"I'm so tired of worrying where my kids are - the little ones and the big ones"
KoolTrax™ Ranger is a compact, battery operated, discrete tracking device designed specifically for consensual personal tracking, security and assistance.
If your child or loved one wears a KoolTrax™ Ranger, you can track their whereabouts in real-time with accuracy down to just 4 metres using your PC and the Internet. Now you can give your kids a little more freedom to grow, while you get a little bit of your life back.
Ready to buy? Click here
As seen on TV
We were on BBC2's Something for the Weekend on the 2 September 07.
We've been on the radio, too, listen to our Managing Director explain things on the Chris Evans BBC Radio 2 show (listen (3.3Mb mp3)) and on Radio Five Live (listen (4Mb mp3)).
How does KoolTrax™ Ranger work?
You can control KoolTrax™ Ranger by installing KoolTrax™ PC software on your Internet connected Windows PC. Enter your name and any others involved.
Then for instance, using online maps, draw a boundary around your garden or street.
Set how you want to be alerted .. by text message or email (as well as on screen) and who should get those alerts.
Charge your KoolTrax™ Ranger unit, switch it on.
Get a responsible person to wear it and ask them to wander outside beyond your boundary. You'll be able to watch their progress onscreen and when they cross the boundary you'll receive your alert.
You can set up as many boundaries as you like, and alert as many people as you like in all sorts of combinations.
How it really works
KoolTrax™ Ranger and KoolTrax™ Lite are both GPS devices (and KoolTrax™ Mobile requires your mobile phone to have GPS). That means they use radio signals from military satellites to discover their position anywhere on earth to within 4 metres. Your in-car SatNav system does the same thing.
KoolTrax™ Ranger and KoolTrax™ Lite are also connected to the mobile phone network. Assuming your tracking device can get a phone signal, it transmits its location (and if it's a KoolTrax™ Ranger, along with some other exciting data such as whether it's being worn) to our server.
The KoolTrax™ PC software on your computer talks over the Internet to our server to get the position of your GPS tracking unit, and then it displays where your person is onscreen for you. We currently use Google Maps (but reserve the right to change that without notice), so you can see the location as a road map, as an archive satellite image, or both.
If you are not familiar with Google Maps, enter your postcode here. By default you see the map view, but there's a button for 'satellite', and 'hybrid'. Some areas have stunning high quality satellite images, some only lower quality, but we think Google will bring high quality to all as soon as it is able.
Just to be clear, these are NOT 'live' satellite images, you will not be able to actually see your client, child, parent or employee walking down the street using this system. These are archive satellite images taken weeks, months or years ago.
We take Google Maps (or an equivalent service) and overlay our symbols to show the location of your GPS tracking units. If you have more KoolTrax™ devices, it can display the location of all of them.
KoolTrax™ hardware trackers use the very latest SiRFstar III GPS chip and the best active GPS aerial, so you get the most accurate position data, and much improved positional fixes when the devices are indoors.
Day to day operation
Once you've set up your KoolTrax™ PC software and found a way to get your child to wear the KoolTrax™ Ranger device, you can pack them off to school and watch progress.
At home on your PC, you get to see where they are on an on-screen map .. in the playground, in a classroom. Maybe even in the head teacher's office.
If you set up a boundary around the school playground and the route to and from school, you'll get an alert if they leave the school. You will be able to see, for instance, if your daughter came straight home. If they remove their KoolTrax™ Ranger, you can also receive an alert that says it's not being worn.
This is great, too, for school trips or when they are out with friends. It's even good when the rest of the family go out, you can tell where they've been, where they are and when they are making their way home. Tracking them on a ride at Alton Towers might be interesting.
The Blue Tree difference: the problem with mobile phone tracking systems
Our product is very much ahead of the market, and if you are to be safe it's crucial to understand what you are buying. If you've looked around you will have seen mobile tracking devices which locate a mobile phone. You can use that method to locate a KoolTrax™ GPS tracking device too.
