Since we moved offices, I get my car washed more often. It’s just a block North of our office, and I’ll drop it off in the AM before work, then pick it up later.
I’ll forget though, and scramble to get there before they close up at 6 occasionally (doh!).
So the other day I left my car, got busy at work, & realized when I left to head home that I left it at the car wash.
Enough! I have 3 tracking devices in my vehicle, time to actually put them to good use (Physician, heal thyself, right?).
So, this blog article shows how to set up an alert to let me know whenever my car is parked over there for more than 4 hours.
I’ll even video it and show you how quick it is to set up this landmark and this alert within GPS Insight.
So I just created that landmark and alert, and commented about it within a video which is created below. it’s 4:36, so in less than 5 minutes I created a landmark, then a long stop inside of a landmark alert. I’ll be alerted every 20 minutes whenever I leave my car parked there for more than 4 hours.
Here is how I can create a history of my vehicle for yesterday to see that long visit to the car wash:
Here is the image in Google Earth, also showing the landmark I created (note the time spent there is 8 hours 15 minutes):
Running a landmark report shows the exact entrance and exit times (within 8 seconds of each other between all 3 devices I have installed in this vehicle):
And the report takes .07 seconds to run:
If I want to run a report for my time “at the office” that week, it will not show much time at our office itself. Then I can create a custom group called “Scottsdale Office and Car Wash Also” and run the report for that landmark group instead, assuming the time my car spent at the car wash, I spent that time at the office. This is covered in other landmark demos/walk-through’s so I will end it here.
The moral of the story is, if you have GPS Insight on your fleet of vehicles, using landmarks and alerts, you can pretty much automate anything. This will keep me from getting there late one night only to discover all the car wash people have headed home, my keys are locked inside & I’ll need to find the keys to the GPS Insightmobile and take that home instead.
Rob.
March 23rd, 2009 8:06 pm
[...] Even if I leave my car at the car wash & forget about it… (documented here). [...]
May 26th, 2009 1:26 pm
[...] by rdonat in Uncategorized I didn’t really forget it there (yet). But since a few months ago I put an alert out there when I leave my car at the car wash for 4 hours or more, I just got this email alert along with a [...]