Open GPS Tracker

From the website

quote:

The Open GPS Tracker is a small device which plugs into a $20 prepaid mobile phone to make a GPS tracker. The Tracker responds to text message commands, detects motion, and sends you its exact position, ready for Google Maps or your mapping software.

Interesting.

That's pretty cool. When my kids were younger and first driving on their own I might have been tempted to consider something like this to keep tabs on them. Now it's too late.

~erik~

hey it's never too late for a little fun thats a pretty good price for intell, and what i like about it it dont use gas

A couple of years ago we thought it was about time to give a young guy a chance to work on his own so we equipped him with a gps mapping grade unit and sent him out of town to do a utility inventory job. He returned on Friday and had not finished the project. He said he needed another day or maybe two. He kept the unit on all the time while in the truck charging. After the data was downloaded, we downloaded his track and of course all the data was time indexed. What we saw was quite revealing. His girlfriend lived in the metro area and he spent most of the time there. Quite a bit of time was recorded at two night spots. Actually only 10 hours out of the entire week were used in collecting data out of town. He had no idea how we got the goods on him. Last I heard he was flipping burgers at Mickey D’s.

"and sends you its exact position"
I wonder how close that is? Seems the simpliest news item cannot be written without hype and bs!

Well per the page it uses the SiRFstar III receiver chip for the GPS functions just like the latest Garmins and the product overview pdf says horizontal position accuracy would be <2.5 meters (8 ft).

Exactness without expressing a tolerance is meaningless as far as I am concerned. An exactness of +- 8 feet sucks in a land survey or measuring the deformation of a retaining wall. If you built a house to this "exactness", your house could be 8 feet out of square. The article could have said "and sends you its position". That would have been sufficient but non-technical writers trying to write technical works seem to have tendency to "gush" and prattle along needlessly.

What is worse is the person that designed it, built it, and create the website to describe it, also uses the phrase "exact position" and I would assume he is a technical person.

"and I would assume he is a technical person", who is pushing a product and has the need to gush and prattle needlessly. I'll bet his watch is 99% more accurate.