Best GPS bike tracker for theft?

[munderwood]

Hello,

I went to go and unlock my bike the other day to find a bunch of youths running away from the rack that I had my bike locked up at. Checking my bike for damage i noticed that there was bite marks on my Hiplok gold where they had tried to bolt crop it.. Two minutes later another lad arrived at the rack, pretty stressed asking if I saw anything, they had just stolen his expensive e-bike. Theft seems to be at an all time high in Newcastle currently.

I've got a Samsung Smarttag+ but wanted to go one step further and install a proper GPS tracker. I did a bit of research and settled on the Sherlock tracker which fits into the bar ends. But after some more research i found that the user reviews are terrible, broken app, short battery life and maybe most important is that the legacy 2g networks that it runs on are being discontinued by most mobile networks.

Does anyone have any recommendations/advice? The options seem pretty limited compared to motorbikes/cars. Lock wise I'm pretty happy with the Hiplok gold, It survived this time and is portable enough for daily use as a cycle courier.

Cheers, Matt

[Psamathe]

I have no experience of any but have been looking for one myself (but I can't use any of those that fit into bar ends but I'm suspicious as to their communications anyway as they are inside a metal tube which must limit signal strength).

The main thing I'm after is theft attempt notification to my phone i.e. when I'm out of alarm sound range and somebody starts trying to move the cycle. After theft tracking is a lower priority for me,

I was interested in the See.Sense Knowhere which was a Kick-starter type development but is now way delayed even for the crowd-funding pre-orders and last I heard was "not anytime soon".

Only other two I've seen that interested me were Bomerang - which is as much a ride tracker/stats as an anti-theft device. It's not what I'm after as the bike tracking aspect means it's battery life is short which causes re-charging issues on tour. In effect it isn't switched-off when you disarm it and it keeps tracking your ride and uploading to their servers which plots your route on maps, gives health stats, etc. and I'm after just an anti-theft device with long battery life. I'm also less sure about their GSM use as they seem to use standard GSM which is more prone to low signal issues that e.g. SigFox https://boomerangbike.com

One I'm currently most interested in is After-lock which seems to do everything but I'm unsure ablut how to best fit it (I can really do under bottle cage). But it seems to do everything I'm after functionality wise (alarm, alerts over GSM sigFox to your phone, tracking once stolen) https://alterlock.net/en

I have seen others e.g. Inoxia and Vodafone Curve but they have some poor reviews so I didn't consider them in detail (i.e. I rejected them quickly).

I do already have an alarm permenantly fitted to cycle (recumbent tadpole) an Abus AlarmBox - solid, weight acceptable for me but some might regard as a bit heavy. But it only does the vibration alarm, no tracking, no notifications to your phone. https://www.abus.com/uk/Home-Security/P ... y/Alarmbox

Interested if anybody has any other similar devices.

Ian

[gregoryoftours]

I work on a council-funded e-bike loan scheme. We've recently changed from red-web trackers (very poor customer support) to pow unity which so far seems to be much better. Designed for various brands of e-bike electrics, the cache battery gets charged by the main bike battery. I don't know if they do trackers for non e-bikes but I'd have a look.

[hemo]

Even if one can track the bike and locate it, the next problem is getting it back. Will plod be interested ?
Bike crime is likely not high on plods priority.

[gregoryoftours]

Even if one can track the bike and locate it, the next problem is getting it back. Will plod be interested ?
Bike crime is likely not high on plods priority.

We've had varying responses from the police. Some crap, some great. A few theft and tracked reports acted on very quickly and bike recovered.

[Tangled Metal]

There was a story that the early apple itag tracking things they sold could be tracked by thieves to later steal. The thread heading makes me think that the OP wants a GPS device that will help with their bike being stolen. I doubt that's the case but I personally think I'd avoid the apple products and go with a more established GPS based system. Then have good bike insurance and a replacement bike in mind should it get stolen and not recovered.

[Paulatic]

There was a story that the early apple itag tracking things they sold could be tracked by thieves to later steal. The thread heading makes me think that the OP wants a GPS device that will help with their bike being stolen. I doubt that's the case but I personally think I'd avoid the apple products and go with a more established GPS based system. Then have good bike insurance and a replacement bike in mind should it get stolen and not recovered.

I believe that’s the thieves who put their own AirTag on so they can later locate a car or bike they would like to steal.
You can avoid Apple products as much as you like but it won’t stop the thief using them.

[richardfm]

I have a cheap alarm that detects motion on one of my bikes, but I like the look of the AlterLock. Does anyone have any first hand experience of it?

[thirdcrank]

This thread has attracted my attention to the Afterlock

https://alterlock.net/en

I've no experience of this but I'll comment anyway.

