So I've got a couple of LCs that I would like to stay mine, and reading through these forums, that sounds like a real challenge at times. Especially the 60 series since it sounds like you can steal it with a butter knife. So originally I was looking for something to track it if someone decided to use said butter knife and lay claim to my truck. The reason I'm posting this here is that I also have an 80 I'm working on to set up for long-range off-grid trips, so I needed a solution for that one too. Here's my journey to get where I'm at today so that you know why I chose what I did.
Attempted solution #1) Air Tags
When these first came out I thought they were a perfect solution to my problem and bought a 4 pack. $100, easy peasy. I got them, grabbed an old iPhone the wife no longer uses, and set them up with a new Apple account. They worked really well actually until I started to see the cracks in the design of this moronic product. Firstly, if the device hasn't been able to talk to its owner's device in 3 days it makes a very annoying little breaking glass kind of chime, repeatedly for like 20 seconds. This is especially bad since I put one in my wife's purse and one in my laptop bag for when I travel, but I left the iPhone in my car. Not only is this especially annoying to the owner it tells the bad guy there is something in there and said bad guy throws the Air Tag away and leaves with your belongings. The second problem, even if the device has checked in with the owner's phone within the past 3 days, if the bad guy does have an iPhone with them then the phone will tell them someone is tracking them and give them the options for the device to ignore it (irritating to the wife), have the device make a noise or to disable the device. Again, the thief just left with my stuff and Apple decided to let the thief steal it and the air tag...? This second issue is the deal-breaker. If Apple could have used their technology and given the owners of these devices a way to register the ownership, or even register what they are used to track, or really any method to help the owner and not the thief I could have accepted it. But in the interest of personal safety (which I get) combined with laziness (which I don't get), they neutered an otherwise great product to the point that it's only good to find your own things and only if you have your phone that they are registered under, with you at all times. Too bad. Now they are not even good paperweights.
Attempt #2) DIY GPS device
I searched long and hard to find a device that was affordable to build and had a very cheap monthly plan. I found devices that I could load some Arduino code onto and would post GPS coordinates every X seconds to a web service that I would register under. Total cost: ~$40/device & $5/mo SMS data service. I ordered these devices from Alibaba and they arrived so long after I ordered them that I forget I ordered them. I pulled them out and found exactly what I ordered so I went back and found the video I watched. I followed the links to the GitHub site and in very short order realized I know absolutely nothing about this form of programming. I spent a few days in Arduino IDE, Github, forums, YouTube and came away realizing I wasted $70 on two pieces of hardware I'll never be able to use, and if I do get them working, the various dependent services are likely to change at any given moment without notice.
Attempt #3) Legit GPS tracker
There are many of these out there, Amazon sells a slew of them. So many it's nearly impossible to figure out which one to get. However, I spent a good bit of time researching this subject, reading reviews, and generally getting more familiar with GPS tracking services than I ever wanted. At the end of the day, I settle on the service from Optimus using one of their tracking devices. They have several but I specifically wanted one with a decent battery backup. There are very few reviews out there on these devices but I did find a couple. Ultimately I chose the Optimus GV75MG for the battery backup and also because it is waterproof, giving me lots of installation options. I bought two of these ($55/ea) with the knowledge that each will have a $13/mo service fee. And it's their service that I liked so much. Key features I liked;
1. A Web page that is easy to navigate. Most have web interfaces but the reviews I saw and pictures I saw appeared to be clunky and not very intuitive to me. The Optimus page is very easy to navigate, almost sparse, but it gives you quite a bit of flexibility. And it was easy to use on the phone. That was absolutely critical.
2. You can set up multiple Geo Fences per device. I'm guessing this is something you can do with others, I just mentioned it because it was important to me. I have a garage ~35 mins away from where I store the 'other' vehicles. So I wanted a Geofence around the house and one around my garage for when they are parked at either.
3. Notifications: Also probably normal, but I like that you can set up multiple recipients and multiple methods per recipient (email/text/app). You can also tie notifications for a person to a certain tracking device
4. Optimus App: Simple, effective, and fast. Like their webpage, I wish all were built like this instead of all the bloatware that is out there. Don't spend money on graphics if the app is a POS.
5. Billing: They have a way you can contact support and suspend billing for a period of time on a device, I believe. I've not tried it but I read something in a forum that makes me think that.
6. You can have the device set in low consumption mode. I'm not sure if the app/webpage will let you do this, but if you contact support they can change the polling of the device to much longer intervals so that it's consuming much less power. This will, hopefully, prevent your battery from going dead on a car/RV/boat/etc stored for long periods.
I've installed one of them in my FZJ80 to try out, leaving the other in the box for now. Installation was easy; there are a bunch of wires but really all you *have* to use are the Pos and Neg. There is another wire that you can tap into keyed 12v so it can sense when the ignition is turned on and off. I ended up putting it behind the radio, tapping into the power feeds for the radio. I wasn't sure the signal inside the dash would be strong enough for a GPS fix, but it locked on within seconds. It does lose signal if the vehicle is moved indoors sometimes. My garage has a metal roof that interferes with the signal, so it will get and lose fixes periodically. However, you can have the device send a notification when it loses a GPS fix, which will include its last know position. You can also have it notify you when the car is turned on, when it moves, etc. One of the smartest tracking features that I found is that it places a mark where the car turns, so more than like a 70-degree turn, it will drop a marker. This is key to really see where the vehicle has gone, and not have those long straight lines going through buildings between streets. You can look up historical data by day, and I think it will detect a crash or hard braking or something along those lines. So you can see it's way more capable than what I was looking to create on my own.
