GPS Insight | GPS Fleet Tracking Blog

Oct 22 2009

Alerting me when UPS picks up a package using gps tracking

Category: Alerts,cell phone capabilities,Conferences,Ease of use,EZ-1000,Landmarks,Mapping,Miscellaneous,Package Tracking — 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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Aug 07 2009

Navy Pier activity tracking with the EZ-1000 (How fast does the Seadog go?)

Category: Chicago,EZ-1000,Google Earth,GPS Insight Employees,GPS Tracking,Mapping,Miscellaneous — rdonat @ 3:14 pm

I took my 2 boys to Navy Pier while traveling to Chicago last week.

We went on the Seadog “Extreme” which is a fast powerboat ride on Lake Michigan. I had an EZ-1000 on me so I was able to see how fast we were going from my cell phone on the boat. Here is a Google Earth 3D Map of that activity

40 MPH is about as fast as it got according to the EZ-1000.

Here is a pic of the Seadog Extreme from my iPhone:

And my boys enjoying the fast ride:

This was Friday, so one of our developers noticed I was out on the lake & texted to see what I was doing. Then he saw I was waiting in line for the ferris wheel & he bumped my refresh rate to 15 seconds so he could see the altitude rise and fall while we were on the ride. We don’t show that data (too much information…) so I had to trust him when he said it worked. Then I asked him to drop the refresh rate to 2 seconds for the swing chairs. It got a good set of points & they all agree the speed for that ride was between 14-19 MPH:

The swings at Navy Pier:

And each of my boys again:

This is Ryan:

This is Jack:

Fun time for the kids (and Rob).

Incidentally, I was curious how long of a trip they take you on with the Seadog, and using Google Earth & the Measurement Tool, it’s simple to see that it’s about 10.5 miles after they get past the breakwater:

Thanks,

Rob.

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Jun 14 2009

Camelback Mountain hike helped by GPS Insight

Category: Arizona,cell phone capabilities,EZ-1000,Garmin Integration,Google Earth,GPS Insight Employees,GPS Navigation,GPS Tracking,Landmarks — rdonat @ 9:32 pm

I decided to hike Camelback Mountain today — I’ll try to make this short (shorter than the 1 1/2 hour hike up & down the toughest mountain I’ve done in the Valley).

I couldn’t remember where to go so I looked it up on the internet & then dispatched myself via my Garmin from my PC:

Then I created a landmark as well, while I was at it (note I put the “route me here” address where it should go, but then I outlined the whole mountain) :

Then I routed myself there with my Garmin by wirelessly dispatching my vehicle’s Garmin to that location:

Turns out it was the wrong entrance — I go to the other one typically, so I drove around aimlessly finding that, plus the REI sports place where I bought a new water backpack (called a Camelbak, coincidentally…) .

Running an efficiency report, I ran 58% more time and 20% more miles (since the miles I went extra were on surface streets, not highways, this makes sense):

Here is my driving around aimlessly, wasting time & fuel (green dots, vs. blue “optimal path”):

Then I get to Camelback, and send a couple SMS notes when I start, get to the top, then get back to the bottom:

Here is my track of the 1 1/2 hour climb to the top and back (using an EZ-1000 at 10 second updates):

Here is an iPhone picture of me at the top, mapping both my iPhone GPS location (blue) and the EZ-1000 location (red pin):

But here is the good part:

Toward the bottom:

And at the top:

I’m a little sore after the 1 1/2 hour long trek up & back down, but the view is worth it.

And I even wore a GPS Insight hat…

Rob.

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Jun 13 2009

Tracking our new TV from Denver to my living room…

Category: Conferences,EZ-1000,Google Earth,GPS Insight Employees,GPS Tracking,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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May 30 2009

Rob gets a speeding ticket — GPS Insight proves the speeding activity unfortunately…

Category: Arizona,cell phone capabilities,Driver Accountability,EZ-1000,Garmin Integration,Google Earth,GPS Insight Employees,GPS Navigation,GPSI-4000,Identifying and eliminating speeding,Mapping,Routing — rdonat @ 1:41 pm

So yesterday I took my 9 year old son, a friend and his son to the Diamondbacks game (they lost…). Thanks to Mike Greco at bluemedia for the tickets…

On the way home, after dealing with the 101 being closed (Arizona doesn’t know how to work on roads without closing them entirely), yours truly got pulled over 2 miles from home after punching it to make a stale yellow light. In my defense, there was no one around (except the police officer apparently, who I never saw).

