Tracking your car can be an expensive business, either the device and installation costs a fortune, or the monthly/yearly fees for use make them a ‘nice to have’ rather than an essential for car security.
Rewire Security have the answer, SpyTrack Nano.
What is it?
SpyTrack Nano is a tiny GPS tracker costing £49.99 that can be placed anywhere in your car. It features a 1,300 mAh battery which is enough to give it a standby time of 10 days.
It uses GPS and the Russian GLONASS system to give accuracy within 1-2 meters.
Weight only 63 grams and measuring 68 x 38 x 23mm it’s easy to hide in your car, or you can also attach it via the magnetic box. The unit itself is IP65 water resistant so it can be splashed without worry.
The Nano can also be hard wired for permanent installation, you can also plug it in via a USB cable.
How?
As with any GPS tracking device it needs a SIM card to work, the SpyTrack comes with one preinstalled, you just have to pay for the subscription. Prices start at £10 a month or £85.00 for the year. There isn’t a contract you simply pay as you go.
For that fee you get access to the web and app based cloud tracking system. Here you can select different map views, and monitor the location of your car in real time. You can also set predefined alerts for all manner of events, when your car moves, stops, goes over a certain speed etc these can be sent as notifications to your smart phone, via text or email.
You can view your journey history for up to 90 days on the cloud software, there are also reporting tools enabling downloading of your routes in HTML, PDF and CSV formats.
The SIM can be used in both the UK and Europe without any extra data charges being incurred.
What’s it like?
In four words? Ridiculously easy to use.
It makes vehicle tracking childsplay. Worried about your car when you go on holiday, throw it the centre armrest and you can keep an eye from the other side of the world. Taking your car to the garage and wonder what they get up to in your pride and joy? Now you can keep watch without them knowing.
Out of the box you simply register the device, create a username and password then you can login to the portal and you’re good to go.
At the top of the Nano there’s the power button, pressing that or plugging it in and it will fire into life.
The online portal and smartphone apps are simple and intuitive to use, setting up the alert parameters is also fairly painless once you’ve work it out. We mainly used the email alerts as well as the smartphone notifications.
One of our tests was to leave the unit in the RCZ R while it went in for a service, I wondered where the mechanics would take it and what speeds they would do.
Setting up alerts for 70/80 and 90 MPH as well as movement meant I could leave the car and not worry about what it may get up to while not in view.
We also tried the hardwire kit which should make a permanent installation of the Nano easy, sadly the length of cable is all too short. Especially when we needed to get power from the fusebox at the front of the car all the way to rear parcel shelf, ideally they need two versions, a short and a long one.
If you want a GPS vehicle tracker the cost can be pretty prohibitive, the UK leading company ‘Tracker’ will cost £462 installed. While this is Thatcham Research approved and contains VHF tracking abilities and protects against GPS and GSM jamming, for most users this could be
Where can I get one?
Amazon is the ideal place to purchase the SpyTrack Nano, but it can also be bought from Rewire Security direct. You also have to activate and pay for your subscription on their site.
