Tracking your car is a quite useful feature that many modern cars have either built-in or offer as an option today. For classic cars there are numerous vendors that offer devices, apps and platforms to track you car if it gets stolen. Most of these cost an insane amount of money – often a monthly or yearly additional subscription is also required.
The majority of those solutions work on the same basis. All it is, is a small GPS antenna connected to a GSM mobile phone chip! And most of the time an additional battery is added to the device. Once a working SIM card is added it will send the GPS location to a defined server – either as SMS, GPRS or in some very modern cases via 4G/5G data package/internet transmission.
Many of the offered solutions out there are simply rebranded or repackaged versions of existing trackers – usually made in China. So, a couple of years ago I already decided to skip the more commonly advertised trackers you find in classic car magazines. In Miffi (my Mini Cooper) I added a portable tracker like this one (a device which my father used to carry before he had his second stroke). Back in 2017 the device only cost 65€ but did not come with a mobile phone app or a fancy website. SMS commands (which I saw in my chat history) were used to track my father if necessary and this is still what I am using in Miffi.
The device is hooked up to a USB charger, which in turn is on an ignition connected circuit. The device battery used to last for approx. 2 days – so if the engine is running every other day for at least an hour – the tracking worked. After 5 years the battery only lasts for a few hours at best.
For my other cars – Maggie, Mildred and Moggi – I wanted to add a tracking device as well. I decided to recheck the common vendors for classic car trackers came to the same conclusion as a few years ago. But this time I also took a closer look at the german website www.my-gps.org .org. It has a really good overview about many (all?) low budget GPS trackers, offers a free test account and some premium options.
It also had a description for device that has the size and looks like a standard car relay. This also has multiple variants – I ordered the Sinotrack ST-907 from Amazon – for merely 26€ (!!!) Additionally, I followed the recommendation to go with a Discotel sim card – what can be wrong about a 10€ prepaid SIM card you can order for 0€ and quit the contract on a daily basis?
Today the SIM card finally arrived. First step is to activate it on the Discotel website – following their instructions. Next I put it into my phone and deactivated the SIM Pin functions. This is also in description on the my-gps.org website. After this preparation I put the SIM into the Sinotrack device. For testing purposes I quickly hooked the device to a permanent circuit on Miffi and “professionally” taped it to the bulkhead 🙂
It took a few minutes (not 30seconds as the description says) until a GSM and GPS link were established. To check it you can unplug the device once it loaded. It has a small battery that lasts for a few minutes. On the underside there is an LED. It turns orange if you have a GSM connection, if it is blue the GPS signal is OK.
With the device ID you can log onto the Sinotrack website. Make sure to use the HTTPS link – they don’t automatically redirect to a secure connection if you just enter the URL. The ID marked is on the device, the default password in the description. Change the default password as first step.
Talking of the description and website: they are not perfect, translation (both German and English) a bit awkward in some places – but overall for 26€ it is really OK. The servers are located in HongKong – so the connection speed is a bit slow. Before somebody screams “oh no – I cannot use this due to data privacy reason” – don’t panic – this is truly anonymous. No need to enter any personal detail at all. The device ID is all that is required and that is not linked to you anywhere.
The GPS detection is approx. 5m to 15m off when the car is standing still. In the next couple days I will test it out while driving.
What I haven’t mentioned or tested yet is another cool feature. You can cut the power to the fuel pump remotely !! Very cool. I am certainly going to test this later as well. A closer look at the my-gps.org website also doesn’t hurt. The premium account has a number of functions I would like to have, but the costs for multiple trackers is quite expensive.
Fixing C6622 