Anyway, I got pulled over shortly thereafter and was informed I did 67 through the light in a 50. Oops.

I haven’t had a ticket for 15 years, so there goes that streak.

I got home shortly thereafter & guess what, he was right.

My GPSI-4000, which takes speed samples once a second, got me doing 68.

Here’s a picture which pretty much tells it all:

Here is my idle stop while receiving the ticket:

I pulled over near a community’s entrance to get over from traffic:

I brought an EZ-1000 with me for my son to hold on to at the game in case I lost him, & it was set for 10 second updates.

It got me at 67 MPH going through the light too (and shows I immediately slowed down):

So, the moral of the story is: I was speeding. It was literally for just a few seconds to catch a yellow light rather than slam on the brakes and wake the kids up (that’s my story), but both the police AND my GPSI-4000/EZ-1000 caught me. FYI, the GO-3000 is equally accurate, and our 3500 lineup checks speed every 20 seconds, so it catches speeding, just not the rapid up & down speeding like I exhibited yesterday — it got me at 62 MPH. To put it in perspective, many of our competeitors check speed once every 5 minutes and don’t report max speed — just instantaneous. We report max, instantaneous, and average, and this is detailed in several “speeding” related blog articles.

On a less depressing note, we had a nice time at the ballgame, and stopped at Alice Cooper’s Cooperstown before which we tracked on the EZ-1000. I landmarked it while I was there by sending a text message of: ‘gps rob 1000k landmark cooperstown’ so now it shows up here like this:

A quick landmark report shows we were there for 41 minutes:

41 much more worthwhile minutes than sitting on the side of the road waiting for a ticket 2 miles away from home.

I’ll let you know how traffic school works out.

Now that I think about it, had I been using my new Garmin routing capability I would have been directed to take the shorter path home after getting detoured, and would have avoided this ticket altogether… Grr…

Never mind all those other light green speeding dots where thankfully there weren’t any police or speed cameras.

Rob.

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May 14 2009

NAFA 2009 in New Orleans

Category: EZ-1000,Garmin Integration,GPS Insight Employees,GPS Tracking,GPS Tracking Industry,Miscellaneous,New Features — rdonat @ 12:32 pm

At NAFA 2009 (National Association of Fleet Administrators), we unveiled several new hardware and software offerings. Notably:

Garmin Integration
Driver Log/DOT Hours of Service application coming in 2009
EZ-1000 & PNP-1500 hardware
Switches & Sensors capabilities

This year’s conference was in New Orleans. Here are some pics of our booth and

The 5 of us who attended (Ryan, Jolene, Rob, Alissa, & Elliot) (wearing our Bourbon Street beads…)

Then Elliot donned a Mardi Gras outfit & joined in the parade…

We had a good time & the show went well.

Here is a video interview of me which Automotive Digest published after the show.

Rob.

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Apr 22 2009

Scionverate Redux

Category: Alerts,Arizona,EZ-1000,GPS Insight Employees,GPSI-4000,Identifying and eliminating speeding,Mapping — rdonat @ 9:05 pm

I got an odd-hours alert for our GPS Insight Scion (the wrapped vehicle we use to do advertising, occasional installs, etc.).

One of our employees took it home tonight, which is fine — miles & miles of cheap advertising since he lives far away from the office.

Except they’re speeding so I looked online to see what’s going on. (I also got a speeding alert…)

The Scion has 3 units installed — a 3500, a 4000, and a 3000. The “Scion” vehicle is the 3500, at 2 minute updates, and the others are at 1 minute updates.

This was a pretty interesting distribution of whereabouts on the 60 heading West, all speeding, but nicely spaced out between location reports:

I just thought I would share, it looked interesting.