Anyway, hope someone finds this useful. It would have saved me a bunch of time and money if I'd have found something like this. And with the prices of these trucks going up like this, the thieves will only be targeting them more going forward.
Attempted solution #1) Air Tags
When these first came out I thought they were a perfect solution to my problem and bought a 4 pack. $100, easy peasy. I got them, grabbed an old iPhone the wife no longer uses, and set them up with a new Apple account. They worked really well actually until I started to see the cracks in the design of this moronic product. Firstly, if the device hasn't been able to talk to its owner's device in 3 days it makes a very annoying little breaking glass kind of chime, repeatedly for like 20 seconds. This is especially bad since I put one in my wife's purse and one in my laptop bag for when I travel, but I left the iPhone in my car. Not only is this especially annoying to the owner it tells the bad guy there is something in there and said bad guy throws the Air Tag away and leaves with your belongings. The second problem, even if the device has checked in with the owner's phone within the past 3 days, if the bad guy does have an iPhone with them then the phone will tell them someone is tracking them and give them the options for the device to ignore it (irritating to the wife), have the device make a noise or to disable the device. Again, the thief just left with my stuff and Apple decided to let the thief steal it and the air tag...? This second issue is the deal-breaker. If Apple could have used their technology and given the owners of these devices a way to register the ownership, or even register what they are used to track, or really any method to help the owner and not the thief I could have accepted it. But in the interest of personal safety (which I get) combined with laziness (which I don't get), they neutered an otherwise great product to the point that it's only good to find your own things and only if you have your phone that they are registered under, with you at all times. Too bad. Now they are not even good paperweights.
Attempt #2) DIY GPS device
I searched long and hard to find a device that was affordable to build and had a very cheap monthly plan. I found devices that I could load some Arduino code onto and would post GPS coordinates every X seconds to a web service that I would register under. Total cost: ~$40/device & $5/mo SMS data service. I ordered these devices from Alibaba and they arrived so long after I ordered them that I forget I ordered them. I pulled them out and found exactly what I ordered so I went back and found the video I watched. I followed the links to the GitHub site and in very short order realized I know absolutely nothing about this form of programming. I spent a few days in Arduino IDE, Github, forums, YouTube and came away realizing I wasted $70 on two pieces of hardware I'll never be able to use, and if I do get them working, the various dependent services are likely to change at any given moment without notice.
Attempt #3) Legit GPS tracker
There are many of these out there, Amazon sells a slew of them. So many it's nearly impossible to figure out which one to get. However, I spent a good bit of time researching this subject, reading reviews, and generally getting more familiar with GPS tracking services than I ever wanted. At the end of the day, I settle on the service from Optimus using one of their tracking devices. They have several but I specifically wanted one with a decent battery backup. There are very few reviews out there on these devices but I did find a couple. Ultimately I chose the Optimus GV75MG for the battery backup and also because it is waterproof, giving me lots of installation options. I bought two of these ($55/ea) with the knowledge that each will have a $13/mo service fee. And it's their service that I liked so much. Key features I liked;
1. A Web page that is easy to navigate. Most have web interfaces but the reviews I saw and pictures I saw appeared to be clunky and not very intuitive to me. The Optimus page is very easy to navigate, almost sparse, but it gives you quite a bit of flexibility. And it was easy to use on the phone. That was absolutely critical.
2. You can set up multiple Geo Fences per device. I'm guessing this is something you can do with others, I just mentioned it because it was important to me. I have a garage ~35 mins away from where I store the 'other' vehicles. So I wanted a Geofence around the house and one around my garage for when they are parked at either.
3. Notifications: Also probably normal, but I like that you can set up multiple recipients and multiple methods per recipient (email/text/app). You can also tie notifications for a person to a certain tracking device
4. Optimus App: Simple, effective, and fast. Like their webpage, I wish all were built like this instead of all the bloatware that is out there. Don't spend money on graphics if the app is a POS.
5. Billing: They have a way you can contact support and suspend billing for a period of time on a device, I believe. I've not tried it but I read something in a forum that makes me think that.
6. You can have the device set in low consumption mode. I'm not sure if the app/webpage will let you do this, but if you contact support they can change the polling of the device to much longer intervals so that it's consuming much less power. This will, hopefully, prevent your battery from going dead on a car/RV/boat/etc stored for long periods.
I've installed one of them in my FZJ80 to try out, leaving the other in the box for now. Installation was easy; there are a bunch of wires but really all you *have* to use are the Pos and Neg. There is another wire that you can tap into keyed 12v so it can sense when the ignition is turned on and off. I ended up putting it behind the radio, tapping into the power feeds for the radio. I wasn't sure the signal inside the dash would be strong enough for a GPS fix, but it locked on within seconds. It does lose signal if the vehicle is moved indoors sometimes. My garage has a metal roof that interferes with the signal, so it will get and lose fixes periodically. However, you can have the device send a notification when it loses a GPS fix, which will include its last know position. You can also have it notify you when the car is turned on, when it moves, etc. One of the smartest tracking features that I found is that it places a mark where the car turns, so more than like a 70-degree turn, it will drop a marker. This is key to really see where the vehicle has gone, and not have those long straight lines going through buildings between streets. You can look up historical data by day, and I think it will detect a crash or hard braking or something along those lines. So you can see it's way more capable than what I was looking to create on my own.
Anyway, hope someone finds this useful. It would have saved me a bunch of time and money if I'd have found something like this. And with the prices of these trucks going up like this, the thieves will only be targeting them more going forward.
