enquire
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
- Does KoolTrax™ work outside of the UK & Ireland and what are the additional costs?
- KoolTrax™ Lite works outside the UK, but you should let us know so we can enable roaming. The additional costs of roaming may be recharged to you so it may be wise to lower the tracking frequency and only use it when necessary. Alternatively, buy a pay as you go SIM (a card for your phone and phone network) for the country you are in.
- The cost of roaming on non-native SIM is determined by the tracking frequency and possibly whether the unit is actually being monitored. At the time of writing, e&oe, our approximate and unverified calculations are that the cost of international data transmission is about £4.50 per megabyte, and a track is about 120 bytes in size, so it takes 8,333 tracks to spend £4.50.
- If your tracker is outside the UK, is set to transmit every seven seconds, and it is always being monitored, it can dispatch 382,628 tracks in a month, costing about £206.63.
- However, some networks don't charge when the tracker isn't being monitored, so you may find you can save money by monitoring only when you need to.
- If you set a non-UK tracker to communicate every five minutes outside the UK and you monitor it continually, we think it would spend about £4.50 in the month.
- What are the ongoing costs
- Our gps tracking devices send their location data over the mobile phone network, so there are charges from the phone company that must be covered.
- Those costs are included in the rental of KoolTrax™ Lite
- For the KoolTrax™ Rover car tracker in the UK or Ireland, we include the first year's cost in the purchase price, but from the second year onwards there is a
£60 per year service charge.
- Some network suppliers don't charge for the data that is sent by a tracker that isn't at that moment being tracked. So, if you are paying for data, you might be able to save costs by not monitoring except when you need to.
- For KoolTrax™ Mobile, there is an annual service charge of
£55.99
- Can the software be uploaded to my PDA/Blackberry/Palm or do I need to buy yours?
- Your PDA must use Windows Mobile 5+ or Symbian (Nokia) and have GPS and a touch screen. Blackberries and Palms don't use Windows. The PDA we offer (at the time of writing) is a Samsung i780 (but we reserve the right to change that without notice).
- Which mobile phones are compatible with KoolTrax™?
- First of all, KoolTrax™ only works on phones running the Microsoft Windows Mobile 5+ or the Symbian (Nokia) operating system. Your chosen phone must also have standard GPS capability, and it must have a touch screen.
- KoolTrax™ Mobile has been tested and works on the MIO, Orbit and Samsung i780. As at 26 Feb 2010 we have tested the following Nokia phones and our software works on them: the N95, 5800, 5320, N79 and E72.
- How long do these products last on a full battery charge?
- Expect a tracker to last at least from morning to evening based on a standard 5-12 second tracking interval, less if it's cold.
- If you need longer life, you can configure KoolTrax™ (using KoolTrax™ PC on your computer) to use a longer tracking interval, so saving battery life, as follows:
| Tracking interval | Battery life |
| 5-12 seconds | 10-15 hours |
| 15 minutes | 1-2 days |
| 1 hour | 2-3 days |
| 3 hours | 5-7 days |
- A low battery condition causes a visual 'low battery alert' on the monitor screen.
- The battery used is a commonplace mobile phone battery so you might want to buy a spare battery and charger, and simply swap them over regularly.
- A mains charger is supplied. A car charger, either through the cigarette lighter (£12.76) or for permanent installation (£16.17) are also available.
- For KoolTrax™ Mobile software you download onto your own PDA, the battery life will depend partly on the PDA you are using.
- However, in principle with PDAs, to get good battery life they must be set so they fall into 'power save mode' when not in use. The manual that comes with the product shows you how to do this.
- Using KoolTrax™ PC, the PDA can then be configured to wake up, for instance, every 15 minutes. At that frequency, we've had over 10 hours from a fully charged PDA.
- Using this method, if the user needs to locate a KoolTrax™ Mobile PDA urgently, the user may phone the PDA to wake it up, KoolTrax™ Mobile will wake up too and register its location. For continuous tracking, if necessary, the user can then increase the tracking frequency using KoolTrax™ PC.
