GPS Insight Blog

Feb 23 2010

GPS Insight checks our BILLIONTH alert !

Category: Alerts — rdonat @ 7:05 am

Sometime yesterday GPS Insight checked our ONE BILLIONTH alert for our customers.

Every night I get a small report showing how many checks and how many actual alerts have been processed/sent.

GPS Insight checks our one billionth GPS Tracking alert

Last night it showed that we have passed ONE BILLION alert checks, and just over one MILLION alerts (1,036,790 to be exact).

Again, just about one in one thousand times GPS Insight checks your vehicles’ status, we send you an alert email or Text Message about it.

That’s the beauty of managing the exceptions — GPS Insight does everything for you, and you just find out once every thousand times we check — once a minute per vehicle.

FYI, the popularity of alerts is in this order:

idling alerts, speeding alerts, odd hour alerts, geofence alerts, long stop alerts, panic alerts, and powercycle alerts.

Rob.

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Feb 17 2010

GPS Insight sends out our Millionth Alert!

Category: Alerts — rdonat @ 1:32 am

GPS Insight sends out our Millionth Alert

GPS Insight sent out our millionth alert on Sunday, February 14. GPS Insight has checked just shy of one BILLION alerts, so that means that only one out of 1,000 driver events is “exceptional.” Depending on how the alerts are defined, that could be good or bad…

Either way, we’re glad to be sending these to our customers, and ensuring they know what is happening with their fleets at all times — day or night, 24 hours a day, 60 minutes an hour.

If you’re not using our alerts, you should be — let us do the work. “Set it and forget it!”

Rob.

Tags: Alerts, GPS Insight millionth alert

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Feb 03 2010

About to send our MILLIONTH Alert and perform our BILLIONTH Alert Check

Category: Alerts, Miscellaneous — rdonat @ 11:50 pm

I have a daily report which comes to me which tells me how close we are to hitting 2 major Alert milestones:

GPS Insight's Millionth Alert and Billionth Check are coming soon!

We are very close to sending our MILLIONTH alert out.

Shortly thereafter (unless drivers stop causing alerts which, uh, isn’t very likely…), we will process our BILLIONTH alert check.

We process a huge number of alerts checks and send quite a few each day.

In the short time I’ve been typing this blog article, we have processed 15,282 checks, yielding a relatively small number of alerts — 3.

This is because it’s night and most of our customers’ drivers aren’t driving, let alone speeding, idling, or going in or out of landmarks. Chances are those were odd-hours alerts…

I’ll let everyone know when we hit these marks.

[worth noting, on 8/15/2009, when I last wrote about this, we were only at 350 million checks and 419,000 alerts. Customers are really starting to utilize our alerts more now than they have in the past]

Rob.

Tags: Fleet Tracking, GPS Tracking, GPS Tracking alerts, Vehicle Tracking

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Oct 30 2009

Panic in Disneyland!

Category: Alerts, California, EZ-1000, New Features, Safety — rdonat @ 8:59 am

We added 10 second panic capabilities to our EZ-1000 devices yesterday. They have a “panic button” which can be pressed to send a message.

My boys have EZ-1000’s here in Disneyland so I thought I would configure an alert straight to my cell phone if they ever pressed the button (not that they ever were somewhere without us).

Within 20-30 seconds on average, it would “page” me that either “Mickey” or “Chip” (the 2 devices) had pressed the panic button.

This is NOT something we sell to people for their kids — but security firms do use them for their foot and bike/Segway mounted security guards.

Here is the alert:

Panic alert on a GPS Insight EZ-1000 GPS Tracking device

And here was the SMS text message I got when “Chip” pressed the panic button:

Panic alert on a GPS Insight EZ-1000 GPS Tracking device

Then a map shows you their location and using the iPhone, I can walk to them using the “blue” dot which is me (well, if you look at the time, I had actually done this earlier to figure out where they were at beforehand…):

GPS Tracking my kids on Tom Sawyer's Island

This is what might happen to a kid at Disneyland if they get lost on Tom Sawyer’s Island without a Panic Alarm capable EZ-1000:

Jack in Tom Sawyer's jail at Disneyland

Rob.

Tags: disneyland tracking, GPS Tracking, People Tracking

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Oct 25 2009

Sat Tracking in Egypt – Keir has left the base camp

Category: Alerts, Egypt, Google Earth, Landmarks, People Tracking, Running, TT-1900 — rdonat @ 9:05 am

I was curious when Keir, my brother in law racing 162 miles across the desert, would get started today, so I put an alert on his tracking device and built a quick geofence around his “base camp.”

