Trackers... "DIY"

Author
Discussion

NiceCupOfTea

25,295 posts

252 months

Sunday 30th October 2016
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I use GiffGaff, they are very good.

Davo456gt

695 posts

150 months

Monday 31st October 2016
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starting to understand why the subscription is so high, with the non-diy trackers..

giff gaff will be £5/month = £60/year
ee=£1/week = £52/year
wondering about Asda mobile, who use EE network - maybe cheapest bet in terms of running costs.

acme

2,972 posts

199 months

Tuesday 1st November 2016
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giff gaff don't require top ups/run out so all you need to do is buy one and top up as and when required. Plus giff gaff to giff gaff calls are free, so if your mobiles on one theoretically it shouldn't run out.

triple5

751 posts

146 months

Wednesday 2nd November 2016
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acme said:
giff gaff don't require top ups/run out so all you need to do is buy one and top up as and when required. Plus giff gaff to giff gaff calls are free, so if your mobiles on one theoretically it shouldn't run out.
I thought free GG to GG calls only applied if you've added a goody bag? If you only add credit then free calls only last for 3 months after topping up.

Giffgaff also say the sim will expire if not used for 6 months, although I don't know how rigorously it's applied.

NiceCupOfTea

25,295 posts

252 months

Wednesday 2nd November 2016
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Honestly, the giffgaff ones are very cheap to run if you set them up for data. The biggest expense on mine is I have vibration alert smses sent to my phone. If I switched them off and just had the GPS data then it would cost pennies a month.

triple5

751 posts

146 months

Wednesday 2nd November 2016
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NiceCupOfTea said:
Honestly, the giffgaff ones are very cheap to run if you set them up for data. The biggest expense on mine is I have vibration alert smses sent to my phone. If I switched them off and just had the GPS data then it would cost pennies a month.
Fully agree, I'm using giffgaff in mine.

acme

2,972 posts

199 months

Thursday 3rd November 2016
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triple5 said:
I thought free GG to GG calls only applied if you've added a goody bag? If you only add credit then free calls only last for 3 months after topping up.

Giffgaff also say the sim will expire if not used for 6 months, although I don't know how rigorously it's applied.
You could well be right on some of that. All I can say is one of mine's used £0 in three months, and the other pennies. Even if they do cost the fact they don't expire if you don't top up seems to be the advantage.

acme

2,972 posts

199 months

Thursday 3rd November 2016
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Can anyone offer me some assistance on a TK104?

It worked well initially, and without either external GPS or aerials plugged in, lately though I can rarely get through to it, say in 1 in 10 times I try, and when it texts back it's an old location, not the current one?

Very odd........

Cheers

Davo456gt

695 posts

150 months

Saturday 5th November 2016
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ok, so updates from me:
went with asda mobile, stuck £10 on it.
took quite a few texts to sort out configuring adminip (chinese manuals aren't very clear) - see below.

found out TK104 should last 1 week, against TK102 battery's 12 hours, or so some website says.

difficult part for me was configuring adminip - it all depends which tracker service you logon to, so using gpstrackerxy.com its on their website depending which server you use.
I've set up geozone around the house, so shouldn't send at all unless I take it out.

what do you guys use for update frequency ? time ? distance ? thinking this is where data will go rapidly or not.

Mine only seems to work with the GSM aerial plugged in, but maybe that's because all my tests are in the house.

NiceCupOfTea

25,295 posts

252 months

Saturday 5th November 2016
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30 secs on mine I think. But the data lasts for ages even on my daily car.

I did a little instruction guide posted a few pages back as I agree the manual is pants.

NeoVR

435 posts

172 months

Saturday 19th November 2016
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I have a "official" Rewire TK102.
is it correct that since i configured it to online tracking (using the rewire app to send the commands) - that when i call it i no longer get a text google maps response?. at the moment it seems to require me to send it a "check" text which responds with stats, and also wakes it up to update the live tracking server.

NiceCupOfTea

25,295 posts

252 months

Saturday 19th November 2016
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That's right.

Shouldn't need waking up tend data to the site though, but depends how you've set it up.

Calling it should give you the microphone if you've switched on the monitor option, but it's never worked reliably for me...

acme

2,972 posts

199 months

Tuesday 22nd November 2016
quotequote all
acme said:
Can anyone offer me some assistance on a TK104?

