Immobilising tracking alarms

[Brennie]

Hi Ray..
Thank you for that information.. I’m looking at it right now.. the Ravelco.. where is your mounted, and,did they have to hack into the wiring in any real way… do you have any pictures for me?  And.. who did the fitting?
So many questions..

B

[Rahul]

I started looking into airtags after reading this thread (and Artkez's one where he recovered his stolen car in LA)...

Came across this company which makes some great products, in case they are of any use to others. The TimeCapsule in particular looks great.

https://www.elevationlab.com/products/tagvault-magnetic
https://www.elevationlab.com/products/timecapsule

Rahul

[AdelaidePagoda]

This is brilliant Rahul, great find. I will be ordering several of the time capsules for my cars and my travel luggage to track where my bags are when I am flying.

For $40 you get 10 years of GPS tracking linked directly to your iPhone seamlessly. That’s $4 per year to save worry about your car or valuables disappearing forever.

[Pawel66]

I am not sure, perhaps I am reading it wrong - it is an airtag, has nothing to do with GPS... for those with GPS tracking, they need to find themselves by GPS coordinates and report its position. You need subscription or a lifetime subscription to get to network.

[mdsalemi]

Those two products that #Rahul has noted are as follows:

1. TagVault-Magnetic is a device designed to magnetically hold an AirTag onto anything steel.
2. TimeCapsule is basically a battery device that replaces the button battery in the AirTag, which lasts maybe a year, with two much higher capacity AA batteries providing longer life.

Neither of these devices do anything without an Apple AirTag. An Apple AirTag is a tracking device that ONLY works for you if YOU have an iPhone or iPad or Apple Macintosh. If you don't have any of these Apple devices, an AirTag is of no use for you. In that case you'd need an Android equivalent or something similar that works with your smart device operating system.

Though I'm not familiar with the Android or other equivalents, I do have four AirTags employed. Three are in luggage, and one on the Pagoda. They report the location back to my iPhone via the Apple app "FIND MY", the same app that tracks your family and friends when they allow it, as well as all your Apple devices when set up to do so. Mine tracks all my Apple devices (computers, iPads, phones); my immediate family members, and my four AirTags.

As mentioned in other threads, the AirTags work by "finding" any Apple device connected to the internet, and reporting their location through that device back to you via the FIND MY app. To prevent "stalking" if the AirTag moves with an unknown Apple device, the AirTag will notify that device that they are being followed by an AirTag. It does not report every connection to every Apple device.

Thus, when the AirTag is in luggage, as soon as passengers on the plane and or ramp workers at the airport come close to the luggage, the AirTag location is reported back to me. If the Pagoda is parked somewhere, say at a car show, it will report back upon request any connection to a passerby with an iPhone, but will not notify the owner of that iPhone. If a stranger (or thief!) with an iPhone takes the Pagoda, after some period of time it will notify them that they are being tracked by an AirTag.

Hardly a perfect anti-theft device, but quite useful when I bought all four AirTags for USD $99--

A true standalone GPS tracker will require a much costlier investment as well as subscription fees.

[clunker]

"If a stranger (or thief!) with an iPhone takes the Pagoda, after some period of time it will notify them that they are being tracked by an AirTag."

Mike makes a good point about the notification to the thief (and as of now even their Android device would warn them), but the speaker can /should be disabled as per a previous post making locating the physical AirTag really hard. (Just to clarify further here, the thief does not need to have an iPhone/iOS to enable actual tracking, any iOS device in the vicinity or passing by will anonymously report it.)

The iPhone is the most popular format in the US, by a large margin in many demographics. Android phones can now also locate AirTags via an app, and I understood Apple and Google are working together to integrate their tracking device protocols such that both iOS and Android phones will anonymously report in any detected tracking devices they pass, including AirTags - this may already have been released. That should substantially increase the reporting density, especially outside the US.

I believe that AirTag is now likely the preferred and more robust tracking option. I keep a vehicle in an underground garage in London and there is no GPS signal there, so the traditional GPS tracker was useless and a simply a battery drain. I switched to an AirTag and it now regularly and reliably updates its location. An AirTag is also much more discrete and can be buried away (and the speaker deactivated if wanted) - versus the bulkier, more obvious GPS tracker.

[Pawel66]

I believe that AirTag is now likely the preferred and more robust tracking option. I keep a vehicle in an underground garage in London and there is no GPS signal there, so the traditional GPS tracker was useless and a simply a battery drain. I switched to an AirTag and it now regularly and reliably updates its location. An AirTag is also much more discrete and can be buried away (and the speaker deactivated if wanted) - versus the bulkier, more obvious GPS tracker.

