Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Ask Slashdot: Inexpensive Anti-Theft Vehicle Tracking System?

Posted by timothy on from the pulley-to-the-roof-each-night dept.

New submitter Chuckles08 writes "I'm about to complete the purchase of an electric scooter that is worth over $5,000. Since I'll be parking it on a college campus, it will be vulnerable to theft. I'd like to install some kind of tracking device on it but the solutions I've seen so far seem quite expensive. Are there any reasonably priced and effective solutions out there? Ideally, I'd like to be informed by text message if my scooter moves without my knowing. I'd like to then track the scooter's movements." And anything small enough to work for a scooter might be very useful for car owners, too.

4 of 296 comments (clear)

  1. lojack by hedwards · · Score: 5, Informative

    Chances are that the insurance company will pick up a significant portion of the tab to have the vehicle lojaced. I was looking into it when I was going to buy a motorcycle and the cost after insurance company rebate and discount makes it quite inexpensive. Plus they have a good record for recovery and ever car that's lojaced increases the likelihood that a vehicle thief is going to be caught red handed and sent to prison.

  2. Tracking on the cheap by ldm · · Score: 4, Informative

    Find a Xexun TK-102 on ebay, they will report back their position via the mobile network (you supply a SIM card, and can send it a request for the current position, it will text you back). You can get large extended battery packs too, or you could wire it into the bike's power. They work well enough for us to track drivers at work. Just make sure you get a genuine Xexun one, the others are less reliable and tend to lie about their position, in my case being offset by about 4 miles. There are separate car sized ones, but I have not used them.

  3. Garmin GTU-10 by pem · · Score: 5, Informative
    I have two, on things I don't want to get lost.

    Garmin has two plans. The simple one lets you draw virtual fences around where it's OK for the thing to be, and alerts you when it leaves the area, and also lets you poll for location at any time.

    The more full-featured plan (basically $10/month) also will automagically poll and keep history, so you at least know where the thing was when the thieves realized that it had a GPS tracker on it and ripped the thing off.

    I built a little 12v -> 5v converter for the one of these I have on a device that has a battery, and hooked it in permanently, so every time the main device is switched on, the GPS's battery gets recharged.

  4. Re:It's called "Insurance" by tomhudson · · Score: 4, Informative

    I use "The Club" as icing on the cake combined with a hidden switch that turns off the PATS RFID antenna [1] and another switch for the fuel pump. If a thief gets past that, that is what insurance is for. But, they are going to fight for what they steal.

    I agree -- The Club can be defeated easily. But it forces a thief to have to deal with it, and time is their enemy

    [1]: The reason I turn off the PATS antenna is that for more sophisticated thieves, it will throw them off the scent, because all attempts they try at key cloning will not work. Of course, if that gets bypassed, the fuel pump switch ensures they won't go far.

    Tow truck, shove into a cheap used metal shipping container, dismantle at your leisure - no tracking device will be able to get a signal through the steel walls.

    Dump the stripped frame and body, buy it at the insurance auction, get the pink slip, and put the engine, transaxle, wheels, seats, etc. back in an sell it.

    And yes, people DO do this. It's one reason insurance companies have begun crushing "strippers".