But there are two huge problems with mobile phone tracking systems. You have to send a text (perhaps 20p a time) to request the position of the unit. If the target phone is out of signal area, which can happen frequently, what you receive back is either a message to say the phone can't be found, or the approximate location where the phone was last used to make a call or send a text. With Blue Tree Services information is provided real-time not on request. This forms a breadcrumb trail on your screen. If the person happens to go out of reach of a signal, at least you can see where the signal was dropped, when, and which direction they were headed, and as soon as our tracker picks up a signal again, their new location is displayed.
Secondly, what you get back from a mobile phone tracking system almost always gives you a large area to search. A real example of this: "George is within 400 metres of Kings Cross Railway Station". An average car is 4 metres long, so next time you are out and you see a line of parked cars, count a hundred of them. Then think of that as a radius, so think how difficult it would be to find George if he could be 100 cars away in any direction, in any of the buildings. Then imagine you're in a busy shopping centre, airport, or railway station .. exactly the sort of place when you might lose George. When you need to find someone, texting every five minutes and waiting for a text response containing that sort of information isn't very helpful.
The service level of text messaging is also an issue. If you try to send a Happy New Year text at midnight on new year's eve, it's likely to arrive sometime the next afternoon. There is no guarantee that a text message will be sent or responded to in a timely manner.
With a KoolTrax™ GPS tracking device, if SMS alerts don't reach you, you will still be able to track position using KoolTrax™ PC in real-time with normal accuracy of within 4 metres, and you'll also see direction and speed of travel.
What about signal strength and reliability?
GPS devices need to be able to sense the satellites that allow them to discover their position. Traditionally this is more difficult inside a large building or very built-up area, however our use of the best GPS components in both KoolTrax™ hardware devices minimises this.
We show our confidence in a position using a circle. The larger the circle, the lower our confidence, the larger the area to search. This is very rarely more than a few metres.
In the rare event that your KoolTrax™ tracker cannot calculate its position, or cannot transmit it through the mobile phone network, you still have a breadcrumb trail on screen which shows last position and direction of travel. KoolTrax™ trackers are connected live to our server, so as soon as the signal is picked up again, your KoolTrax™ PC software displays it. In this, unusual, situation, what you do know is that the person entered a particular building or poor signal area and hasn't come out. This is in contrast to competing products where you pay to send a text message that would return a "can't find them" message, leaving you to pay to re-send repeatedly.
Our server has an uptime of 99.99%. Occasional essential maintenance is undertaken at the quietest times.
KoolTrax™ devices have intelligent power management, so it reduces the number of times it calculates and sends its position as it runs low on power. We ran one down over two weeks and it continued to work, but was only able to send position data every hour. You can see the unit's power status on your KoolTrax™ PC display, and there is a low battery alert.
A demonstration
Here's our website developer using KoolTrax™ Ranger.
Emergency operation
There are two main emergency situations: when the KoolTrax™ Ranger wearer presses the alert button, and when the KoolTrax™ Ranger exceeds a boundary (although you might also define "not being worn" as an emergency too).
In response, you can monitor the location of the KoolTrax™ Ranger unit onscreen and perhaps direct someone on the ground, verbally, using a mobile phone.
If you need to be on the ground yourself or if you are panicked and can't work the software, our emergency operator is here to help. They can see the location of your child. Call them and they will talk you through the process. When you sign up, you'll receive a dedicated emergency phone number that's operational all day every day.
If you wish, you might also like to purchase a KoolTrax™ Handset which would allow you to walk or drive yourself to find your child using a hand-held unit that displays where you are in relation to each other (although to stay within the law while driving you probably would have to park each time before using the KoolTrax™ Handset this way, but you can get yourself close, park, and continue on foot). More on that later.
KoolTrax™ Ranger must have a connection to the mobile network in order for any alert method to work. We currently use Orange to provide mobile services, their coverage map is here. The system is designed as a child location device with the assumption that you are unlikely to let your kids go wandering around unsupervised in the Cairngorms. If you are walking on the hills you would need a phone signal anyway to raise help, our system provides location data as soon as a connection is established, so no watching for a momentary icon on your phone and then being unable to connect for long enough to say .. what .. "I'm stuck somewhere on the south side of Ben Macdhui"? With KoolTrax™ Ranger, you can tell the emergency services exactly where your loved one is, regardless of visibility.