Well, but they will leave that garage... then you see it. Regardless of coming across any IOS devices, somewhere in the countryside where they'd probably stash it for some time.

[John Betsch - "SADIE"]

I wonder if this might be a European/Germany thing.

My car came from  (Immenstaad) Germany and it came with the steering wheel lock plus a hidden switch to shut off the ability to start (will just crank and crank) as well as a well hidden switch shutting the fuel pump so it would only run for about a block's distance

Made it sound like cars being stolen was a common occurrence

[mdsalemi]

I wonder if this might be a European/Germany thing.

While we certainly have our hotspots of car theft in the USA, (I don't know where these are but they are not where I live), we DO NOT have the equivalent of "Eastern Europe" which is a polite way of saying countries in general that cannot be trusted without specifically naming them.

Here in the USA, it is far more likely that your Hyundai or Kia will be stolen (because the inherent built in safety mechanism is so poorly engineered) and taken for a joyride, or your CAT will be stolen off your Toyota, or the airbags off a Honda.

[Pawel66]

Michael, not speaking due to "local patriotism" or hurt pride - you may be right from many angles...

But it is pretty much the same here and in the western Europe as you described - most cars stolen are the popular modern cars. Cats is the fashion started 4-5 years ago. I think the patterns are the same. You would have to look at statistics to determine where the car theft is more intense.

I think your view is a bit biased by 90ies and early 2000. Those years car theft was driven by exports further east, which is minimum now. The crime rates went dramatically down since those days.

Having said that, classic car theft happens, we see reports. It is more frequently coming form Germany (well, I do not know what the rate would be per 100 cars existing). For here (Poland) I cannot recall over last 4-5 years anybody had a classic car stolen. I t is rather rare, it is not something that would make me lose my sleep, but it happens. Sort of: low probability high impact case. As much as modern cars are equipped with modern anti-theft means (including spare parts coding), our cars are not. That is why I threw in a GPS tracker into my car, for this low probability event.

[John Betsch - "SADIE"]

Not to be misunderstood, my point/posting was not to single out an area or Country of potential theft but rather to note the diligence of owners in a particular area in care for their classics

jb

[Pawel66]

John, my mistake, I was going to write:

"Michael, not speaking due to "local patriotism" or hurt pride - you may be right from many angles..."

All is perfectly fine!

Now thinking about it... As for myself and probably a lot of people of my age, when you had your first cars (which were not easy to obtain) in the 80ies and 90ies and going through our "Wild East" in the 90ies were mafias were common and crime rates of some sorts going through the roof, we really were losing sleep over our cars being stolen, it was common. I had a new Volvo stolen in 2001 (company car, fortunately) in a very tricky way.

Maybe that us why we are overprotective here.

[clunker]

... to be clear, as soon as the thief looks on their iPhone and notes they are being tracked it is too late - that iPhone has likely already reported back the AirTag location anonymously. And, again, it is now Android as well as iOS devices that report on AirTag locations.

For regions where I expect almost all of us are, it is essentially impossible now to find a 'Find My' desert where a car can go to to be stashed out of range of any iOS/Android device.

That the thief knows they are being tracked is ok - it not that easy to find a well hidden AirTag. The longer they wave their iPhone around looking for the AirTag, the more their location gets reported. Doubtless thieves are similarly well aware of tracking with the traditional GPS tracker equipped car (likely is even labeled as such): it is lot, lot easier to block GPS signals (cf my underground parking in London).

[mdsalemi]

... to be clear, as soon as the thief looks on their iPhone and notes they are being tracked it is too late - that iPhone has likely already reported back the AirTag location anonymously...it is essentially impossible now to find a 'Find My' desert where a car can go to to be stashed out of range of any iOS/Android device...

Oh, so right you are Charles! My mechanic friend was the one who, two days after he had my car, asked ME if there was an AirTag in the car. His iPhone was telling him that he was being followed, but ONLY when HE was driving my car. When he parked it, he is no longer being followed. I could see the entire thing, and I knew where my car was at all times. So, yes this very simple device, all of $29, is well worth it. I didn't get my AirTags specifically for my car but rather for my luggage when doing air travel. But I bought a three pack--and threw one in the Pagoda.

My daily drivers are all Fords. They have, without any subscription fee, or any added tracker, or anything else, built in tracking that reports its location nearly constantly to my Ford app on my phone. It would be very hard to start the car without one of the two factory fobs, but it could be stolen by flatbed I suppose. But I'd always know where it is and could follow law enforcement to its location. I would imagine most modern cars are similar.