Cell Phone Based Tracking Options.

[madmax718]

With google latitude gone, (and the replacement very terrible), I was looking at some substitutes. Of course, there is the Spot and In reach, which has tracking onto a website for your friends, but maybe you don't want to spend the money, or you want something just to use occasionally when your off trail. If you need tracking off the cellular coverage area, this is not for you. For me, knowing my general bearings, and approximate location is enough for now.

Sometimes you just need to let people know approximately where your last known location was. I've been testing a few things:
Latitude: It worked well, but its no longer available. It also was reliant on a data connection. Was able to use wifi/cell tower/gps for location.
"Yoohoo"-. Its pretty simple, all it does it take your coordinates, and sends it via txt message incorporating it into a link to google maps. you can set the interval to your liking. It looks like it can use at least the cell tower and GPS, and I am still testing on the WIFI (though clearly not as important).
LocSMS: Requires GPS.

Being able to send an approximate location without GPS is important for battery life- With GPS on, I can literally see the battery life dropping in real time. Lasting a day without being next to a charger is impossible on my Galaxy Nexus. This rules out LocSMS for me.
Latitude, requires a data connection. This is fine, in urban areas, but in rural areas, I often am running the GSM phone without data; my short trips in Cambodia, where my phone worked and so did txt messaging, didn't have data roaming agreements with my U.S. carrier. Im assuming in America, that Verizon might be a better choice.

Youhoo, a free app, takes the best approximate location (either GPS or cell tower triangulation) and sends the coordinates via SMS with a bit of text to help the receiver open it on google maps. Set the number to SMS, set the frequency, your done. There's no other configuration, etc. You can also manually push a location as well.

In theory- you can save the location on the map each time if you have a google account- thereby building your breadcrumb trail. You would be able to have a time stamp (of the sms) to see when the last message was, and also when they had cell service again, and new locations being sent.

 

[Crom]

Good topic of discussion. The dumbest thing Google has done in recent times is kill Latitude. I would have paid them an annual fee to keep the product. Incredibly stupid business decision on their part. They want to roll everything into Google+ which will probably be another future failure. I think there is a failure to understand their user base. /End Rant.

I don't have any good solutions to this problem and searching the web yields dismal results. Latitude had grace that other location sharing products never had. And I'm afraid they will not be able to come close to for some time and maybe never!

I've been playing with "APRS Doid" http://aprsdroid.org/. A major caveat is that you must be a licensed HAM operator to use it. I've done some experimenting with it and it's fun to use but it does eat the battery down requiring daily charging. One major consideration with beaconing your position via APRS is that your location is then in the public domain and may remain there for at least 1 year http://APRS.fi

 

[dstock]

Good topic of discussion. The dumbest thing Google has done in recent times is kill Latitude. I would have paid them an annual fee to keep the product. Incredibly stupid business decision on their part. They want to roll everything into Google+ which will probably be another future failure. I think there is a failure to understand their user base. /End Rant.

I totally agree, even Google maps is turning into a cluster, I've pretty much given up on them. Sad, what happened to the "if it isn't broken don't fix it" idea? I'm sure they think they are being innovative but when you start losing functionality, you can't really call it innovation.

 

[madmax718]

I've been using yoohoo all day. So far, so good. Its only as accurate as your Cell provider; the better service it has in the area (i.e. cell towers) the better it can give your position. My tests also shows that it can use the wifi detection method, as the GPS coordinates its sending when on wifi is different then when on cellular. This is good news. The bad part is that it can only send to one number it seems, but the intervals can be as low as .25/hr (15 min) or as long as 8 hours.

additional cool stuff:
Its not a MMS , so google voice will process these txt messages and transmit them. Im guessing you could setup a google voice account, and even forward the email notifications out to more than one party. THey may hate you after a while though, getting 4 txt messages/email an hour.

 

[Silver dude]

Been using the android app My Tracks with much success.

 

[madmax718]

here is a crazy one. (it might just work).

If you just want your loved ones at home to know your ok, or you are traveling abroad and just want to know your family's where abouts constantly...

You can use an android phone, with local google maps. Data turned off. Look up the lat/long that was txted to you. now you can see on a map. I have an international SIm which is free to receive incomming txt's.

 

[madmax718]

Been using the android app My Tracks with much success.

Seems like a great app- except it requires data. I don't know about you, but data plans are expensive. Unlimited voice and txt plans are 25 dollars a month, pre paid. With the ability for the phone to still pickup lat/long data, and have SMS, It might be good just to keep tabs on grandparents/parents/kids.

 

[robgendreau]

Y'all need to get a ham license. With one you can use APRS. It started as digital signaling over ham bands (2 meter typically) but is now used as much, if not much more, over cellular and internet connections via APRS-IS. You can set up a radio to transmit GPS coordinates, messages and your call sign. This goes from digipeater to digipeater to internet, where it can be viewed. Or you can use an app (iOS ones include PocketPacket and OpenAPRS) to transmit over cellular. These apps also show other's locations, and you can track them. Two great websites for watching this in action are aprs.fi and openaprs.net. General info at http://www.aprs.org

Although it's not just for tracking, APRS is used a lot for that. But also you'll see "WX" all over; those are weather stations. Click on them and get the current weather at that site. If you are in radio range, you can receive this over your HT or other radio (I think some have APRS built in now). It's also used in SAR and all sorts of other ways in typical ham-ish fashion. Eg, if you're really cool you bounce your APRS via radio through the digipeater on the ISS (space station; way cooler than globalstar). If you want stored data and to set up web access for your own station, check out www.findU.com; it has CGI's to set up weather, location or message data. I believe you can also send email through APRS via radio (obviously not necessary with APRS over the internet) but I haven't done that.