GPS Tracking Geofence around Egypt Base Camp

Then I created an alert to let me (and his wife/parents in law) know when he got moving in the morning (down to the hour — the device only transmits to the satellites every hour since it costs around $.25 per “ping” and it probably doesn’t matter much to us which exact route he takes through the God Forsaken Desert):

Geofence Alert for Keir's Satellite Tracking Device leaving Base Camp

Then I got the email (I didn’t send myself a text message since it would wake me up in the middle of the night):

It went off at 12:14 AM local time, and Egypt is 9 hours ahead of us so they must have started between 8 and 9 AM local time. Here’s the alert I received:

GPS Tracking alert

And a quick image of his trek so far — I think they do 26 miles a day (a marathon a day until they do 162 miles). He had done 19.7 miles so far today so far, and is averaging around 2.6 miles per hour. That means a couple more hours I would imagine.

Hiking across the Sahara Desert with GPS Insight satellite tracking

Makes me tired just thinking about it. Actually, I think I’ll go for a run this morning, but a lot shorter and a lot cooler than this one.

Rob.

Tags: GPS Tracking alerts, Sahara Race tracked with GPS Insight GPS Tracking, satellite tracking in Egypt

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Oct 22 2009

Alerting me when UPS picks up a package using gps tracking

Category: Alerts, Conferences, EZ-1000, Landmarks, Mapping, Miscellaneous, Package Tracking, cell phone capabilities — rdonat @ 2:45 pm

We just finished up at the TruckIT conference in Dallas yesterday. I had a high value package to send and wanted to know when it had been picked up by UPS.

So I put an EZ-1000 in the box (it was a nice new LED TV).

Here is how I quickly was able to create an alert to page me the minute that box left the hotel:

First I pull up 2D Mapping which has a convenient link to create a landmark from a vehicle (TV’s) current location:

Alerting me when UPS picks up a package using GPS tracking

Here I click the “Landmark: Create from point” link:

Click a link to create a landmark

Here I expand the radius to 1500 feet and save the landmark as Renaissance Richardson (the hotel we were at):

Create a landmark in GPS Insight

Now I can open up the Alert Manager and create a geofence alert for when that box leaves the area:

Create a GPS Tracking alert in GPS Insight

Choose the “New Landmark Alert” link:

Create a Landmark Alert in GPS Insight

Choose the EZ-1000 (named Demo), then name the alert “UPS Picked up TV” and enter my cell phone, and last choose the new “Renaissance Richardson” Landmark and change the “trigger” to “Outside”:

Vehicle Tracking alert (Geofence/Landmark)

I waited a couple minutes then hovered over the alert information icon to see that it had been checked 4 times (once per minute is standard):

GPS Tracking Alert

At 12:36 I received a text message on my iPhone telling me the package left that landmark:

Receiving a landmark alert in GPS Insight

Reading the alert, we see that the Demo device (in the LED TV box) left Renaissance Richardson at 12:35. The alert name is “Ups Picked Up Tv”

GPS Insight Landmark Alert

It’s been a couple hours since I got that alert, so now I can look to see where that UPS driver has gone since he picked up the TV (or if it was stolen, where they took it…):

GPS Insight history using GPS tracking device in a TV box

I should put an alert out there now to let me know when it gets to our office in Scottsdale so someone doesn’t take it home before I lock it away for the next trade show…

Rob.

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Sep 18 2009

Tracking myself accidentally…

Category: Alerts, EZ-1000 — rdonat @ 10:42 pm

This is weird. I got an automated alert that a “Demo (EZ1000)” unit entered my house.

Weird alert that "Demo" entered my house

I didn’t think too hard about it, but it was exactly when I got home in my wife’s car. I figured a developer was testing something new.

Then I got a couple other alerts telling me the unit left, then re-entered my house. That’s just strange.

So I finally realized, we’re going to a trade show Sunday (Rocky Mountain Fleet Manager’s Association) in Salt Lake City. Ryan Driscoll, our Marketing Manager, put a suitcase full of GPS Insight devices in my car when I was at the office so I could take them to the airport.

I realized he probably left the sample EZ-1000 turned on, inside the box, inside the suitcase, inside my truck, inside my garage.

