Tracking device for tools.

[electrofelon]

Has anyone looked into or thought of getting one for tools in case stolen? Is this a practical option to say stash one in a tool case? How reliable and accurate are they and how long do the batteries last? I assume it would use GPS for location and send it via cellular.

 

[infinity]

Do you mean something like an Apple airtag? They seem to work well but they need to be in proximity to an iPhone.

 

[electrofelon]

Do you mean something like an Apple airtag? They seem to work well but they need to be in proximity to an iPhone.

I'm not sure, never heard of those, and I'm not an apple person. Just seems like there would be a small little device that would fit the bill. With all the theft going on I would put consider getting a few. Had my truck stolen a few days ago. I got lucky and they found it the next day undamaged. I did not have any tools in it. Then last week someone broke into the parking garage of one of my clients buildings and stole a pipe threader - not mine but we have about $10,000 of tools in a locked room right next to where the threader was. Scared the crap out of me as we all know a cordless drill, a 3/8 bit and 30 seconds is all it takes to drill out a lock.

 

[Knuckle Dragger]

Has anyone looked into or thought of getting one for tools in case stolen? Is this a practical option to say stash one in a tool case? How reliable and accurate are they and how long do the batteries last? I assume it would use GPS for location and send it via cellular.

I haven't. That being said I would love to have a device to let me know that all my tools are in my truck before I leave a job site.
Maybe it could be used for bot
I believe more tools get lost and left behind rather than stolen at least in my case it is.

 

[kwired]

I haven't. That being said I would love to have a device to let me know that all my tools are in my truck before I leave a job site.
Maybe it could be used for bot
I believe more tools get lost and left behind rather than stolen at least in my case it is.

The technology should exist to be able to do so. At what price, IDK.

As people complain about how many stores have gong to self checkout in recent years, I have maintained there is ability to have RF tags on products and you should really be able to push your cart through a scanner and it should be capable of scanning every tag in there without having to handle each individual item in any way. Would definitely speed up the checkout process. If you question the results then you would likely need to go through items one at a time and review against what the thing scanned and reported.

 

[retirede]

I haven't. That being said I would love to have a device to let me know that all my tools are in my truck before I leave a job site.
Maybe it could be used for bot
I believe more tools get lost and left behind rather than stolen at least in my case it is.

I thought one of the big 3 truck manufacturers introduced a system like this a few years ago? I haven’t heard about it lately. Maybe it didn’t sell well enough?

Edit: it was Ford back in 2008.
https://www.wired.com/2008/02/ford-truck-pack/

There are 3rd party solutions today.

 

[synchro]

The technology should exist to be able to do so. At what price, IDK.

As people complain about how many stores have gong to self checkout in recent years, I have maintained there is ability to have RF tags on products and you should really be able to push your cart through a scanner and it should be capable of scanning every tag in there without having to handle each individual item in any way. Would definitely speed up the checkout process. If you question the results then you would likely need to go through items one at a time and review against what the thing scanned and reported.

The cheapest RFID tags are passive and cost as little as 10 cents or so. However, they don't work well on metal objects because this de-tunes and shields their antennas. Ones are available for metal objects, but they must be larger to obtain an effective antenna further removed from the metal, and they are significantly more expensive. Even 10 cents can be prohibitive for most commerce. The early adoption has been for inventory tracking of more valuable assets. Often this is not for preventing theft but for improving the accuracy and speed of inventory taking when employees or customers have moved things away from their proper location.

 

[winnie]

I've been poking at this for bicycles.

At the level of tracking individual tools, you aren't going to find things useful for theft protection. Airtags, tile tracker, Samsung SmartThings, etc. all use very low power short range (at most a couple hundred yards) radio links which depend upon nearby smartphones. You could probably use them attached to your tools to know that you've gathered them up when you leave a jobsite, but if someone steals one they won't have to get too far before you lose the tracking.

The Apple Airtags are set up so that they connect to _any_ apple phone and ping their location...but because people were using the airtags to stalk others, it is set up that if an unknown airtag is following your phone, your phone will eventually alert you. This means that if you steal something with an airtag on it, your phone will eventually let you know.

There are trackers which have GPS and a SIM card and connect to the cellular network. These are large, the battery has a shorter life, and you have to pay for the cellular service though that SIM card. Want to track 20 tools? You will quickly pay their replacement cost to the cell company. A GPS/SIM tracker might work well for your entire vehicle, perhaps with an alarm that takes photos and sends an alert if the vehicle gets opened when you don't intend it.

On the horizon there are various low power/long range trackers based on new modulation schemes such as 'LORA'. Right now you can buy various kinda unfinished bits of kit to track things over longer distances.

