DIY GPS Car Tracker...

This may sound bonkers and might be slightly flawed depending on use.

I was thinking about what to do with my nackered (no microphone) android phone.
And I thought holdon.. it has gps, internet connection, and can be charged (obviously)

How about hide it in the car, hardwired in (to charge while the ingnition is on) so then I can track my car?

This is pretty simple to setup... depending on what you want from it.

Google Latitude can automatically log where your phone is every 20 minutes or so.
There are apps where you send a text and it will activiate the gps to tell you where it is.
Loads of other paid apps also.

The only crap factor is the data plan, if you use a PAYG sim for this phone (which is what I plan) then you wouldnt want it to be using too much data.. so the idea of updating every 20 minutes would be daft.

But it could come in handy to text your car if it was missing etc


Good plan?

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Daily isn't so Special. And it makes me sad.
Need space and time and I'll crack on with Jams si!

Catch me on Facebook as I'm rarely on here.

sounds good to me

This is quite a decent idea.
Shame there was no way of it costing nothing though.

Yeah thats the problem.
Orange PAYG simcards do a £5 a month 250mb internet bundle (which is what I use daily on my current phone)

I can see how much data Google Latitude abuses... depends.. can't see it using tooooo much as it won't need to constantly download map data.

I bloody wish Google Maps could cache/save maps on sd card

_________________
Daily isn't so Special. And it makes me sad.
Need space and time and I'll crack on with Jams si!

Catch me on Facebook as I'm rarely on here.

iPhones have something similar to this, its basically a built in app on the iphone called 'find my iphone' which enables you to log on to any computer to icloud.com or iphone and track where your iphone is, you can then send it messages, play sounds through it, shut the phone down, wipe it and all sorts.

Its a good little app, I had to use it the other day to find my phone - was in my fucking garage...

I have often thought about getting a fucked iphone and doing this. But as you say, the data plan thing is the issue. But, it really all depends on what type of data plan you have, because you could get a cheap ass pay and go sim with certain amount of internet usage, then when/if you need to locate your phone, it will only use it when the tracking app/gps is activated, so therefore not caining it all the time when the app isnt in use. Unless of course you need the app running constantly in the background (unlike the iphone)...... orrrrrrr you just get a cheap contract which is basically like £5-10 a month, no calls or texts just unlimited data and use it like that. Which would be better suited perhaps.

In theory, the idea is great and it would work perfectly. It's just them small factors you need to work around.

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Yeah there are loads of apps like that on Android... as with the Google Latitude and things, they will only use the data & gps until they are asked to do so... but I'm gonna test it and see how much data each setup uses...

If I can get away with updating once an hour or something, I'd do that... or worst case scenario will be just for sending a text to it or whatever.

I'll stick a 5er on a sim and have a play next week

_________________
Daily isn't so Special. And it makes me sad.
Need space and time and I'll crack on with Jams si!

Catch me on Facebook as I'm rarely on here.

Anyway it can be inactive and only activate the internet via text?

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Well as no other apps will be syncing, the internet shouldn't be using any data


But you could toggle it off and on via text with another app no doubt

Sent from my Skate using Tapatalk

_________________
Daily isn't so Special. And it makes me sad.
Need space and time and I'll crack on with Jams si!

Catch me on Facebook as I'm rarely on here.

How about this?

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She's still alive! -23/02/2017

Id need to see some good feedback to see if that thing was worth it.

But a phone could do exactly the same if you have one spare (like moi)

_________________
Daily isn't so Special. And it makes me sad.
Need space and time and I'll crack on with Jams si!

Catch me on Facebook as I'm rarely on here.