PPC 6800 & GPS tracking

[ericschlaifer]

Hi, I've recently begun looking into GPS tracking to keep track of our mobile techs carrying XV-6800's. I am currently checking out GPS-Gate and a few others...has anyone used this product to track yet? Any other programs worth looking into?
Thanks in advance for all your help

[subhumanderelict]

I am currently using Sprite Terminator. It's pretty cheap and works fairly well for me. Granted, I'm not using it to keep track of people, so I'm not using it nearly as much as you would be, but after experimenting with it a few times it proved itself worthy of keeping.

One thing though: If you do use it, make sure to delete the link from the Programs list on their phones. That way, once you install it, they won't know it's there unless they go into the Program Files folder. It doesn't show up in the Remove Programs list and accessing the program itself requires a password. Also, when you send the command to retrieve someone's coordinates, all that will happen is their screen will activate, but nothing will come up.

The only problem is that you must send the command from a phone. It won’t respond to an e-mail sent as a text message.

[ericschlaifer]

So to track multiple phones I would have to manually check each using another phone?

[Nickles]

yes, but in order for this to work, the GPS must be active on the phone you wish to track..
remember, once in standby mode, the gps turns off.. so your user would need to know to go in and manually re-start GPS each time, other Sprite won't be able to talk to it.
it's for that reason the Sprite app became completley irrelevant for me, with regard to it's GPS feature.....

[ericschlaifer]

Originally Posted by Nickles

yes, but in order for this to work, the GPS must be active on the phone you wish to track..
remember, once in standby mode, the gps turns off.. so your user would need to know to go in and manually re-start GPS each time, other Sprite won't be able to talk to it.
it's for that reason the Sprite app became completley irrelevant for me, with regard to it's GPS feature.....

Have you seen this?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=363431
it came off this site originally, but it looks like a way to keep the GPS going. I'm trying to track mobile Verizon users....is there another program you think may do it better?

[subhumanderelict]

Originally Posted by Nickles

yes, but in order for this to work, the GPS must be active on the phone you wish to track..
remember, once in standby mode, the gps turns off.. so your user would need to know to go in and manually re-start GPS each time, other Sprite won't be able to talk to it.
it's for that reason the Sprite app became completley irrelevant for me, with regard to it's GPS feature.....

What exactly do you mean by "standby"? When I tested it, I had just re-started the phone. I made it a point not to activate anything to see if this would work in a real-life situation. After sending the text, my phone's screen turned on, and then shut itself off after 1 minute (what I have it set for). A few moments later, my friend's phone got a text message with my coordinates and a link. I read through the hacks on here to keep GPS active, but I never applied any of them. Maybe my phone's GPS went active for another reason...

In any case, I don't know if I can vouch for Sprite's stability anymore. I was about to test it again because of this thread when I noticed a problem: the program will no longer open. Since I am at work right now, I’ll have to wait until I get home before I can attempt to rectify this problem.

Ericschlaifer, now that I think about it, this program may not be as useful to you as I had originally thought. If you want to keep track of your employees, it may be better to use a live tracking service. This would be better if you want to secretly keep tabs on them, but even with this program, you’d only get locations 1 text at a time.

[ericschlaifer]

Gotcha, GpsGate seems to do what I want I just cant find anyone really using it the way it was intended, only as a way of making the GPS available for other programs to give directions.

[Nickles]

Originally Posted by ericschlaifer

Have you seen this?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=363431
it came off this site originally, but it looks like a way to keep the GPS going. I'm trying to track mobile Verizon users....is there another program you think may do it better?

yes, that thread is near and dear to my heart i've learned a lot from it.

problem with us Verizon users is by nature the GPS chip DOES go to sleep during standby.. so unless you have something keeps it specificlaly going, the user would need to manually re-jumpstart the GPS (not likely going to happen).

GPS GATE DOES do this.. however it will VERY quickly suck your battery..
plus it leaves a today screen icon at the bottom right, when you have it running.. so any suspecting user will easliy be able to see that icon, and kill it..

i have used a multitude of 'primers' - Astro, GPSToday, Viewer, Test, etc... and not a one of them keeps me going through a standby..
GPS Viewer SOMETIMES can rebound itself, but it usually locks up the device, requiring a soft reset......

i did have high hopes for Terminator in the beginning.. but unless my GPS chip was specifically primed and started, it would NOT return the coordinates.. which if you think about it, makes total sense.. since unless you specifically prime it, it will NOT be locked to any sats !

the only other thing i can think of for you is when VZW finally does release a rom updgrade which will enable GPS, we can use the VZ Navigator function (i am highly annoyed they don't offer the VZW Chaperone on the Titan as it is )..
but then again, you'll need to pay a subscription for their Navigator program..

gread thread though, and great question - hopefully others will throw some unique ideas into the ring.

Edit :: AstroGPSLauncher actually is a self launching .exe file, which primes the GPS on it's own (conversely, like Viewer, the user would have to OPEN View, then press the button to start it)..... so theoretically, you COULD put the astrolauncher.exe in the phone's start up routine, so it will automatically run when they turn on the phone....... but then the problem still is there when their phone goes into standby... i think it would be hit or miss if Astro could recover from a standby...
but at least this way, you could get a lock on your employees once, maybe twice per day ??

[ericschlaifer]

Makes a lot of sense. I'm fortunate enough to have an account of a medium sized business behind me with Verizon, and I think I may be able to work with Verizon on a way to keep the GPS going. I'm about to order like 30 6800's from them and from what my account rep has been telling me today he's commonly asked by businesses if they can implement this.

I'm an IT persson so I dont know if this would sound crazy or not, but is there a task scheduler of some sorts where I could run astrolauncher.exe every 30 minutes? Battery life wont be an issue as the techs will always have their vans accessible to charge the phone. (are there freelance programmers for these phones?)

Thanks again for all your help.

[mickwheeler]

Just a thought or two... Have you considered accessing the phone's location setting (i.e. the location service that is also used for 911)?

This service is always active, always tied to the nearest cell tower and can be accessed remotely by both the carrier (Verizon in your case) and emergency services. This would require software be written and deployed on all of your handsets, but would eliminate the need for GPS to remain active... and the app could run completely hidden and inaccessible to the user.

I'm also confident an app could be written to take advantage of the debug mode and pull/send the GPS data at prescribed intervals (much like a GPS data logger)... However, this will greatly reduce battery life and also require a data connection.

I'm also curious to see what viable solutions are presented...