-Jon

 

[electrofelon]

I've been poking at this for bicycles.

At the level of tracking individual tools, you aren't going to find things useful for theft protection. Airtags, tile tracker, Samsung SmartThings, etc. all use very low power short range (at most a couple hundred yards) radio links which depend upon nearby smartphones. You could probably use them attached to your tools to know that you've gathered them up when you leave a jobsite, but if someone steals one they won't have to get too far before you lose the tracking.

The Apple Airtags are set up so that they connect to _any_ apple phone and ping their location...but because people were using the airtags to stalk others, it is set up that if an unknown airtag is following your phone, your phone will eventually alert you. This means that if you steal something with an airtag on it, your phone will eventually let you know.

There are trackers which have GPS and a SIM card and connect to the cellular network. These are large, the battery has a shorter life, and you have to pay for the cellular service though that SIM card. Want to track 20 tools? You will quickly pay their replacement cost to the cell company. A GPS/SIM tracker might work well for your entire vehicle, perhaps with an alarm that takes photos and sends an alert if the vehicle gets opened when you don't intend it.

On the horizon there are various low power/long range trackers based on new modulation schemes such as 'LORA'. Right now you can buy various kinda unfinished bits of kit to track things over longer distances.

-Jon

My theory is I wouldn't need one for each tool, just one tool. If someone is stealing stuff, they are grabbing everything there. I am thinking there would be ample room in the dead spaces in one of those plastic molded cases.

I just talked with somebody about the tile trackers and the air tag. Apparently they can pass information from device to device and eventually to you through bluetooth? I don't quite understand it and when the person is alerted that their device is sending information.

 

[tom baker]

Milwaukee makes a tic tracer, it’s not GPS. Seems like it’s Bluetooth.

 

[winnie]

My theory is I wouldn't need one for each tool, just one tool. If someone is stealing stuff, they are grabbing everything there. I am thinking there would be ample room in the dead spaces in one of those plastic molded cases.

That is an interesting thought. Stick the tracker into a battery powered tool and figure out a way to recharge the tracker battery from the tool battery. These trackers need lots of power when you are thinking about a tiny battery in a tiny device. But they don't use much juice as compared to a power tool. You'd still pay the subscription. But I think that could work nicely.

I don't have any direct experience with such hardware.

I just talked with somebody about the tile trackers and the air tag. Apparently they can pass information from device to device and eventually to you through bluetooth? I don't quite understand it and when the person is alerted that their device is sending information.

The tile trackers and the apple devices don't talk device to device; they pass information to phones, and from there to the internet and then to you.

The devices depend on an app running on the smart phone(s) around them. Depending upon the device you may be depending on the kindness of stranger's phones to locate the tracker.

-Jon

 

[synchro]

That is an interesting thought. Stick the tracker into a battery powered tool and figure out a way to recharge the tracker battery from the tool battery. These trackers need lots of power when you are thinking about a tiny battery in a tiny device. But they don't use much juice as compared to a power tool. You'd still pay the subscription. But I think that could work nicely.

Perhaps you could conceal the tracker within a battery housing but insert a smaller amp-hour battery to make some room for it. If they take the tool then it's likely they'll take batteries because they're specific to the brand of tool and quite costly.

 

[texie]

As winnie said, Apple Air Tags are not really good for this as they designed to prevent stalking and can alert the thief of the tag being present. The thief being alerted just makes them locate the tag and remove it. Not sure, but I think Galaxy and Tile tags have this issue as well. And all of them depend on a compatible device to be near them to pass info on to the larger network.

 

[GoldDigger]

Apple Air Tags have been used successfully for tracking lost airliner luggage and undelivered packages. The do depend on an iPhone passing within Bluetooth range, and it may not be an iPhone belonging to the thief. When the contact is short or intermittent, the anti-stalking notification may not be issued.
Whenever a iPhone passes within Bluetooth range the phone's GPS data will be passed over the Internet to the Air Tag system as an update.
You do have to recharge the Air Tag periodically, and I am not sure how long a charge typically lasts.
The Air Tags are small enough to be hidden in luggage, but not on a small tool.

 

[winnie]

Just to add to this thread, there appear to be some very inexpensive 'SIM' cards available for 'internet of things' applications.

For example:

https://www.truphone.com/things/plans/
Claims to provide a prepaid card that costs $12, and is good for 500 MB over 60 months. That is sufficient data for real time tracking and certainly cheap enough to attach to a few tools. IMHO it isn't worth paying $5 per month to track a $500 tool which might get stolen. But $2 per year seems totally reasonable for the insurance.

