GPS Insight Blog » Package Tracking

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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Jun 13 2009

Tracking our new TV from Denver to my living room…

Category: Conferences, EZ-1000, GPS Insight Employees, GPS Tracking, Google Earth, Package Tracking — rdonat @ 1:36 pm

We just exhibited at GFX (Government Fleet Expo), organized by Eric Bearly at Bobit, which was a great show with 500 attendees.

Whenever we go to a show, we have a big 52″ LCD at our booth. To rent a cheap 50″ which has poor resolution typically would cost us $950, which is nuts. So I usually buy a new one at Best Buy for less than double that instead and store it in the closest office/friendly person’s home for use in the next local conference where we exhibit.

Well, my TV just went out at home, so guess what? I get this one.

But shipping them is a nightmare, since they sit on a dock & stand a pretty good chance of getting stolen.

So I stuck a GPS tracking device, an EZ-1000 in it (someone called the device Telemundo, Spanish for TV, I guess…)

When I was at the Airport, I was able to confirm that they picked it up using my iPhone like this:

(Here is how to take a screen shot with an Iphone — hold down the round application button & press the top power button.)

So I knew it made it off the dock and to a transfer dock to be shipped to my office (and then my living room…).

I was surprised to see they flew it, and our 900 lb trade show booth from Denver to Salt Lake City, then to LA. Hopefully we’ll see the TV on Monday, and then I can watch TV again.

Here are a few more screen shots of how I was able to track the TV on the way from the trade-show:

I clicked on Get Directions to see how far it was, thinking they were driving it (but it’s being flown apparently):

Note that it’s at LAX Airport right now.

While it’s in the air, we don’t receive GPS or transmit location, since the plane blocks the GPS signal, but this is pretty good for determining roughly where a TV is. We are working on a different product which is better for determining an asset’s location, even if it’s well inside a truck/structure. But for now, we stick to vehicle, and the occasional TV headed for Rob’s living room, and this does the trick. If it had wound up in a dockworker’s home, we would have been able to send police pretty easily.

We only sell EZ-1000’s for business use, such as for security patrols/bike police, etc., but those security-oriented customers occasionally use them to track things like this, & I’m glad we have this capability ourselves. We also use them as easy demo units, so if you want a very quick proof of concept, charge one up, stick it in a vehicle or two’s drink-holder, & you’ve got a tracking proof of concept without having to do an install (which still is only typically 15 minutes or so).

Rob.

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Apr 12 2009

EZ-1000 works in luggage in planes & trunks!

Category: Arizona, CUSTOM APPLICATIONS OF GPS INSIGHT, California, EZ-1000, GPS Insight Employees, GPSI-4000, Identifying and eliminating speeding, Package Tracking — rdonat @ 11:12 am

I forgot to turn off an EZ-1000 I had brought on a trip. It was in my overhead luggage (oops).

It still tracked me on the runway (a max speed of 214 until it lost signal), then all the way home while in my trunk.

Run a quick 3D map for Friday:

We took off on time (3:35 flight pushed back at exactly 3:35 & left the runway at 3:40):

Then the unit last reported before losing cell coverage at 214 MPH after turning over the ocean:

I was out of cell range for roughly an hour, and covered 330 miles between Orange County, CA and Phoenix, AZ which means we averaged about 330 MPH:

All of our units except for this one (the EZ-1000) would store that history, but the EZ-1000 is more about where a person is right now (e.g. security guards, police officers) so it does not store data if it loses cell coverage — since we rarely lose cell coverage (except in planes at 33,000 feet…) it’s a non-issue, as you’ll see next.

