Car Tracking Systems

If your car is stolen, it isn’t necessarily lost, thanks to GPS tracking systems. These systems allow you or an operator at a central station to track your stolen car on the Internet.

 

These devices became possible with the development of the Global Positioning Satellite System. This systems include 27 satellites orbiting the Earth and are configured in such a manner that no less than four satellites are visible in the sky. A GPS tracking system receives signals from at least three, or as many as four satellites ,and then the system calculates the location of the vehicle through a process called trilateration. It determines how far the receiver in the car is from each satellite to determine the car’s location. The data is then passed on from the tracking device in the car to the Internet via cellular technology, allowing you or an operator at a station to track the car on a map displayed on a computer or, a cell phone, a PDA or other web-enabled wireless service. The owner can control functions of the device with a cellular phone via his or her computer. These functions include the ability to lock or unlock the door, disable the ignition, enable the ignition, start the car and more. 

 

These systems usually include a GPS module, an antenna and a cellular phone. The system can track the vehicle and provide a date, time, heading speed of the vehicle, and the street address of where it is located. You can also receive an alert warning providing the condition of your vehicle via email, cellular phone or land line phone. It can monitor the car’s battery and alert you if its charge has been depleted to a severely low level. Some systems allow you to create a geo-fence or boundary in which the vehicle can travel with your permission. If the vehicle goes beyond the boundary, you are notified by email or phone call. And some systems can also monitor the speed the car is traveling and notify you via email or phone if the car exceeds the limit. Thus, geo-fence and speed monitoring are perfect features to allow you to control the driving of your teenage children. 

 

There are also tracking systems that do not include GPS. Lojack, for example, is a system that is activates when you report to the police your car has been stolen. Police patrol cars are equipped with a receiver which senses signals from the car and a device on the police car’s dashboard assists them to close in on the vehicle using LED lights. This system can only be used in certain localities that have an agreement with Lojack. 

 

There is an upfront fee to purchase these devices and then there is a monthly fee you pay for the monitoring service and activation of features by phone or computer. Moreover, many companies offer levels of sophistication -- sort of like a good, better, best approach of feature distribution, so that you can custom it to include what you can afford.