IoT data plans & pricing

Our flexible pricing is tailored around the unique needs of your devices. Choose from three plans with the features, services, and support that best meet your needs.

www.hologram.io

Claims $0.70 / month per device + $0.08 per MB, 7x the cost of the above card, but still cheap compared to the $5 or $10 per month from many services

I have no experience with these cheap IOT data plans; just some information for further exploration

 

[jaggedben]

When I saw the title I thought this thread would be for tracking the tools so I can find them when I misplace them myself on the jobsite.

 

[kwired]

When I saw the title I thought this thread would be for tracking the tools so I can find them when I misplace them myself on the jobsite.

Be handy to be able to find misplaced screwdrivers, pliers, etc. and not just the more expensive tools that many are probably easier to see if they are there on the site. But tracking them probably cost more than occasionally needing to replace them.

When I was the lead guy when I used to work elsewhere, I'd always tell my help not to leave tools on top of a wall, in a cubby hole that needed a ladder to get to, or other similar situations. that is how they get left behind. Been times I climbed that ladder and found something they left there.
Even though it maybe wasn't costing me anything in any direct way, a missing tool still ends up at very least costing some time at some other job once you discover you lost the item.

I'd tell them I'd rather see such tools just laying on the floor in plain sight, they have a better chance of being noticed and picked up at some point.

Also been times when come back to a place months or even years later and get into some remote spot and find a tool you lost a previous time you were there, or even a tool somebody else left at some time.

 

[GoldDigger]

Just to add to this thread, there appear to be some very inexpensive 'SIM' cards available for 'internet of things' applications.

For example:

https://www.truphone.com/things/plans/
Claims to provide a prepaid card that costs $12, and is good for 500 MB over 60 months. That is sufficient data for real time tracking and certainly cheap enough to attach to a few tools. IMHO it isn't worth paying $5 per month to track a $500 tool which might get stolen. But $2 per year seems totally reasonable for the insurance.

IoT data plans & pricing

Our flexible pricing is tailored around the unique needs of your devices. Choose from three plans with the features, services, and support that best meet your needs.

www.hologram.io

Claims $0.70 / month per device + $0.08 per MB, 7x the cost of the above card, but still cheap compared to the $5 or $10 per month from many services

I have no experience with these cheap IOT data plans; just some information for further exploration

Attaching the SIM card to a tool will do nothing for you. Its sole purpose is to provide registration and billing information for a cell phone or other IOT cell transciever. The Air Tags can be as small as they are because they do not actually connect directly to a cell network.
Many IOT devices, such as the GPS tracking dog collar I use, are pre-configured to a single cell provider using the billing information of the manufacturer, who charges you a monthly fee for their service.

The section of the card (standard credit card size) which has the gold contacts on it punches out of the card, to insert in the SIM slot of a phone or other cell transceiver.

 

[electrofelon]

Just to add to this thread, there appear to be some very inexpensive 'SIM' cards available for 'internet of things' applications.

For example:

https://www.truphone.com/things/plans/
Claims to provide a prepaid card that costs $12, and is good for 500 MB over 60 months. That is sufficient data for real time tracking and certainly cheap enough to attach to a few tools. IMHO it isn't worth paying $5 per month to track a $500 tool which might get stolen. But $2 per year seems totally reasonable for the insurance.

IoT data plans & pricing

Our flexible pricing is tailored around the unique needs of your devices. Choose from three plans with the features, services, and support that best meet your needs.

www.hologram.io

Claims $0.70 / month per device + $0.08 per MB, 7x the cost of the above card, but still cheap compared to the $5 or $10 per month from many services

I have no experience with these cheap IOT data plans; just some information for further exploration

Thanks for the link Jon. The cost is not a large factor for me for several reasons. First, I believe only one would be needed as likey all the tools would be stolen if the opportunity arose for a theif. The larger sizze woud not be an issue because it could be stashed in one of the many blow molded cases I have. Finally, as a matter of principle, I would like to catch the scumbags even if I paid more for the tracker than the tools were worth.

 

[winnie]

Attaching the SIM card to a tool will do nothing for you. Its sole purpose is to provide registration and billing information for a cell phone or other IOT cell transciever. The Air Tags can be as small as they are because they do not actually connect directly to a cell network.

I thought that was clear from earlier posts, one has the choice of short range tags that work by connecting to local devices, or devices which use the cellular network but require monthly fees.

There are unlocked devices available which are cheap, the real cost is in the cellular service. At $15 - $50 for the tracker, then $5 - 10 per month for the cellular service, the service is the expensive part