It still tracked me within 15 feet of its actual location (just as good as the other devices inside of the garage):

EZ-1000 tracks me within 15 feet while inside a suitcase in my hatch

Here is a picture of the suitcase full of devices, & the box containing the EZ-1000 labeled “Demo” — I opened it & turned it off:

EZ-1000 location in the suitcase full of GPS Insight devices

It was a little weird being tracked without knowing it…

This is EXACTLY why we don’t sell GPS Tracking devices unless we ensure they are for corporate or municipal/state use. EZ-1000’s in particular can be easily abused & used to track people without their knowledge. We only sell them to companies using them for legitimate reasons — typically for security guards or occasional use tracking of their vehicles or high value shipments.

The EZ-1000 is a very easy device to give out for demo purposes though, so we do that occasionally as well, as long as we know the company is legitimately interested in tracking THEIR OWN ASSETS.

They work well, even in a suitcase in your car. Just know that we screen customers to ensure they won’t be used for anything which violates someone’s privacy.

For comparison purposes, here is a track of the EZ-1000 hidden in a suitcase in my vehicle (blue line with dots, at 5 minute updates) vs. the “official” GPSI-4000 for that vehicle (red line without dots at 30 second updates). It doesn’t give as much information (1/10th as much) but it is spot on when it does report — note the “pins” are all on top of the red “actual path taken.”

5 minute updates with an EZ-1000 vs. 30 second updates with a GPSI-4000

Rob.

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Sep 14 2009

New Panic Alert and Power Cycle Alerts

Category: Alerts, New Features, Stolen Vehicle Recovery, Switches, detecting unauthorized vehicle usage — rdonat @ 9:09 am

We have had a few customers require alert for both panic buttons which they wire to our GO-3000 and GPSI-4000 devices, as well as “power cycle” alerts (due to tampering, battery changes, etc.).

They are now there, and here is how to use them:

First, open the Alerts Manager:

GPS Insight Switch Alerts

Then choose the “Switch-Based Alert” option:

GPS Insight Switch Alerts

Here is where you can then choose either a panic switch based alert, or a power-cycle-based alert:

Panic vs. Power Cycle Alert

The next time a Panic Switch is detected (or a Power Cycle of the GPS Insight device), you will receive an email and/or an SMS text message letting you know.

This capability will be very helpful for customers with high-risk environments (cab drivers, etc.), as well as to help detect if/when drivers are intentionally disconnecting the GPS Insight device in order to escape being tracked.

As always, call for details at 866-GPS-4321, #2,1 for Tech Support.

Thanks,
Rob.

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Aug 15 2009

GPS Insight alerts pass 350 million checks and 419,000 alerts

Category: Alerts, Extreme Return on Investment — rdonat @ 9:02 am

Alerts are probably the best way to proactively gain ROI (Return on Investment) with GPS Insight. I am glad to see our customers using them as much as they are.

We passed the 350 MILLION alert checks mark recently, and have sent out over 419,000 alerts since making alerts available to all our customers.

Note that our system takes less than 1/100th of a second to make those calculations. The reason we are able to process alerts in this volume is our overall system speed and scalability. We do this at only 20% peak utilization, and add hardware constantly to provide the fastest, most powerful GPS tracking system available today. Really — test us out vs. any other system on the market and you will see the difference.

Less than 5 months ago, we only had checked 100 MILLION checks.

This is a huge increase in alerts usage, and is probably due to our next generation alerts which were introduced in April.

Keep on using our alerts, and if you’re not already a GPS Insight customer, please call us at 866-GPS-4321 and find out how to get a trial device or a pilot going (or just outfit your fleet now & start getting instant ROI).

Rob.

Comments (1)

Jul 01 2009

Gas prices are rising — get on top of your fleet now!

Category: Alerts, Extreme Return on Investment, Fuel Savings, reduced idling — rdonat @ 9:43 am

I saw this graph today in an Automotive Fleet email newsletter:

When fuel spiked last year, GPS Insight helped our customers save fuel by curbing idling, reducing speeding, ensuring the most appropriate vehicle was sent to a job, and that the efficient routes were taken.

Here is an article about how we saved a customer $100,000 EACH MONTH in fuel during the Summer when fuel prices were at $5 per gallon of diesel. Then the snowball effect saved them literally millions throughout the year.

Here is another article about how we send alerts to your drivers themselves telling them to stop wasteful behaviors.

Get GPS Insight in your vehicles and get control of your fleet. There are so many benefits, you will not regret the decision. Start with a unit or two to and see what kind of insight you will gain into your fleet. Call one of our reps at 866-477-4321 (1 for sales) and find out how we can help.

You can be up and running within 1-3 days with GPS Insight. Really!

[or you can buy a 1/2 gallon of gas with the money you don't spend on the product, per day -- that will go down to 1/3 gallon shortly]

Thanks,

Rob.

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