GPS Trackers Find Novel Applications

Pickens writes "Inexpensive GPS devices like the Zoombak (which costs just $200 plus $10 a month) have becomes so prevalent that some people are using them routinely to keep tabs on their most precious possessions. Kathy Besa has a Zoombak attached to the collar of her 5-year-old beagle, Buddy. If Buddy wanders more than 20 feet from the house, she gets a text message on her phone that says, 'Buddy has left the premises.' The small size made possible by chip advances over the last two or three years is enabling many novel uses of GPS tracking. An art collector in New York uses one when he transports million-dollar pieces, a home builder is putting them on expensive appliances to track them if they disappear from construction sites, a drug company is using them after millions of dollars in inventory turned up missing, and a mobile phone company is hiding them in some cellphone boxes to catch thieves."

Comments

GPS bug detector?

[Hatta]

Ok, say I'm paranoid. Is there anything on the market that can detect these devices?

Inexpensive?

[g_adams27]

Inexpensive GPS devices like the Zoombak (which costs just $200 plus $10 a month)

$200 + $120/year? Not "inexpensive" enough for me to stick onto my dog!

Re:Inexpensive?

[fm6]

Everybody is not you. And jeez, $120 year is not that much when you consider the other costs of keeping a pet: vet bills, cleaning, paying for boarding or sitting when you're on vacation... And that's if you have some mongrel that you just keep for company.

I had this cat I was very fond of. Disappeared one day, and I never found out what happened to him. That was years ago, and I still miss the dude. That experience makes the Zoombak sound pretty cheap.

Re:Inexpensive?

[value_added]

Not "inexpensive" enough for me to stick onto my dog!

Seems like a fair comment, but if the dog gets lost, you'll need to figure in the cost of a reward and/or the time and resources required for putting up all those flyers. Then there's those emergency vet bills (if the dog gets into an accident), lawyer and court costs (if the dog bites the good samaritan trying to catch it for you), the loss of mail delivery to your home and cancellation of homeowner's insurance and a lawsuit (if the dog bites the mailman), or, if all goes well and the city finds your dog for you, the animal shelter fees. And this is all assuming it's not your wife's dog, or that you have kids whose questions you need to answer.

Beagles, incidentally, are notorious (bred, actually) for running off to hunt something down they find interesting, and then expecting you to catch up.

GPS sounds like an ideal solution for pet owners.

Re:$200 + $10/mo!?!?

[morgan_greywolf]

An RFID tag can't be used to track something very far from the RFID tag reader, let alone globally.

Re:hiding them in some cellphone boxes?

[DerekLyons]

and a mobile phone company is hiding them in some cellphone boxes to catch thieves

Am I missing something here? Don't mobile phones already have GPS (at least here in the USA)? And unique ID numbers burnt into them?

Yes, mobile phones (some of them) have GPS. Yes, mobile phones have unique ID numbers. What you are missing is that "mobile phones" are not the same as "mobile phones in boxes" - as the former (generally) have their battery charged and installed and are powered up, while the latter are inert and those fancy functions don't work.
 
 

it would seem that most mobile phone thefts that could be caught with this GPS bug would be caught and tracked down as soon as the thief or buyer of the stolen property tried to use the phone anyway

Using the phones built in features allows you to catch a single end user - once the phone has trickled from thief to fence to dealer to end user. Using a GPS bug you can track the phone through the entire chain and catch the guys at the start of the chain rather than catching the guys at the end and working up. From a LEO and a Loss Prevention point of view, this is much more efficient and effective.