In the case of abduction, no system that provides this level of accuracy and speed is yet able to be small enough to escape detection. If your child was wearing KoolTrax™ Ranger and an abductor removed it, if you had set-up such an alert, and after a short time, it would raise a "not being worn" alert. That would show the exact time the abduction happened.
If the unit isn't detected immediately by an abductor and is taken along with your child, you would gain time and direction data and perhaps fingerprints or other forensic evidence on the unit if it is discarded, and, of course, a discarded unit may be quickly found.
Of course, if the KoolTrax™ Ranger isn't discovered by the abductor then your child can be very quickly found.
If you wish, you can hide KoolTrax™ Ranger inside, for instance, a teddy bear, coat or bag, but you will need to do that in such a way as to be able to remove it again regularly to charge it, and since it's not being worn, you wouldn't be able to set up the "not being worn" alert. The alarm button is recessed and designed to reduce the probability of accidental triggering, but you would still need to protect it from being accidentally pressed, particularly if it's inside a bag with other hard objects.
Car barter
An interesting application of this technology has been picked up by the press recently. KoolTrax™ Ranger provides information about speed of travel, and some astute parents have used this to give them peace of mind and help keep their driving-age children safe.
In this 'deal' the young driver agrees to use KoolTrax™ Ranger while driving in return for the parents buying or contributing towards them getting a car. The parents know their offspring is staying safe and within the law, they also know where they are, and at the same time they are providing an incentive (and a reason to give to their mates) why they won't exceed the speed limit.
In this instance an alternative tracking device called KoolTrax™ Mobile might be more appropriate. KoolTrax™ Mobile is software from Blue Tree Services that provides what you need to turn a Windows Mobile 5+ mobile phone with GPS into a personal tracker. If that might help you seal the deal, take a look at our KoolTrax™ Mobile page.
Headlines from BBC News
- What does Ian Brady know?
Greater Manchester Police may have called off the search for Keith Bennett's remains, but the question remains - does Ian Brady know where the body is buried? Peter Gould reports. (Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:57:38 GMT) - Abduction rumours spark concern
Police have been forced to reassure families after unfounded rumours of child abductions began causing concern. (Sat, 27 Jun 2009 12:23:41 GMT) - Man tries to abduct boy aged 10
Police are searching for a man who tried to force a boy to get into a car in Glasgow. (Thu, 18 Jun 2009 23:40:25 GMT) - Can children be criminals?
BBC Radio 4's Law in Action presenter Clive Coleman examines the arguments surrounding the age of criminal responsibility. (Mon, 15 Jun 2009 23:50:58 GMT) - Kidnap father's life of deception
A father who pretended to be related to the Rockefeller oil dynasty lived a life based on lies and fantasy. (Fri, 12 Jun 2009 16:19:20 GMT) - Abduction charges against two men
Two men appear in court charged with sexual offences and abduction after police stop a sports car with two young girls inside. (Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:32:28 GMT) - Man jailed over schoolgirl kidnap
A man who abducted a 15-year-old girl from North East Lincolnshire and took her to France is jailed for five years. (Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:43:55 GMT)
How much does a KoolTrax™ tracking device cost?
We have worked hard to provide a service that enables you to budget for the costs involved.
Either you can buy a KoolTrax™ Ranger unit for £292.64 including normal data for a year (plus £10.00 postage and packing). KoolTrax™ Ranger transmits its location data over a mobile phone link, so in the second and subsequent years there is an annual service charge of £58.72.
Or you can rent a KoolTrax™ Lite unit for £34.99 per calendar month, all normal use included.
Ready to buy? Click here
In unusual circumstances you may incur some additional charges.
- KoolTrax™ devices are not, by default, set up to work outside the UK or Ireland. If you wish to use it, for instance, on holiday, you would need to call us and agree to pay the roaming charges set by the mobile phone company (plus 10% to cover administration), just as you would in order to use your mobile phone abroad.
