If I had a 10k bike it would be in my living room 
The problem with manufacturers āfactory fitā and ādealer option fit stuffā is the way they mark up prices.
Iām looking for a new family car and gob smacked by how much manufacturers think some options are worth. E.g. Ā£299 inc VAT for parking sensors? Ā£70+VAT from an independent service station (Same bit of kit.). Ā£130 inc VAT for 4 mud flaps? Ā£30 odd from Halfords and a half hour job.
I have a nasty feeling that the mark up on a Tracker would make the cost half as much again as a retro fit.
Again, if you are only buying a Ā£4 or Ā£5K bike/scooter, even without mark up, the cost starts to look a bit high.
Good idea but not without flaws.
there was some limited edition lambo on top gear once, and just the centre console cover in carbon was a Ā£16k option :laugh:
You can get what is called a duration subscription where once paid, you donāt have to pay anything again.
but it does look good :w00t:
I wouldnāt, for a number of reasons, some of them selfish.
I watched the arms race happen in South Africa. In the beginning, cars had immobilisers, so the thieves learned to beat them. Then they had alarm immobilisers, so the thieves came tooled up in case the alarm woke you while they were stealing it. Then the insurance started to insist on gearlocks and steering locks. This meant moving a stationary car was very hard, so they started hijacking moving vehicles. Once that started, there was a big push for trackers. Trackers, having a fantastic recovery rate once the vehicle was stolen meant that the crim was often better of either killing you on the spot to stop the report, or kidnapping you and holding you until later or killing you to get more time to get the vehicle to an area that the tracker wasnāt effective. Itās the law of unintended consequences.
Thatās my first reason.
My second reason is that at the moment, trackers are optional and that means when a thief steals a bike, he doesnāt know if you have one or not. A lack of information is a weakness for him and increases his chance of getting caught. If they know that every bike has a tracker, thatās a weakness that theyāve beaten and they will begin to behave appropriately. More thefts will happen in shielded vans instead of unshielded ones. Bike theft is a MASSIVE business, and itās theyāll just pass that cost along the chain to their customers, so they absolutely will upgrade to deal with it if the odds of the bike having a tracker become substantial.
Next, I like the current situation where, if I choose to fit a tracker, I can choose a provider. I believe that competition improves service delivery. If all bikes come with trackers from the factory or dealership, the tracker companyās relationship changes. Itās no longer with me, and they donāt have to care about retaining individualās business - they just need to make nice with the big wigs. Most service delivery areas get worse when this happens.
My final reason for wanting to get one is that for the extra cost, I donāt believe that they work as well as they should. Iāve read far too many articles where the tracker hasnāt led to a recovery. I believe there was one test done by a mag where even though they werenāt being malicious and just testing, the tracking company never found them. I donāt want to pay for a service that doesnāt work.
Iād appreciate one for a weekend. If, over the course of that weekend it disappears and the system finds it, Iāll buy 3!
You donāt want to go to a manufacturer or sales person for that information. You should never rely on someone for information who has the potential or ability to profit based on the information that they give. This why free markets as original envisioned, requires an educated consumer.
Alarms are a joke. I used to pay around 300 quid per bike for a Datatool S4. Right up until the night I chased the thieves down my road while listening to the alarm screaming. Thieves donāt care, and neither does anyone else. The only thing theyāre useful for is to work out roughly when the bike was stolen. Not that it helps.
Problem is that so many things can affect tracker performance. Was the van they lifted it into shielded? Did they take it to a shielded location to strip the tracker? Did the police have the right kind of scanner to track it? Did the police bother to come and look?
No company will give stats out that either make themselves look bad, or rely on other people to keep their stats up. And with a theft, there is sooo much reliance on other parties 
Keep a midget in the topbox with a gps enabled smartphone and he can alert you and track the bike.
For a small additional fee you get a midget armed with a hammer to smash the theif in the face with when they open the topbox.
Now, which way to the patent office?
Shouldnāt you have thought of that before you gave your GPS to that midget?
Itās OK, I have a highly trained squirrel monkey with a mini gps sitting in the midgetās rucksack. If the midget goes missing, operation monkey track goes into operation. :smooooth:
There are many types of tracker that use GPS, GSM or other communication protocols that are drastically limited in performance when the signal is shielded or line of sight with the sky is removed.
Tracker (thatās Tracker UKās tracker) uses a VHF signal which can pass through many obstacles to avoid this.
Itās true that not all Police vehicles are equipped with Tracker equipment, but Iāve heard that all their BMW fleet and helicopters have the necessary equipment so itās not an insubstantial amount.
I can only go by my experience of the system, and that is having my bike recovered in just over 24 hours, the thief caught and 5 other lucky individuals getting their bikes (that werenāt equipped with a Tracker) back.
Saying all that, thereās no substitute for primary security consisting of a strong chain (Almax, PJB Security etc) looped through the swing arm of your bike, then looped through an immovable object such as a ground anchor. A dog is also a great deterrent an early warning āsystemā 
After all, a Tracker only comes into itās own after a theft has taken place.
There are ways to help minimise that occurrence.
All the folk saying that a manufacturer installed tracker would be easier to remove because it would be in a standard location - couldnāt the manufacturer put it somewhere less accessible if it was done as standard, like welded into a section of frame or something?
It seems like theyāre the ideal people to put it somewhere really innaccessible.
Or even inside the frame.
Buell managed to get the bikeās fuel in the frame.
Good point!
How would you change the battery (or fix it?)
Why would it need a changeable battery? Apple get away with it.
How often do sealed electronic black boxes need fixing?
Your bikeās ECU is one of the least likely components to go tits up.
āYour bikeās ECU is one of the least likely components to go tits upā
If only that were true for cars!
Moon on a stick, maybe? Its not like datatag, where its just an āif you find it, you can look up who owns itā. It is an actual real service that needs āmaintenanceā. Perhaps a new product which only activates when you want it (i.e. know your bike is stolen), with an optional real time tracking service for a subscription?
As there are various Tracking devises on the market, which would be recommended?
Tracker are one of the best companies, as they donāt rely solely on the GPS tracking side of a tracker, the use radio frequencies picked up my a fair amount of the police vehicles.
As far as I am aware Tracker are licensed my LoJack (an american tracking company) who have patented the VHF technology.
The problem with a lot of these tracker companies are that they make a point of keeping your vehicles position hidden, and this means that there isnāt always a recovery as some people in the police force donāt think the solution outweighs the risks of assault or worse, so the bike stays with the thief and you get your insurance payout.
my system has a few patented technologies in it which will prevent the use of shielded vehicles, and also works better than the VHF technology. Also the system will not use a subscription and you wont get a service as such, you will get a software package for phones, computers etc and you can track the bike yourself.
While it is not recommended you recover the bike yourself, the police will have a bit more incentive to go an retrieve the bike for you, as there is added risk in the owner recovering his own bike.
There is a very high conviction rate with activated tracking systems, well over 80% I believe, however the problem is less than 5% of people use them.
These are all facts from a representative of Tracker themselves.
The harsh truth is that technology is forever advancing and that means thieves are getting smarter to so there will never be a solution which will last forever, all we can do is keep ahead of the gameā¦