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With growing car theft in the US I've been curious about implanting GPS trackers on my own older enthusiast vehicles. There appears to be many options on Amazon
by tubbs 5y ago
With growing car theft in the US I've been curious about implanting GPS trackers on my own older enthusiast vehicles. There appears to be many options on Amazon but I can't bring myself to trust any of them. Has anyone here gone down that road before?
- CobaltFire 5y agoI second this, and hope someone has some advice/input.
- chillaxtian 5y agoAirTag
- spiderfarmer 5y agoDoesn’t work as it notifies the person traveling with it.
- hultner 5y agoOf you hide it well enough? I can think of some creative spots in a car, like behind the dash, in the door, inside of the a seat, etc.
- kube-system 5y agoIf the thief has an iPhone, they will see this: https://sm.mashable.com/mashable_pk/image/default/uploads252fcard252fimage252f1619248252f4a25b7aa-439d-4334-9c_jz6u.jpg https://sm.mashable.com/mashable_pk/image/default/uploads252...
- giarc 5y agoI thought it only chirped if the owner clicked that option in "Find My" app.
- callesgg 5y agoIts not that it is chirps it is that any iPhone beeing tracked by a airtag for a extended amount of time will inform its owner that it is being tracked.
- StingyJelly 5y agoIt's quite easy to clobber the speaker
- flutas 5y agoIt still alerts (UI Prompt) on any iPhone that it travels with for too long (~24hr).
- smoldesu 5y agoWhat if I don't have an iPhone
- abraae 5y agoIf you want to diy it, Check out ray Ozzie's recent project featured here on HN recently. Very reasonable priced with one up front payment for (10 ?) years of connectivity
- electrum 5y ago$49 for the device and data: https://blues.io/ https://blues.io/
- mikeatlas 5y agohttps://blues.io/ https://blues.io/
- Workaccount2 5y agoWhat service are they using that gives 10 yrs of connectivity for a flat price?
- heleninboodler 5y agoThis feels like a dumb question, but I can't find dimensions of the Notecard anywhere and I can't quite judge the scale from the pictures. How big is it?
- c17r 5y agohttps://github.com/blues/note-hardware/blob/master/Notecard/NOTE-NBGL%20drawing%20v1.5.pdf https://github.com/blues/note-hardware/blob/master/Notecard/... has the measurements, looks like 35mm x 30mm
- lb1lf 5y ago-Wouldn't an airtag (or two...) fit the bill nicely? (Assuming even car thieves use iPhones there's some poetic justice to be served in their own smartphones bringing them down...)
- surfsvammel 5y agoThey will get a warning saying there is an air tag travelling with them. I have this problem. We have an air tag on one of my kids shoes when we are out, and whenever I’m not with them, my partner gets spammed with warnings on her phone saying there is an unknown air tag travelling with her.
- ghostly_s 5y ago> We have an air tag on one of my kids shoes when we are out what the hell?
- after_care 5y agoSeems legit, kids can run away or be kidnapped. It’s important to know where your kids are.
- e-clinton 5y agoRight. All depends on age. Makes sense for an 8y/o, not for a 15y/o
- surfsvammel 5y agoThis is for a 3y/o and a 5y/o
- vagrantJin 5y ago> Seems legit, kids can run away or be kidnapped. It’s important to know where your kids are. Ah yes. This statement is more terrifying than Apples half-assed PR fireball a few days ago. The same folks who bought iphones because its has better "privacy" than Android... ...are using iphones to track their kids whereabouts. It's like a dystopian punchline masked in the Friends laugh track.
- lrvick 5y agoCheck out AutoPi. Open source, plugs into your ODBII port so you can not only track your car but also get maintaince alerts etc.
- drewzero1 5y agoDepending on how old the enthusiast vehicles are, they probably don't have an OBD-II port (or possibly any port at all). None of mine do, up to the mid 90s.
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 5y agoMy truck barely has an electrical system (6v, positive earth), let alone a computer.
- fragmede 5y ago1996 is when OBD2 became mandatory for all cars manufactured in the United States
- Sebb767 5y ago> plugs into your ODBII port Which is usually quite easy to check. It's not a guarantee, but with someone sophisticated enough to crack a modern car there's a good possibility they know to check the OBDII slot.
- lrvick 5y agoThey come with extension cables. You can always plug it in under the dash and leave the exposed one disconnected. If they are sophisticated and have time to take the whole car apart then you are SOL anyway as they will find any transmitters with an SDR.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- pvarangot 5y agoI would only do this if you either know the police will help retrieve your car if you have the location, or if you are ready to engage the robbers yourself. Otherwise it's useless to know where it is. I have experience trying to get the cops to help in Oakland and San Jose and they really didn't want to.
- bigiain 5y agoA lot of the cellular gps trackers have ignition kill capability, where you can send it a specific sms message and it’ll pull a wire to ground or open circuit a pair of wires, which you can use to remotely kill the engine. A friend of mine got a motorcycle back by watching its movements via the gps tracking, and killing the engine while the guy was riding in a safe-ish and high visibility place, so the thief just parked it and walked away.
- sealeck 5y agoI imagine (not a lawyer) that this expose you to a variety of charges.
- pvarangot 5y agoIANAL, but I think in California as long as you don't use excessive force it's ok, but yeah if you kill the engine at a high speed or if you get unlucky and the thief gets seriously injured then you will get in trouble if they want to go after you.
- OrangeMusic 5y agoWho's gonna sue him? The car thief?
- sealeck 5y agoPotentially, or more likely the public prosecutor after the coroner's report comes in.
- frickinLasers 5y ago
- djrogers 5y ago> With growing car theft in the US Odd, this got me wondering, and I can’t find any reliable statistics that show a rise in car thefts. Everything I see shows a pretty steady decline over the past 30 years in spite of an increasing the number of cars on the road.
- mhh__ 5y agoIt might be an interesting project to build your own in this case. If you want to trust them I would have as much redundancy as you are comfortable paying for i.e. the software in these products is often dogshit so one failure or bug shouldn't let your car end in a scrap merchant.