it , that’s a whole different chunk of technology that makes the box bigger and more expensive… Basically all I am trying to do is get a widget to send out a “I am here” once every 5 minutes.
As for charging it, what I was thinking is having it wires to the lights , so lights on = charging ( the stand by time of the unit I have is 170 hours ) …
On a side note if any of you are thinking of purchasing , either now or in the near future, a tracking system for your bike/car (yes, i said ‘car’!! )
consider only ‘TRACKER’.
all the others on the market are not Police monitored and Police have to rely on second hand information to locate an activated device…
‘TRACKER’ are the only devices that our Police vehicles and Helicopters are actually fitted with…so when a vehicle is stolen the Police can track it directly.
It’s not cheap but we have an almost 100% recovery rate on stolen vehicles fitted with ‘TRACKER’
I can’t speak for London but we haven’t lost one yet with TRACKER fitted.
(BTW I’m not on commision for Tracker!!!)
the phone idea is a great idea…cost effective as well…especially if you look at how cheap you can get second hand phones off Ebay and the likes nowadays…
my onyl problem with Tracker is what the thing only goes off when the car is close. If tracker could punt out a location for the police to start to get close then i’d be a fan.
What i’m working on is a halfway house , with current ( cheaper ) tech. With Vodafone in an urban area they get you to 50m , which is always a good start
Sounds like a winner Lee, I imagine the bike fitted device will be small and inconspicious enough?
I’m gonna order a Tracker for my 675 anyway, as the insurance co likes it and it’s all set up, but that doesn’t mean two methods of finding it would be out the question.
Roaming (Thenutz) : would have to be an upgrade to the normal service
Cheap Mobiles & Network (Puppy) : That’s how I’m running some tests but ultimately it’ll be a faceless small box for reduced costs and the fact that you wont be making calls from the unit .
As for network, Vodafone offer a far more accurate discovery area ( 50m in city 300m in country - other networks start at 300m and go to 2500m in the country ) .
Size (Andrew) : It’s always a trade off of size and battery life. No screen mean or keypad reduces the unit a lot but you will need access to it to put in your sim card ( unless I can get a decent deal to supply them with sim in ) . The smallest unit I have is 2/3 the size of a credit card , and it flips open, but this of course using a mobile phone. and that’s NOT what I want in the long run.
Hello everyone, this is my first post so be gentle with me!
On the subject of Tracker, you might be interested to know that their prices have just been reduced. You can get Tracker Retrieve, (which is their basic system) for you bike at £259.00 including installation and first years subscription. For an additional £99.00 you can upgrade to a lifetime subscription. Tracker is operated by all 52 UK Police forces as well as France and Spain.
Another thing, unlike insurance approved alarms, tracker units are relatively easy to transfer from one bike to another. Which means you wouldn’t have to buy a new unit everytime you change your bike!
hi sparkyelite - what were the prices reduced from? they look the same prices that the tracker site has had since last year? is there enough interest (group buy) is there any room for movement on the price?
also how long is the installation and do we need to take the bike somewhere or do you go to where the bike is (assuming its somewhere you can work safely on it I guess)
Hi Johnny, The price on the Tracker website have been changed. The price for Retrieve was £399 and Monitor was £499. Also, the subscription charges have come down. One thing I did state which isn’t correct is that you can transfer it from bike to bike. Apparently you can’t do this because of the company’s registration procedure and the way it relates to the Police. If that is the case, why would anyone take out a lifetime subscription? Maybe the subscription is transferable? Will have to make a call about that. Fitting doesn’t take long and can be done on site and as for a group fitting price I,m sure we could come to some arrangement!
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