After landing, it picks right up again, then tracks my vehicle all the way home, even though I had the unit in my suitcase, in my closed metal trunk:

And on the freeway, it is exactly accurate (but at 2 minute updates) relative to my GPSI-4000 at 10 second updates in the same vehicle (red line=10 second with the GPSI-4000, blue line = 2 minutes with the EZ-1000):

Here on the highway there are 2 points 4 seconds apart, with the same exact speed (67 MPH):

The points are 56 feet apart, which seems reasonable for 4 seconds at 67 MPH (technically it should be 393′ but the 1000 takes a couple seconds to transmit vs. the 4000 which is pretty much instant — but close enough– we’re not launching missiles here):

The moral of the story here is that this unit can be used to economically supplement your tracking of freight, high value packages, etc. Just Thursday a customer I visited in El Monte asked if he could use them to track shipments — Given the fact that my trunk is probably thicker metal than the typical trailer, I can say that it should work reasonably well.

Remember these units work for up to 10-15 days in “ping only” mode, and 3 1/2 days at 2 minute updates. Inexpensive external USB-connected batteries work well to extend the life up to a month or two.

This device is very reliable, and easy to use for many security, freight tracking, and occasional tracking needs. Just don’t ask us to sell it to you to track your spouse or kids — we strictly sell for B2B (Business to Business).

Here’s one more picture of the 2 minute EZ-1000 tracking (blue with green movement/speeding dots) vs. “reality” at 10 second updates (red) — it caught me speeding… I wanted to get home in a hurry obviously:

Thanks,

Rob.

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Mar 14 2009

GPS Insight helps get Ryan to his friend’s birthday party…

Category: GPS Insight Employees, GPS Navigation, GPS Tracking, Google Earth, Package Tracking — rdonat @ 1:47 pm

Cast:

Lost Driver: Rob’s beautiful wife Kristi

Dispatch: Rob at his desk on a beautiful Saturday afternoon

Important Delivery: birthday present

Happy Customer: Birthday boy

Pretend this is a business scenario — this happens hundreds of times a day with our product for our customers.

My 6 year old is heading to a birthday party with my wife driving. The address is new and doesn’t show up on her navigation built into the car.

I’m at work & she called and asked me for directions.

Since I’m sitting at my desk, and we usually have our account pulled up, it took me about 15 seconds to tell her how to get there.

Just type in the address in Google Earth (this works on our browser map as well, I just happen to like Google Earth more).

Right click it and choose “Get Directions To.” Then either click or right click her car and choose “Get Directions From.”:

So then the directions come up:

And I explain to her how to wind over to the new street address (clearly a new subdivision since the aerial photo shows it as dirt)

Then I watch as she takes a wrong turn anyway… (It’s not like I follow directions well either). I’m able to call her & explain she needed to take a left, not a right.

Then she’s back on track, and gets to the address.

But then she stops there for 4 minutes, & moves somewhere else?

Why? I’m guessing the party is at the subdivision clubhouse. Turn on Street Maps, & confirm that’s the case:

Or maybe they’re having it in the park, who knows? I’ll find out later. Meanwhile I am getting caught up at work on a Saturday. It only took 30 seconds to find and get directions to my wife, & another 30 to call her back & help in the maze of this new area. Unfortunately it takes me longer than that to document this good example for the blog, but it’s done now, & I’m only 40 minutes farther away from getting out of the office on this beautiful day in Scottsdale. I wish I had taken Ryan to the party instead!

This should illustrate the real time dispatch assistance you can give using GPS Insight though — call our sales or support for more info at 866-GPS-4321.

Rob.

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Jan 16 2009

Ski maps are really inaccurate (part 3 of the ski overlay series)

Category: Arizona, CUSTOM APPLICATIONS OF GPS INSIGHT, California, GPS Insight Employees, GPS Tracking, Google Earth, Mapping, Overlays, Package Tracking, Skiing — rdonat @ 11:49 pm

This is the 3rd (and last) in a series on GPS tracking of skiers, and more to the point, the overlaying of ski maps into Google Earth in order to put that data into reference. So after asking someone way better at Photoshop than me to “stretch” that ski trail map of Heavenly Lake Tahoe and make it fit Google Earth, it has become VERY clear that those maps aren’t even close to accurate.