FYI, the “out of range” “Pedestrian” units are our EZ-1000′s — when you turn them off, to save on battery, they rightfully go “out of range” – since we only have a few for testing on our account, they are all turned off at night, since we’re not out patrolling the mall, etc…

A few minutes later, the 3 units in the Scion are still equally spread out — this time Alena is in chase. I’m guessing she’s trying to catch up to her husband, who is driving home from wherever they met for dinner together…

And here we go, the culprit is…. Grant, stopped finally at Grant House.

[The night after I wrote this article, 3 of our installers are driving the Scion to coordinate a large install in California together, and one has an EZ-1000 with him (don’t ask me why he named it ‘Ghost Rider’ — I have no idea). Now there are 4 different types of tracking device in the Scion, all together, again all speeding… That’s California though, they’re probably getting passed left & right.

Here’s a picture of the 4 units, off by just a bit time/reporting-wise, all in an alert mode. Bear in mind the speeds are slightly different due to them having different 1-2 minute sample timeframes:

Rob.

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Apr 12 2009

EZ-1000 works in luggage in planes & trunks!

Category: Arizona,California,CUSTOM APPLICATIONS OF GPS INSIGHT,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 24 2009

Rattlesnake encounter on Run #2 with the EZ-1000 (8 second updates)

Category: Arizona,EZ-1000,Google Earth,Running — rdonat @ 11:44 pm

So I talked about the “inaugural run” with the EZ-1000 here.

I mentioned that we can sacrifice battery life for accuracy/frequency, and vice versa.

So on the way home from Mexico, I put an EZ-1000 in 8 second update mode and it ran for 16 hours before the battery ran out.

Once I came home (via the same route I run typically), I went for a run, & took the unit with me.

I want to show the accuracy of this unit in “high accuracy mode” — it’s amazingly accurate.

Here is the route of me driving home with the unit in my cup-holder:

You can see that I ran to the edge of the road, and purposely waited 10 seconds to begin running back to ensure an “idle” (blue) dot showed up where I stopped running:

Note that there is no sidewalk at that area of the road so I am on the Eastbound side, opposite where I drove earlier (the line without any “pins”).

Zooming down, the accuracy is ridiculous — you can see where I cross the street because the sidewalk ends and there is more room to run on the other side (both heading out and coming back) — you can even tell that I stay to the right of the sidewalk each direction!:

So it was ridiculously windy (really, it wasn’t that I just got back from 4 days of eating & drinking in Mexico and am out of shape), and I had to walk for a block twice during my Westbound (into the wind) return to home. It’s trivial to pick that out based on the map points:

And I wanted to “simulate” a patrolman taking a shortcut because they were too tired to go the full route to the entry gate & simply cut through the drainage culvert (we don’t have sewers here in the desert…):

While I was “simulating” a lazy patrolman & taking the shortcut, for the blog’s sake, I had to walk through some shrubs where I thought “I should probably not do this since it’s beginning to be rattlesnake season” (Spring & Autumn are when the snakes are warm but not too hot to head to the mountains in AZ).

As I was heading back to my house, sure enough, I saw a rattlesnake in the road (warming up in the late afternoon) but didn’t have my phone to take a picture for the blog’s sake, and to convince my kids to stay out of the desert. I ran home, grabbed my camera, ran back, but by then it was gone.

Here’s that activity:

Sorry, no fun rattlesnake picture for the blog except how long it took me to get home (.10 miles), grab my camera (and my kid who I figured I would have come with to see it), run back (.10 miles), and find the snake gone (I saw its skin it left in the dirt nearby the next day, for what it’s worth).

5 minutes, from 3:45 to 3:50 PM, according to GPS, is too long to expect a rattlesnake to sit around and wait for a neighbor to come back and take its picture (or club it depending on the neighbor…) :

Anyway, this should give you an idea for how accurate the EZ-1000 is for piecing together a security person’s day, a police-officer’s beat and/or pursuit/apprehension (pardon the pun), etc.

We look forward to helping you with your exact requirements using the EZ-1000 (or any GPS Insight offering), and hope you avoid the rattlesnakes.

Rob.

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