- If you set up lots of SMS alerts, and alert states keep occurring, you might pass our limit of 50 SMS alerts per month. We will then charge 25p per additional SMS alert. We will try to let you know before that happens, but it's simply a matter of you managing your alerts well. No-one has yet passed this limit nor incurred any charges, it's really there to limit our liability if someone does set things up that way.
- If you need technical support, calling our technical helpline is chargeable at 75p per minute.
You may wish to purchase just one KoolTrax™ device to begin with, and pass it around according to the day's plan. We simply track the KoolTrax™ GPS tracker unit.
Ready to buy? Click here
Does it work outside the UK and Ireland?
KoolTrax™ Ranger is sold in the UK and Ireland set up to work in your country, but it does work in most other countries (with the notable exception of the USA), you simply have to let us know beforehand and agree to pay the roaming charges from the mobile phone company (plus 10% to cover administration).
KoolTrax™ Lite is new to us so we are still testing its international capabilities, although we expect it will work internationally. Try it, let us know, if it doesn't work for you we will, of course, provide a full refund.
KoolTrax™ software (Mobile and Handset) work wherever your phone works.
How can I cancel?
If you change your mind and wish to cancel a new order, you have a statutory seven days to do so. You must let us know in writing or by email and return the product unopened, uninstalled and at your expense.
For data services for KoolTrax™ Ranger, 12 months is the minimum term. There is no obligation to continue to purchase data services, but the unit won't be useful without it.
KoolTrax™ Lite rental may be cancelled anytime by simply returning the device to us with your account details, get in touch to arrange that.
Guarantee
We want you to be completely satisfied with purchase, and we are absolutely sure you will be. You're going to love what we offer, so we want to make sure you get the chance to see what we mean, and feel the product working for you. So we offer an iron clad, no-quibble, fourteen day money back guarantee.
So that's that: if, after fourteen days of use, you're not absolutely happy with the KoolTrax™ PC software on your PC or with your chosen tracking unit or with anything at all that we've provided for whatever reason, just return it to us in its original condition, and we'll refund your money in full. No questions asked. No hard feelings. No problem.
What you will get when you order KoolTrax™ Ranger
| KoolTrax™ Ranger | |
|---|---|
| A wearable KoolTrax™ Ranger unit | √ |
| A wall charger (the unit has integral batteries) | √ |
| A user manual | √ |
| A KoolTrax™ PC management software CD | √ |
| Access to our technical support line (business hours only) | √ |
| History/breadcrumb trail capability | √ |
| Panic alert button | enabled |
| Knock alert facility (being worn/fall alarm) | √ |
| Boundary inside alert capability | √ |
| Boundary outside alert capability | √ |
| Multiple KoolTrax™ PC logins | √ |
| Multiple contacts for alerts | √ |
| Multiple groups for alerts | √ |
| Access to our 24 hour emergency line | √ |
| International roaming | on request |
Ready to buy? Click here
KoolTrax™ Ranger specifications
- dimensions: 24mm x 80mm x 55mm (about the size of a credit card, but 24mm thick)
- weight: 100-110g
- GPS chip: SiRFstar III
- intelligent power management (battery life dependent on temperature and other factors)
What you need
In order to use KoolTrax™ PC software to manage the service and track the position of the person wearing your KoolTrax™ GPS tracking device, you will need an Internet connected Windows PC.
Track your KoolTrax™ Ranger while you are mobile too, using the KoolTrax™ Handset
The KoolTrax™ Handset is an optional fully featured Personal Digital Assistant running KoolTrax™ PC software, so you can see onscreen the relative positions of you and the person wearing a Blue Tree Services tracker together with the direction of travel. To find them, you just travel or walk towards them. We haven't seen this capability anywhere else.
It's also a fully functioning PDA. We are currently using the Mio A701, so it gives you satnav, it's a phone, camera, video and audio player, and comes with Microsoft Office mobile, a calendar, contacts list and much more. So now you have a great reason to get a gorgeous, state of the art PDA.
