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Thieves Who Stole GPS Tracking Devices Were Caught Within Hours (nbc4i.com)
"These devices kind of look like cell phone chargers, so they probably thought they had some kind of street value," said the co-founder of Roambee, a shipping-monitoring services company, in a classic story shared by Iwastheone:
[He's] talking about the hundred or so GPS tracking devices that were stolen recently from the company's Dela Cruz Avenue labs. "The moment we realized they had a box of trackers, we went into recovery mode," Subramanian said. "We notified the police and equipped them to track the devices, and in about 5 or 6 hours, it was done...." It wasn't long before the police were using Roambee's software to locate the devices and the thieves. "We were able to pinpoint the location of these trackers to a warehouse in Union City and two of the devices had gone mobile, and the thieves were driving around with them in the East Bay," Subramanian said. The two men were arrested in Alameda.
Before stealing 100 battery-powered GPS-tracking devices, one of the thieves also grabbed a beer out of the office refrigerator -- and cut themselves -- leaving behind both fingerprints and an actual blood sample.
The company is now using this 2017 episode as an instructive case study. "Roambee wirelessly synced with all 100 devices and remotely set them to stealth mode (so there's no blinking LEDs to alert the thieves) and then switched the location reporting intervals from once every hour to once every minute."
Before stealing 100 battery-powered GPS-tracking devices, one of the thieves also grabbed a beer out of the office refrigerator -- and cut themselves -- leaving behind both fingerprints and an actual blood sample.
The company is now using this 2017 episode as an instructive case study. "Roambee wirelessly synced with all 100 devices and remotely set them to stealth mode (so there's no blinking LEDs to alert the thieves) and then switched the location reporting intervals from once every hour to once every minute."
If your use is non-commercial, you can use APRS. There are Android apps for cell phones, and numerous devices, some tiny, suitable for embedding. You'll need a ham radio license, which for this community should be little more than a minor formality.
The network to receive and map positions is global. See:
https://aprs.fi/
"Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race." - H. G. Wells
Trouble is, I find astroturfing despicable.
So, if anybody is interested in GPS devices that phone home and let you recover your property with or without a central server, I wholeheartedly recommend Mictrack products: I personally use the MT600 in all my vehicles with great success, and despite being a Chinese company, their customer support is top-notch. And believe me, I've tried a lot of GPS trackers before settling on this company.
There. I'm hoping this will provide some advertising balance...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash