Asset Trackers

[Brian]

Does anyone have any experience on using GSM/GPS asset trackers to protect valuable items like consoles/amp racks/etc?

[ImagineerTom]

We use them in vehicles and plant (generators, trailers, cabins etc) with so-so results. They are susceptible to signal loss far more than a mobile phone (they are basically a really cheap smart phone), the GPS positioning is realistically only to within 10m or so outdoors and "somewhere in this building" for indoors and the vibration sensors / change of location triggers again are very hit and miss (if it triggers an alarm when there's no phone signal then the message doesn't get sent) so as active theft prevention devices they never quite work. We have had much more success using them to track things after they've gone missing when you can have someone pinging it every half hour so that it is in an area with signal and you can get a few GPS reports that you can use to triangulate where it actually is.

 

Real-world issue is the mobile service providers. Lots of PAYG sims have complicated rules about you must top up within certain time-frames, calls must be made within certain time-frames, sims must log-on within certain time-frames otherwise the sim is shut down and you have to get the provider to reactivate - that always seems to happen after something has gone AWOL and you realise that instead of being able to track it's history you now have to wait 24hrs for the sim to be reactivated and only then begin tracking. You can get specialist sims for these types of situation and/or companies that provide turnkey tracking / management services but these get expensive fast as the primary market seems to be company vehicle tracking (to prevent speeding, drivers working too many hours, moonlighting etc) where £15/month/tracker is perfectly reasonable for that service but crazy expensive when you've got a couple of dozen trackers that will only be used once a year.

[Brian]

Thanks Tom, the 'finding it after it's gone missing' scenario is the one I'm looking at.

 

 

[E2A]

And the kind of kit I'm looking at tracking will easily take a 10Ahr battery inside to run the tracker for a decent amount of time.

[timsabre]

Regarding the problems with SIMs expiring, in my normal job we do quite a lot of mobile-connected stuff and we use "M2M" sim providers (machine to machine). There are quite a few UK providers and they are not all that much more expensive than a PAYG from the corner shop.

[musht]

M2M sims, get them in PAYG flavours, multinetwork, coverage becomes less of an issue , positioning tracker inside gear so it has best sight of sky where possible helps.

 

One off of google

 

https://www.globalm2msim.com/product/20mb-m2m-data-sim-card/

 

Giffgaff has longest non expiring PAYG deal for standard sim found so far.

[ImagineerTom]

M2M sims, get them in PAYG flavours, multinetwork, coverage becomes less of an issue , positioning tracker inside gear so it has best sight of sky where possible helps.

 

One off of google

 

https://www.globalm2...-data-sim-card/

 

Giffgaff has longest non expiring PAYG deal for standard sim found so far.

amazing - that's significantly cheaper than anything I'd seen before. Thankyou!

[pjb304]

I've heard good things about hologram for IoT applications https://hologram.io/

 

[Andyb]

I've not got experience of tracking hire kit, just vehicles.

 

But

Rewiresecurity.co.uk have a good range of devices and are who we use for our vehicles.

 

They offer two different Sims, one is a single network, the other roaming so has a better chance of a signal. We have upgraded to roaming Sims as found several of our regular venues were in mobile dead spots! Sims are about £40 per year.

 

Good luck.

Andrew