GPS people tracking

Just added to the website today, a solar panel so you can charge your GPS tracker using the sun.

Perfect for tracking caravans, boats and trailers that are left for long periods, are movable, where you want a quick alert if it starts to move and where you don't want to drain the main battery.

Also great for cyclists on tour and campers.

Works with KoolTrax™ Lite available separately.

We now sell second GPS user trackers. Kooltrax™ Lite, being a rental unit, will lead to a stock of returned GPS trackers which we will make available at a lower rental price. Occasionally we'll have KoolTrax™ Ranger for sale, too.

They are offered on a price-drop system. Basically, we'll keep dropping the price until someone buys the unit. So, keep checking back both for new stock and in case a unit reaches your target price.

The Rugby March went beautifully, we were able to track the ball location from start to finish.

If you fancy checking how it all went, here's the Rugby March blog.

Now that we are renting GPS trackers the question arises, what to do with the used trackers when they are returned? We can't sell them as new, of course.

So we've decided to sell them in a sort of price-drop system. Basically we'll start them off at a monthly rental of perhaps £29.99 and drop them by £1 every week or so until they are sold.

Right now we have one returned KoolTrax™ Lite with a charger, car charger and pouch which we'll make available on the website in the next few days. So if you're looking for an affordable GPS tracker and don't mind a second-user system, keep an eye on our website and see what comes up.

The Rugby March began last night with the guys leaving Newcastle on their March down to Twickenham for the Guinness Premiership final on the 16th .. how exciting is that?

They are using one KoolTrax™ Ranger and one .. brand new, just launched .. KoolTrax™ Lite.

So, you can track their progress on our Rugby March location tracking page.

I just spoke to someone who plans to run cross country from Lands End to John O'Groats. Imagine! We'll be tracking him in due course, glad all I have to do is provide the trackers.

We are proud to support the Rugby March 2009 for Leukemia. 550 miles, 265 hours, with a rugby ball. We'll be tracking its location, live. Here's their blog.

It's not actually on the website, but we do have a version of the KoolTrax™ Ranger GPS tracker designed for fitting into cars and other vehicles to act as a vehicle tracker and I've just been trying to compare it to Tracker, the system you probably know for stolen vehicle recovery.

The thing is .. they've hidden their costs now on their website, but back in 2003 they were saying their vehicle Tracker cost from £22.39 per month for a five year lease.

Well hang on a minute, that's £1,343.40 over five years, minimum. Our KoolTrax™ Ranger would cost, over the same period, £537.52.

OK, we're not plugged into the police but we can certainly tell the police where to locate your vehicle. And I'm wondering whether Tracker devices are obvious to a thief once they find it, whereas our device will be less familiar. It doesn't say it's a tracker on it.

Curious.

And with Tracker, it's leased. You don't even own it after spending well over a thousand pounds.

Maybe that's why you tend to see Trackers on very posh cars. Maybe ours are vehicle trackers for the masses. Just specify you want a car kit when you order.

That's the headline of an article in The Sun  alongside a photograph of a satellite navigation system unit almost too big to hold in one hand showing a full Ordnance Survey map.

20 patients from the Thames Valley and Somerset areas have been provided with the devices in order to track their location as part of a 2 year study.

The Alzheimer's Society does approve of GPS technology, but our view is that a much simpler device is what's required.

Our Kooltrax™ Ranger is smaller than the device pictured in the Sun article, and has just two buttons .. on/off (which can be disabled), and 'alarm'.

With that in their pocket, someone with Alzheimers who wanders may be easily found using an on-screen map or software downloaded to a suitable mobile phone which allows a carer to take to the streets and quickly find the missing person.

A geofence may also easily be set up so that alerts may be raised quickly if someone leaves the building, street or town.

The software may be installed on multiple computers (eg. family, friends, and home) and multiple people may receive alerts by email or text message.

A small investment in GPS technology provides additional peace of mind that the wanderer may be found quickly before coming to any harm. Additionally, police forces appreciate being able to find wanderers without having to use scores of officers and resources .. police helicopters are expensive to use and money spent there is not available to be spent elsewhere.

"Have you ever lost your mobile phone?" the interviewer asked. "I've lost every phone I've ever owned" came the answer. Thousands of people lose their mobile phones every year, but what happens if it's a super expensive PDA that you really, really want back?

Of course, you'd ring it and see if sounds come from the sofa, or if anyone answers.

After that .. your phone's really gone. Phone triangulation isn't accurate enough to find it if it's lost. It might tell you what town it's in.

But now there's help. If your mobile has GPS, you can turn it into a GPS tracker and find out where it is to within a few metres, in real time.

Blue Tree Services has developed KoolTrax™ for Windows Mobile 5+ (Nokia/Symbian, Java, Blackberry and others are in the final stages of development). It's downloadable software you can install on your phone and it will report its location in real time for display on your PC.

More than one person can track your phone, and the software can be used to locate more than one phone, so a whole family can track each other (or maybe a business such as a taxi company can locate its vehicles).

An additional software download, KoolTrax™ Handset, allows a Windows Mobile 5+ PDA to track another phone, showing its own position and that of other phones on an onscreen map.

Both software packages work worldwide (assuming the phone has roaming enabled), however currently only European maps are available on KoolTrax™ Handset although the relative locations are still displayed.

"I had my phone stolen by a courier driver. Luckily we were able to chase after the van and get my phone back" said Blue Tree Services' Managing Director Mike Smuts. "The driver was amazed we knew".

Download Kooltrax™ Mobile phone tracking software here.





  

Lots of mobile phones and PDAs are coming out now with GPS capability, and that means you can see your location and install sat-nav type software, but it doesn't turn those phones into a GPS tracker.

If you want to turn such a phone into a GPS tracker (perhaps so you can recover it if it's lost or stolen), you just need a Windows Mobile PDA, and to download KoolTrax™ Mobile.

It's just £39.95 and it comes with the software to track your mobile's location on an Internet connected Windows PC.

Here's how it works. Your phone knows its location because it has GPS. It sends that information via GPRS to our server. Your PC connects to our server and displays your phone's location on a map.

It will store your travel history too, so you can prove where you were.

And the PC software will track more than one phone.

Try it. Turn your GPS PDA into a GPS tracker, there's a 14 day no quibble, money back guarantee, so, no worries.