From the ad, it looks to be aimed at the lightweight bike rider who doesn't want to spend big money shaving grammes of the weight of their bike then negating that with half a tonne of locks and QEII anchor chain. The Holy Grail of bike locks. It must be vulnerable, then, to being grabbed and chucked in the back of a van. The deterrent labelling might warn a clued-up bike thief that that was the way to do it. ie It sounds as though it would be effective against the opportunist as it would sound an alarm, alert the rider's phone and provide a tracking signal. So, my conjecture is that some of this would depend on how quickly a clued-up thief could get this gadget off and dumped. We are in the realms of tv drama suggesting dumping it on eg a bus would send the hue and cry on a wildgoose chase.

The technology used seems attractive but I speak as a numpty so it would be interesting to hear the views of a techie. AIUI, it's based on Sigfox
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigfox

Also only AIUI, that's the system widely used for things like water meters to report their readings. On the plus side, that's not some short-lived system specific to a tiny market but mainstream and it works through walls etc. However, the Afterlock Q&As have caveats about the signal strength. To my non-techie thinking, I wonder if a thief with a roll of cooking foil in the van could quickly create a Faraday Cage. As soon as a spec lists things like the rate of data transmission, I'm lost, so I wonder if the needs of a water meter are similar to the tracker on a stolen bike. The ad seems to imply this is for the rider (in full Rapha?) having a latté in a nearby waterhole so I wonder how it might work for the commuter who leaves their bike for longer periods and may be at some distance while at work. Another technical query would be how long it would carry on transmitting in the real world on a charge.

In short, it sounds ideal to me for a particular use but I'd like an analysis from somebody with the electronic knowledge
=============================================================
PS I didn't check the cost of the kit or if there was any sort of subscription

[Psamathe]

There was a story that the early apple itag tracking things they sold could be tracked by thieves to later steal. The thread heading makes me think that the OP wants a GPS device that will help with their bike being stolen. I doubt that's the case but I personally think I'd avoid the apple products and go with a more established GPS based system. Then have good bike insurance and a replacement bike in mind should it get stolen and not recovered.

I've not used any but Apple tags are advertised as including a feature that warns somebody near such a tag (being "followed" by the tag) about the tag so as to avoid their use for stalking. So not effective as the burglar would be warned they were being tracked and 30 seconds for them to find the tag and throw it out of the van window.

Ian

[thirdcrank]

Another practical point about something like the Afterlock is if you are sitting there in full posing mode and somebody rides off on your bike, what then? - even if it's going nee-naw or whoo-whoo. If you are standing in cycling shoes, especially cycling shoes with cleats, will a peloton of fellow cyclists working together recover the bike?

[Psamathe]

Another practical point about something like the Afterlock is if you are sitting there in full posing mode and somebody rides off on your bike, what then? - even if it's going nee-naw or whoo-whoo. If you are standing in cycling shoes, especially cycling shoes with cleats, will a peloton of fellow cyclists working together recover the bike?

My interest is e.g. bike locked and "After-locked" outside a supermarket when I'm out of earshot of the alarm. somebody starts moving the bike around to see where the locks attack and I get an alert on my phone so can rush out (takes even a "pro" bike thief a bit of time to cut locks.

I'm less interested in the tracking once away (as others have said, contacting Police, getting them interested, etc.), but more as a longer distance alert than an alarm sound alone.

Ian

[thirdcrank]

I'm not at all clear about the signal range from this gadget, rather than the area covered by Sigfox, which seems to be pretty wide.

Taking my example of water meters, they are in known locations and around here, the presumably sub-contractors' vans are driven round from time-to-time reading meters. I don't think there's a central reading system and I don't know if the reading equipment has to interrogate the meter or if it transmits constantly.

Re getting the police interested, taking a conveyance without authority when the conveyance is a pedal cycle is a summary offence under s12 (5) of the Theft act 1968 fine level three (max = £1,000) which isn't a big deal

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60/section/12

Plenty of people are understandably opposed to the police tearing about town so that applies to this minor offence. The evidence of theft (intention permanently to deprive) generally only comes with the passage of time when nasty things may have happened to the bike eg bits being stripped/ appearance being changed

[hemo]

I use two locks one for each wheel and attached to furniture and pp3 battery alarm bolted to the seat post, any interference give a 120db siren so at least it might put some one on their guard or alert me if I hear it.

[Psamathe]

I'm not at all clear about the signal range from this gadget, rather than the area covered by Sigfox, which seems to be pretty wide.
.....

I think it's about 3Kg (same length as my bit of string). It's a longer range technology that is good at passing through things (walls). But that is meaningless as far as coverage as a major constraint is base stations (more of them means increased costs). I suspect the coverage maps are computer generated using similar modelling technology as mobile phone networks use to create coverage maps.

There are devices that use the phone GSM network but for me GSM coverage is pretty variable and touring away from home I tend to prefer rural areas which tends to have poorer GSM coverage (maybe poorer SigFox coverage as well?.

So I regard it as "you can only do what you can do" - there are currently no devices (I'm aware of) with 100% coverage so it comes down to improving the odds in your favour.

Ian