It worked well initially, and without either external GPS or aerials plugged in, lately though I can rarely get through to it, say in 1 in 10 times I try, and when it texts back it's an old location, not the current one?

Very odd........

Cheers
I'm just going to bump this incase anyone has some advice, cheers.

triple5

751 posts

146 months

Tuesday 22nd November 2016
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acme said:
I'm just going to bump this incase anyone has some advice, cheers.
Sorry no experience with the TK104. Presumably you have good GSM signal, send....check123456.

Alternatively what do you get back if you ring it?

acme

2,972 posts

199 months

Friday 25th November 2016
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triple5 said:
Sorry no experience with the TK104. Presumably you have good GSM signal, send....check123456.

Alternatively what do you get back if you ring it?
Thanks for the reply.

Yep, signal etc seems fine, with or without the extended aerials. 9 out of 10 times ringing it results in no response. The other one I have is fine, as was this, most annoying.

Cheers



NiceCupOfTea

25,295 posts

252 months

Friday 25th November 2016
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Try swapping the SIM cards between them. Maybe reset it and re configure ?

cptsideways

13,553 posts

253 months

Wednesday 7th December 2016
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I'm going get a few of these for some of my cars & boat so will have a good read through. Whats the best source for these?

triple5

751 posts

146 months

Wednesday 7th December 2016
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cptsideways said:
I'm going get a few of these for some of my cars & boat so will have a good read through. Whats the best source for these?
Mine came from Rewire Security.

Kinburn

2 posts

88 months

Monday 2nd January 2017
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Sportidge said:
Dog Star said:
ecotec said:
could you not just get one of these:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Genuine-GPS-Tracker-Magn...
That's the one I've got. You can get them a lot cheaper though. Mine was £15.

And I've still not fitted it!
That's the exact one I've got, and I bought the hard-wiring kit too to make sure it doesn't run out of battery.

You have to be careful with the really cheap versions of these, as there are a lot of poor quality clones out there (Search the Internet for details of some of these), some of which only use GPRS positioning using triangulation of mobile phone masts, and don't have an actual GPS chip in them!

Fitting was an absolute doddle, hiding it behind a plastic fairing panel, and setup was reasonably straightforward.

I'm using Rewire Security's own tracking site with lifetime (free) membership, and all is working brilliantly.

My only initial concern with this was the running costs of the unit using either GPRS or texts. Texts cost 9p each, so I avoid using them where possible.

Switched on to GPRS mode, I have mine updating every 30 seconds. As each piece of data is only around 150bytes, I was out for around 4 hours over the weekend and it cost me a whopping £0.002.

Yes, that one fifth of a British penny..... So that works out at about 73 pence a year!

Mine came with a Lycamobile SIM card, but I'm sure there may even be cheaper mobile tariffs out there.


*I'm in no way affiliated to the ebay seller or manufacturer, just a satisfied customer


Edited by Sportidge on Wednesday 9th July 12:55


Edited by Sportidge on Wednesday 9th July 13:01
Hi Sportdge,

Referring to the Free lifetime membership, I thought I bought the same thing but today when I tried to login I have been prompted to pay for membership renewal at £10 a year or £30 for lifetime per asset.

Ive tried looking at the description of my ebay purchase but because I bought this in June 2015 Ebay dont cash details that far back.

And in true fashion the current ebay listings all state that the you only get a years access for free.

If anyone else has bought these thinking they got free lifetime membership I would be keen to hear from you.

The below is what i PURCHASED in june 2015. This is a current listing stating 12 months free but Im 100% positive the listing that I purchased said that there would be no subscription charges ever....

Not happy!!!!

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&am...




Edited by Kinburn on Monday 2nd January 11:32


Edited by Kinburn on Monday 2nd January 11:36

Sportidge

1,032 posts

238 months

Monday 2nd January 2017
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I bought mine in July 2014, when they definitely had the Lifetime membership offer, although the other day I recevied an email saying exactly the same, that my access was about to expire and that I now owed £10 a year for the service.

I just dropped them an email at the "info@" email address, giving the IMEI number of my unit, and the date I purchased it and queried that I thought I should have the lifetime access.

They have responded that there was a system upgrade they performed which has affected some users, and have re-extended my membership to the end of 2026 (Not technically "lifetime", but I'm sure it's probably longer than either the tracker or my bike will last) ;-)

Drop them a line and see if they can sort you out too.