Tracking / Personal Safety Alarm Devices

[DuncanCT]

Trying to find out if this is worth pursuing. Who would be interested in a tracking and personal alarm device that could work independent of cell phone and have about a years worth of battery life. Small enough to stick under your saddle or drop into your seat tube. Resolutions of about 1 location point every 10min and alarm message sent in real time.

 

Obviously to have while riding but other application would be possible. I would be like to be able to give my nanny such a device to carry when out of the house, etc.

 

Any feedback would be interesting?

 

Product Summary: (I'll move this to a Google sheet eventually)

 

Garmin inReach (www.garmin.com/en-ZA/inreach/personal/)

Hardware cost: R7900

Subscription: R250/month | R3 000/year

R1.65/tracking point

Function: Tracking + Alarm Button

Location: GNSS

Communication: Iridium

Resolution: 10min

Battery Life: 90hrs

 

Seon (www.seon.co.za/)

Hardware cost: R600

Subscription: R200/month | R2 400/year

Function: Alarm Button (Tracking only after activation)

Location: Phone/App

Communication: Bluetooth to phone

Resolution: Real Time**

Battery Life: 1 year (Tracking battery life dependent on phone battery)

 

Namola Panic Tracker (support.namola.com/the-namola-panic-tracker)

Hardware cost: R1400

Subscription: R80/month | R960/year

Location: GNSS

Communication: Cellular 

Resolution: Real Time**

Battery Life: 24 Hours

 

Spot Gen3 (findmespot.com/en-za/products-services/spot-gen3)

Hardware cost: R2 500

Subscription: R280/month R3 770/year (17 + USD/month + 25 USD/year)

Additional Cost: Activation 20 USD | Annual 25 USD | 2.5min tracking 7.25 USD

Function: Tracking + Alarm Button

Location: GNSS

Resolution: 2.5min

Battery Life: 5 days @ 5min resolution 

 

 

* Correct as of July 2020 / Please let me know if there is an error.

** Assumed

 

GNSS = Global Navigation Satellite System

Edited July 22, 2020 by DuncanCT

[Grumpy4]

For sure

[Wic2]

Definitief belangstel.  Koste dalk probleem?

[Grease_Monkey]

At the right (once off) price, yes.

[Wayne pudding Mol]

I’d be in but no locked in contract

Edited July 20, 2020 by Waynemol

[Slowbee]

Would be great.

[Jackson123]

Would also be interested.

[aquaratza]

It sounds like LoRaWAN? I've been trying out a portable tracker made by Rak Wireless contract and GSM free (use 868MHz). I even set up a gateway on my home to help with coverage. They're cool but the coverage isn't great.

There's also the Garmin inReach, which isn't GSM based but is costly.

Edited July 20, 2020 by aquaratza

[Stephan]

Trying to find out if this is worth pursuing. Who would be interested in a tracking and personal alarm device that could work independent of cell phone and have about a years worth of battery life. Small enough to stick under your saddle or drop into your seat tube. Resolutions of about 1 location point every 10min and alarm message sent in real time.

 

Obviously to have while riding but other application would be possible. I would be like to be able to give my nanny such a device to carry when out of the house, etc.

 

Any feedback would be interesting?

Yip - great idea

[Reme Le Hane]

Is that not what Nestor has been doing for like 2 or 3 years? If I recall the price was not bad but I spoke to my insurance broker and they told me not to bother, it would have no impact on my insurance.

 

To me, personally, in that regard it seems unnecessary when I am already paying insurance.

 

Sure, inconvenient to get it stolen, but on the flip side I end up paying R1500 for a brand new 80k bike.

 

I kind of win out of them not being able to find my bike if it does get stolen.

[dave303e]

it all depends if it is GSM based or satellite based.

 

GSM based you ca buy cheap kids tracking watches or Alzheimer trackers.

 

Satellite based the month to month subscription is expensive but it does give you a lot better coverage.

[Myth]

I like the idea...not as a tracker to find my stolen bike, but as a tracker for my own personal safety.

[Shebeen]

Trying to find out if this is worth pursuing. Who would be interested in a tracking and personal alarm device that could work independent of cell phone and have about a years worth of battery life. Small enough to stick under your saddle or drop into your seat tube. Resolutions of about 1 location point every 10min and alarm message sent in real time.

 

Obviously to have while riding but other application would be possible. I would be like to be able to give my nanny such a device to carry when out of the house, etc.

 

Any feedback would be interesting?

 

 

i think you are describing two different but similar devices here. and GPS+GSM based means they aren't cheap

you can get devices that go in your headset/seatpost or even ones that come inside a red rear flasher light. and they have a sim slot so you're in control of the data.

.

for your nanny, there's loads of personal tracker watches.

 

Bluetooth seems like the ultimate solution, as item cost can be cheep cheep.

i really think one of these will eventually win out and develop a large enough network to make it actually work outside of your house.

 

https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/best-bluetooth-trackers/

[roodie]

I like the idea...not as a tracker to find my stolen bike, but as a tracker for my own personal safety.

Get a find me spot device works well for tracking and you can let your family have the app on their phone to track you. Its satellite based when out of GSM Tower reach when GRAVEL GRINDING in the Ceres Valley

[LazyTrailRider]

I use an ANGI on my helmet, which gives my wife live-tracking while I ride via the app on my phone, as well as an SMS alert with GPS coordinates to ICE contacts if it detects a crash.

 

It works really well, but these days I'm more worried about hijackings than crashing...

[Rocket-Boy]

It sounds like LoRaWAN? I've been trying out a portable tracker made by Rak Wireless contract and GSM free (use 868MHz). I even set up a gateway on my home to help with coverage. They're cool but the coverage isn't great.

 

There's also the Garmin inReach, which isn't GSM based but is costly.

Yup, the only way to get away from GSM is to use something like LoRa but I would assume that with MTB being a remote activity that there wont be an IoT style network running in those areas.

 

If there was an IoT network then the device itself wouldnt be that complicated, there are lots of microcontrollers these days that have great deep sleep functionality so the battery could last pretty long if it just wakes up to do a position update.