The benefits of tracking devices, and how to choose one
There are many benefits of tracking devices, from finding lost items to adding security to valuable possessions.
If you’ve ever lost something valuable, you’ll appreciate the anxiety and distress its disappearance can incite.
From mobile phones and suitcases to vehicles and even pets, it’s often vital to have a dependable method of identifying where something is.
This is hardly space-age technology. Many modern cars have apps which allow you to track their location in real time, and the Apple AirTag has revolutionised small-item tracking.
In America, the concept of tracking anything from a parcel to a pet is normal. Numerous manufacturers offer suites of tracking devices with varying refresh rates and battery lives.
In Britain, perhaps mindful of 1984’s dystopian surveillance society, we’re less enthusiastic about the concept of remote surveillance.
Monitoring could potentially be deployed in bad faith, but the risks of misuse tend to be outweighed by the benefits of tracking devices.
Key benefits of tracking devices
There are many situations where it’s occasionally useful to locate an item, from airport baggage to a festivalgoer navigating back to their car in a gloomy field full of vehicles.
There are other situations where it’s routinely necessary to know where an item is; an elderly person wanting to locate their keys, or a student hunting for their laptop.
Providing it meets a few key criteria outlined below, a tracking device could simplify any of these scenarios.
It may even be used to monitor children (with their permission), potentially granting them the independence to walk between home and school while ensuring they don’t go rogue.
Many tracking devices support a concept known as geofencing, where users sketch out boundaries on a map. Alerts are instantly triggered if the tracker breaches those boundaries.
Tracking devices also enable the police (and owners) to track down and recover lost or stolen goods, including shed staples like lawnmowers or bikes.
On the right track’
There are two main methods used to monitor the location of tracking devices, both using Google Maps-style apps or your preferred web browser.
One is the use of Global Positioning Satellites (GPS for short), which is the method used by in-car navigation systems to monitor a vehicle’s location to within a few dozen metres.
The other is a more complex and less reliable system of smartphone triangulation, using Bluetooth signals from one or several devices to pinpoint the tracker’s position.
Some Bluetooth trackers only work on one registered device, meaning the object has to be nearby to be found, while others can ping any device’s Bluetooth signals.
Some Bluetooth trackers claim to cover distances of hundreds of feet, but Apple’s AirTag only works over a fraction of this – and even then it may require line of sight.
Apple’s tracker only uses other iPhones as third-party location identifiers, while Google’s Find My Device network is more democratic but also more sporadic outside city centres.
Like a reverse version of What3Words, a GPS tracker will be detectable almost anywhere in the world (often even inside a shipping container), though it consumes more power.
How to choose a suitable device
Cost will be the key factor in many cases. GPS trackers tend to be several times costlier than Bluetooth counterparts and may require monthly subscriptions.
GPS trackers tend to be relatively bulky, while a Bluetooth tracker could be small enough to fit into a watch pocket or hang on a keyring.
They’re often fixed in place with adhesive pads, making them ideal for a cat’s collar.
A GPS device typically needs frequent recharging, though positional accuracy should be higher and they tend to offer location reporting in real time rather than cyclically.
GPS devices also generally support geofencing, which might be useful if you want to monitor the handbag of an elderly relative prone to wandering around outdoors at night.
They’re also silent, whereas Bluetooth devices often chirp and chime to prevent them being used covertly. Regular sound output might make them unsuitable in certain scenarios.
Bluetooth trackers are highly affordable and perfectly adequate in most day-to-day scenarios, but they’re less powerful, flexible and accurate than GPS hardware.