KoolTrax™ Ranger works well without the KoolTrax™ Handset, but with it, finding an errant runaway is fast and easy, and if, during a search, you still have someone watching KoolTrax™ PC on your home computer, they can see the relative positions of both units.
Our price for the KoolTrax™ Handset is £351.33 + £10.00 per order for p&p. You have a choice regarding the data charges. You may buy a KoolTrax™ Handset and put your own phone sim into it, so you keep your number and contacts and you pay for the data charges through your existing phone contract. Or you can buy a new sim from us at £141 per year.
All KoolTrax™ PC (parent or manager) units are able to track more than one KoolTrax™ Ranger (child or client) unit at no additional cost.
What you are getting
A single KoolTrax™ GPS tracking device gives you:
- the ability to track the position of anyone in your care in real time with 4 metre accuracy
- real time location data with 4 metre positional accuracy
- a breadcrumb trail of where they have been
- the security of knowing your child, parent, client or staff member has an alert button that, when pressed, shows you exactly where they are (KoolTrax™ Lite additionally provides the ability to speak to the wearer using the device like a phone (up to three emergency numbers))
- emergency telephone assistance
- the ability to set up a "not being worn" alarm (KoolTrax™ Ranger only)
- control of the setup of any number of geofence boundaries of any shape, that you can switch between at will
- the ability to set up alerts by email and/or text message to any number of people
How to order a KoolTrax™ Ranger
Are you ready to give your kids a little more freedom to grow, while giving yourself the reassurance they are safe? KoolTrax™ Ranger is in stock now.
KoolTrax™ Ranger
Click the 'buy' button below to buy a single KoolTrax™ Ranger unit through our secure payment pages. If you want more than one, click the button and change the quantity on the next page. If you haven't got a Paypal account you can still pay by credit card, click here to see how.
If you don't mind a second user system, check in case we have any used GPS trackers.
| Buy KoolTrax™ Ranger | ||
|---|---|---|
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Buy a KoolTrax™ Ranger personal GPS tracker for just £292.64(plus £10.00 p&p) What you get:
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KoolTrax™ Lite
Click the 'buy' button below to **rent** a single KoolTrax™ Lite unit through our secure payment pages. If you want more than one, click the button and change the quantity on the next page. If you haven't got a Paypal account you can still pay by credit card, click here to see how.
We have limited availability of these units so order while we have stock.
Also, because this product offers substantial savings over our KoolTrax™ Ranger we wanted to make it available as soon as we could, however we haven't quite got our regular payments system sorted. For now, you'll pay one month's rental when you order, and then we will send you a monthly Paypal invoice by email. Once we have implemented automatic payments, we'll need you to order online again (at no extra cost).
If you don't mind a second user system, check in case we have any used GPS trackers.
| Rent KoolTrax™ Lite | ||
|---|---|---|
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Rent a KoolTrax™ Lite personal GPS tracker for just £34.99pcmWhat you get:
(Note: To rent a KoolTrax™ Lite unit along with other items, place two orders, one for rental items, and another for purchased items). |
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What happens after I've bought?
Software products are immediately downloadable along with instructions for installation. You will require an activation code from us which is dispatched by humans so please allow a business day.
For physical products, we currently try to ship every Tuesday by Parcel Post, so if you order by mid-day on a Tuesday you are likely to receive it next day. If you order on a Wednesday it will be just over a week.
When you receive your parcel, if you have KoolTrax™ hardware units (Ranger or Lite), set them charging.
You will be asked to agree to our terms and conditions and to request the unit be activated. Privacy laws require this step.
Once you've done that, we send you a login code. You install KoolTrax™ PC software on your PC, enter the login, turn on the KoolTrax™ Ranger or Lite and you will see its position on your screen. Well done, you're tracking!
Set up boundaries using KoolTrax™ PC software by drawing them on an on-screen map, and enter the details of who is to receive alerts, under what circumstances, and by which method (email/SMS).
Next step: enjoy tracking your loved ones and knowing they are safe
Worry less about the people you love, give yourselves the means to be safe. Click here