I also find APRS handy in conjunction with voice radio; it tells me who's nearby, what repeaters I can hit, and lotsa other info.

In the boonies, however, digipeaters can be scarce, and of course no cell or wifi. So limited there (unless you can hit the ISS, which is doable with a handheld and a good antenna, but requires some chops and kinda isn't for regular communication).

Finally, you can use Spotwalla to track via APRS-IS. I did a trip to test that and it worked, but I think there's a delay in getting the data into Spotwalla. It certainly doesn't do it in anywhere near real time. But you could set up links in findU.com to do much of the same stuff.

Enjoy.

Rob (KI6LCY)

 

[Silver dude]

Seems like a great app- except it requires data. I don't know about you, but data plans are expensive. Unlimited voice and txt plans are 25 dollars a month, pre paid. With the ability for the phone to still pickup lat/long data, and have SMS, It might be good just to keep tabs on grandparents/parents/kids.

Yeah I suppose. I've used it without cell signal in the past. Just can't see where you are on the map as the map won't load. Was good enough to track my distance and give me the charted data with elevation. Useful while hiking to lead me back.

 

[Ace Brown]

Somebody may have already posted on Gaia but in the chance this is not new.... I'm no computer geek but I find Gaia pretty easy to use. Initial membership is $19.95 where you download the app and get a lifetime subs to usgs digital topo maps. After you have downloaded the maps they store on your smart phone. Then you can create and store tracks, save and label way points and all the usual tools. The best part about Gaia is it only needs a GPS signal but not a cell signal to track. One thing I learned the hard way is that if you switch to airplane mode to save battery, it turns off the GPS receiver.

Ace


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - now Free

 

[Crom]

Good news. I did more research this morning. There is a new app in the wild called "Hemisphere" by Lee Howett. His app looks like a drop in replacement for Latitude. It's very new (somewhat unrefined), but looks very promising. I recommend reading his FAQ.

Also, I think I found the real reason Google retired Latitude. The reason I surmise is the paid subscription product called Google Maps Coordinate.

I think the OP's situation may be unique (trying to share location without data plan). However, an easy solution to sharing location via repeated emails is to have the recipient create inbox rules. If the recipient is a Gmail user, this is very simple to do. GMail has powerful filtering abilities. I've created numerous rules to "auto archive" emails from a specific sender, etc.

 

[robgendreau]

I've been thinking about this subject in general, and I'd like to hear from some SAR folks about it. There are tons of apps that can track you with a cellphone, from "spy" apps to ones for tracking kids to all sorts of GPS/SMS/email social media sharing sites and apps. Motion X for example can plot your whereabouts, as can GaiaGPS, EveryTrail and probably others. And there are tons of emergency-button type apps that will send SMS, email, and/or voice with location info.

So getting your location out there, even with a relatively marginal cell connection (since SMS can often get through when you're having trouble with voice), isn't the problem. It's what others do about it. Even with the commercial services like SPOT it's an issue. A friend just went on a trip and notified me via email when he left he was gonna send updates (to me and several others). He was outta contact by the time I got the email, and I started getting these SPOT "I'm OK" messages. But what if they stopped? What the heck was I supposed to do with this info? Gotta have a plan, man.

I think the commercial trackers are a nice idea in that they can combine both the SOS button with tracks or messages that the user has previously left. That's useful info for someone looking for you. I see utility then even with just regular old cell in leaving a trail of GPS info and/or messages. Just telling someone your itinerary can be really helpful. Consider the case of Matt Greene in Mammoth: he went there from PA, reportedly for climbing, hiking, etc. Then he disappeared. He had left his car to be repaired and never picked it up. SAR has been all over the area looking, but no luck. They're not even sure if it was a backcountry thing or a criminal thing. If he had left messages even on facebook or Twitter his friends and family, some of whom flew out to search, would at least have a better chance of locating him, even if he didn't use a SPOT or DeLorme or PLB.

But back to the SAR guys. With the multitude of social sites where would you even begin to look for info on the guy? I might not mention a short trip to friends who I already know have about zero interest in where I go four wheeling. I'd really like to see one place where you could leave trip planning info, links to other sites where you might post info about trips or GPS routes, etc. I haven't seen any consensus on that. Once I knew where the best place to leave that info is I could decide on the best app to make use of it.

 

[madmax718]

Y'all need to get a ham license.

Rob (KI6LCY)

You are 100% correct. I have the study guide printed out, and have 12 hrs of flying to do. Will be doing some "light" reading.

 

[madmax718]

Anything would be better than nothing- With a PLB you don't know if it was foul play, or if he is just so injured and unconscious that he could never activate it. With a crumb type system, at least you can see where he was moving, and where his last signal was. Again, a better starting point, than nothing at all.

 

[shogun]

http://www.glympse.com/