Bicycle Austin forum

MichaelBluejay

Webmaster

From: Austin, TX

Registered: 2008-05-26

Posts: 1,466

Website

$29 device tracks stolen items with GPS

A new company is selling a little stick-on tracking device that finds your stolen stuff via GPS technology.  This video shows how they recovered a stolen bike with it:

http://trynding.com/bike-thief-revenge/ … 02kw=30204

The catch:  Your stolen item has to come within 100 feet of another customer's phone before you get notified.  They say they have tens of thousands of customers, but that's not a lot of adoption, and even in their sample video, it took ten days for them to recover their stolen bike.  Still, the cost is cheap; I plan to get some.

Schludermann

Member

From: Northloop

Registered: 2016-06-04

Posts: 7

Re: $29 device tracks stolen items with GPS

This definitely something that will help you localize the bike but it's not GPS.
Also using Bluetooth locating is increasing dramatically in adoptance and with a little research you can get four medallions for the same price and you would use a free universal app to find the medallion.

MichaelBluejay

Webmaster

From: Austin, TX

Registered: 2008-05-26

Posts: 1,466

Website

Re: $29 device tracks stolen items with GPS

Well, you're right, it's not actual GPS, it's more like "crowd-sourced GPS".  And I checked the reviews, and they were middling, with many users saying:

- the app couldn't successfully find the tracker even if was mere feet from the phone
- even when the app could find the tracker, it was pretty vague about where the item was
- the speaker volume was so low as to be practically useless
- battery life was often as short as a month, not the year suggested by the manufacturer

Do you have a link to the medallion product you like?