Email alerts are on the way

[hybrid]

When working on my car, there were a lot of SMS events being sent to my phone from the tracker.
Ignition on, battery cut etc

It really smashed through my pre-paid credit.
So now I've decided on a different route.

I've switched my plan to a pre-paid broadband plan.
This plan has a number of options, including $140 for 16GB of data and 2 year expiry.

This time I just went for $50, 5GB and 1 year expiry.

Now the down side to this is no SMS alerts from the tracker because the plan apparently doesn't include SMS. Oddly enough, I was still receiving SMS and it was coming off my credit anyway, so I disabled the tracker sending the SMS so my credit doesn't get burned.
However, the trackers can be configured to send all alerts via GPRS to the tracking server.
I have started coding for this on the tracking server and have successfully had an email alert to my phone when I turned the ignition on this morning. I will work on other alert types in the next little while.

The downside is that there *could* be more of a delay receiving the email alert than an SMS alert, but SMS can be delayed too, so I'm not too concerned about this.
Emails can also get caught in spam filters etc, but you would want to test this and make adjustments as necessary.

[Ausjacko]

Sounds great. What are the details of the broadband plan you found?
Cheers
Jacko

[hybrid]

This is done now. The server can now send email alerts for the following alerts from the tracker:



Obviously the tracker needs to be configured to send these alerts via GPRS to the server, but from what I have seen, these are all set by default anyway.

Jacko:
It's just a standard pre-paid broadband plan called "Telstra Pre-Paid Mobile Broadband Data Pass".
From what we are seeing on these plans that count 1KB minimum instead of 1MB minimum, 5GB should be more than enough to last a year on these things.
I drove the car to work today, so tomorrow I should have an idea of how much data it used.

[Ausjacko]

Great work Jeff. This perhaps was the missing piece to make these things fully affordable and a must have item.

n short, for those that may not get what Jeff has done:
-Our trackers previously needed a 'data and SMS' capable SIM to operate fully.

-The GPS units use very little in the way of data to communicate with the main computer known as a server.

-Australia does not really have affordable machine-2-machine (M2M) data plans that can also do SMS. The ones out there are a bit pricey and expire within 12 months- $150 each year.

-There are affordable data (M2M) plans but they do not have SMS capability- $50 each year

-Jeff has weaved IT magic on the main computer (the server) so that now it can understand the GPS unit data signals and relay these to you, if you want, as an email. This has negated the need for SMS capability on the SIM- read happy days.

-Now, the server relays this information to you over the internet as an email. Previously, the GPS unit itself would send this information as an SMS. As long as your phone can receive emails (Androids will those fruit device not so sure) you also are happy.

Summary:
1. Jeff is a good bloke who knows IT stuff.
2. You should stop being a slacker and install the GPS unit in your car.
3. For a maintenance cost of $50 a year it is cheap insurance.
4. It is cool to replay your vehicles journey through the day on google maps via the server.
5. The Police will not hunt you if the GPS captures your inadvertent excess speed.
6. The Police will use the GPS information to recover your car if some low-life steals it.



Cheers
Jacko

[hybrid]

Yes it's about time some of you other slackers who have bought the unit actually install them in your cars!
How did the latest group buy go from the place Jacko found?

[ozbilt]

I have 2 units from the last buy safely in their boxes in the shed. The Mach is not on the road and the trailer is still a dream ........

[xpconnor]

Does this mean that the original 2G trackers will keep working now?

[Ausjacko]

The older units will keep working as long as the telcos continue to provide the network that they operate over.

[xpconnor]

Telstra is canning 2G in the not to distant future. Now that the message is sent via the GPRS I thought there might be a way around the 2G system but I don't understand any of this enough to have an intelligent conversation about it.

[Pinto-Pete]

I don't understand any of this enough to have an intelligent conversation about it.

Have the same problem with life in general...

[hybrid]

Does this mean that the original 2G trackers will keep working now?

No, this doesn't change anything with the old trackers unfortunately.
There is no way around that except to use a carrier other than Telstra that still supports 2G.

However, I know that when I drive out to Coonamble, there are rural areas that have 4G data coverage, but no phone coverage.
So theoretically, in those areas, you can still get an alert from your tracker via email, but it would not be able to send SMS.

I don't know if those 4G data areas can fall back to 3G data though.

Here is my daily data usage since switching to the new plan.

Date Usage total
29 Apr 0.2MB
28 Apr < 0.1MB
27 Apr 0.2MB

So that means my 5GB data should last 25,000 days
Unfortunately the $50 recharge has a 1yr expiry.