Photoshopping the map & stretching/skewing it to fit, then overlaying the sides to be accurate, it’s still obvious that there is no real scale built into these maps. The Gondola is nowhere near reality:

So we aborted the mission of overlaying this map in favor of simply recreating the runs as Google Earth “paths.”

Here is what it looks like once you add a number of “paths” and “placemarks” in Google Earth, using the map as a reference, and the satellite photo with the missing trees as evidence of where the ski runs actually are:

The paths are color-coded based on type (typical green/blue/black difficulty based on the map) and the Gondola is in red.

If you were using GPS Insight to say, track your Snowcats (which are used to groom the runs regularly), you would be able to run reports on which runs were groomed on which days, for how many hours, etc. This is actually something we’re starting to see some interest in from some ski resorts which is part of the motivation for this exercise (if I had thought about it in advance I could have written off the trip!).

You can see how accurate this is if you take a little time to properly map the trails — We show activity skiing right along Orion, Skyline Trail, and Ridge Run (as well as us taking the lift up ABOVE Ellies — I didn’t take my 8 year old snowboarder on this black (he probably would have done better than me, actually).

Using a combination of a ski trail map and Google Earth with recent imagery, it is easy to see which runs particular GPS data recorded activtity on.

We’re going skiing tomorrow in Pinetop AZ at “Sunrise” park (www.sunriseskipark.com) — here’s their much more straightforward trail map.

I’m done overlaying them, I think everyone gets the point now (on to more vehicle based GPS tracking topics next!)

Thanks,

Rob.

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Jan 02 2009

Tracking valuable packages (or my Son on the ski slopes)

Category: California, GPS Insight Employees, GPS Tracking, Miscellaneous, Overlays, Package Tracking, Skiing — rdonat @ 12:31 pm

GPS Insight is working on a new line of package tracking devices. They’re geared toward placement in valuable shipments – plasma TV’s, cigarettes, bank bags, etc. The beauty of these units is that they don’t use only GPS signals to determine their location — they can use the E-911 cell phone system to VERY ACCURATELY determine their location.

For instance, I put one in the trunk of my car, drove into our covered concrete parking structure at the office, and this device knew where I was within 10 feet.

I put one in my oldest son’s (8) pocket (they’re very small, only a 1″ x 1″ x 2″) yesterday when we went skiing in Lake Tahoe on our yearly vacation. These units are typically used on a “every 4 hours or whenever I ask for a location” basis. Jack is a good snowboarder, but why not stick a device on him in case I lose him somewhere, right…?

[BY THE WAY, we do >> NOT << sell GPS tracking devices to people for tracking their kids, spouses, lovers, whatever -- we are strictly B2B (Business to Business)]

So Jack didn’t fall down the side of some slope and get stuck where I coudn’t find him, so the only “locate” we got on him were the “scheduled” 4:30 (MST), 3:30 PM local time ones, which were both close to the top of the Gondola (which you need to be on by 4 PM to get back down). Here are the two, and you can see they’re within .35 miles of each other (yesterday we were heading back a little earlier than the previous day since he was tired out from some longer runs):

Here’s a picture of the mountain & where the Gondola goes from the base to the mountain:

So how can I really tell where those points are (or worse case scenario, where my lost kid is if necessary)?

Here is a map of Lake Tahoe’s “Heavenly” resort:

I will put this map into a digital overlay in Google Earth so that we can see more easily where EXACTLY these GPS device locates were. This allows us to put “reality” on a map relative to “usefulness” — e.g. a ski trail map is much easier to use to locate someone than a map or satellite photo of a mountain.

I’ve never created a “vertical” overlay like this, so I think I’ll need to Photoshop this graphic a bit in order to stretch it to match the mountain.

This is a big enough exercise that it will be another blog article. I’ll post the link here when it’s done. I’m on vacation and the Gondola is closed due to wind, so I wrote this one article, but the next one will have to wait until I’m back to work most likely. I’ve got 3 more days in Tahoe, so I’m going to enjoy it and stop typing now.

Happy New Year !

Rob.

Tags: gps fleet tracking, GPS Tracking, gps vehicle tracking

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