- What is the size of KoolTrax™ Lite?
- KoolTrax™ Lite is smaller (but much thicker) than a credit card: 23mm x 75mm x 42mm, and it weighs 90g.
- Why don't you sell through Amazon? Do you sell here in Sweden/Spain/South Africa?
- We are not presently maintaining our presence on those sites, ordering is simple through our website.
- Is KoolTrax™ available in watch/bracelet form?
- Because it, unlike other products, includes GPS and the innards of a mobile phone, KoolTrax™ is still a bit large for a bracelet. Bracelet products don't provide 4 metre accuracy, wide area coverage or real-time information, a breadcrumb trail or a full range of alerts.
- How is KoolTrax™ worn or carried?
- Smaller children need a holder (most mobile phone cases are about right). The feedback we have is that once the habit is formed to wear it the system works well. However forming the habit can be tough. We can supply a variety of cases and belt clips on request.
- What service guarantees / service level agreement do you offer? What are the maintenance windows? Projected uptime?
- Uptime is 99.99%. Maintenance happens early in the morning for about 30 minutes every week.
- Is there a trial period?
- No, but there is a 14 day money back guarantee. Once that is over, the minimum rental period for KoolTrax™ Lite is one month.
- Can the software be installed on more than one PC at a time?
- Yes, simply request additional 'logins'
- Paying by Paypal
- You can pay using (probably) any credit or debit card using Paypal even if you don't have a Paypal account, but they disguise that well. Here's how.
- If, on the BlueTree website, you click [buy] or [view cart] you are taken to the Paypal shopping cart. You can add or remove quantities there. When you're done, click [proceed to checkout]. Assuming you are not signed in to Paypal, here's the crucial screen:
- If you have a Paypal account, simply provide your email and password and away you go.
- If you haven't got a Paypal account, I've circled in green the link you should click on the Paypal screen. Important note: If you are paying this way, at the end of the Paypal process, you won't automatically be brought back to our site, you must click to do so (it's a Paypal thing, we don't know why it's so). It's when you arrive back at our site that we get notified that you've bought from us, so missing that step could mean a delay in you receiving your goods.
- That might sound complex, but it's really straightforward. It's knowing that link is there, and then remembering to click through to us at the end. Happy shopping :-)
- Are you integrated with the emergency services? How do you co-ordinate an emergency response, and does that work Internationally?
- We don't co-ordinate any emergency response, we simply provide what location information we have to those authorised to have it.
- If you want the police or emergency services to get location information from us, you will need to provide your login details to them, and then when they call us and provide that, we'll provide all the location information we can.
- This means not only do you need a tracker on the person being tracked, but you also need to have one or more people able to check on their wellbeing, or at least ready to receive an alert.
- We only provide location information in English, but of course, you can call us from anywhere.
- How quick is delivery after I place my order
- Please allow 10 days for delivery
- Will this work indoors, in a shopping mall for instance? Will I be able to see which floor someone is on?
- GPS (satellite positioning) requires sight of the satellites it uses, so if you go deep inside a large building, the tracker won't be able to work out where it is. Also, deep inside a building, a tracker may not be able to find a phone signal over which to report what it knows.
- Assuming you were tracking as the person entered the building, you would be able to see the tracking history: when they entered a building and by which entrance.
- GPS tends to find itself when passing a window, so you may get further tracks if the person is moving around and passing windows. Then, when they exit the building, you will see that.
- This is a limitation of GPS (and cellphones). We use the best GPS aerial available, so basically, GPS doesn't get better than this.
- There is also the question of height. The height data we receive isn't accurate enough to allow us to say what storey someone is on in a multistorey building.
- Does KoolTrax™ use an always-on mobile phone connection, eg. GPRS or 3G?
- All data is encrypted and sent by GPRS.