Tracking or locating a stolen Garmin

A standalone GPS is a receiver for GPS signals, not a transmitter. So it has no way to send its location.

Hello Alandb,

Thanks for your reply. When I posted my question, afterwards I did a little bit of research and found this

http://www.gadgettrak.com/

and I found a forum of people that use this

http://gpstracklog.com/

http://gpstracklog.com/2007/06/protect_your_gp.html

I use the Garmin 3490LMT. I will use this on trial basis and see if it works. I will let all the people of POI Factory know of my results.

I can understand how this works on a smartphone or laptop that can run a program or app. GPS' don't do that, so how does it work on GPS?

Ain't nothing that is gonna get a stand alone receive only GPS RECEIVER that will not run other applications to snitch on it's location. You might call me a cynic, but this looks to me like an effort by someone who just signed up here to send traffic to an alternate site. No way I'm going to follow that link.

The links are fine. In fact, they are mostly old, outdated information.

But no, a GPS receiver does not, for the most part, transmit its location and cannot be "tracked".

Even when you hook it to a computer it doesn't "send" its location.

Good Morning. I found a similar discussion on POI factory that is a little over 4 years old titled,

Garmin GPS tracking software/website http://www.poi-factory.com/node/25261

I am going to compare the information I found and all the responses I getting. Thanks.

If it would work, which it CAN'T, I'm sure there would be many spouses using it to watch their better half's movements. That would cause some substantial business loss to Private Investigators.

It may be possible if the GPS has Bluetooth and the thief (or the person they sell it to) hooks up to a Bluetooth phone that is in service.

Just connected my new 3597 to my wife's Galaxy III this morning and was surprised at what the two devices could exchange. Downloaded the "Smartphone Link" from "Google Play" (Free!!!) It has a lot of nice features. The one I was after was the traffic info that you can get via the smart phone when you are out of range of the HD service. I could even retrieve weather info from airports.

It's possible to write code (resides on the GPS) that would send the GPS's current coordinates to someone when it was connected to another Bluetooth device.

Just a thought.

Other than the Android based Garmins, I haven't seen any data on writing code to run on the GPS. Garmin is pretty tight lipped about their OS. More importantly, there would be little point in linking a phone to a Garmin by Bluetooth in order to get the location. Most phones have their own GPSs, so there is little incentive to link to Garmin to get location. And even if you could link a phone to a Garmin by Bluetooth and get the coordinates, to get the location reported back to the Garmin's original owner you would need to control the software in the phone, not in the Garmin. So loading software on the GPS, even if you could, doesn't get the GPS location reported back to the owner.

It would be nice if we could do this.

Even if it could work, what if your GPS was stolen. Are you going to track it down to some house in a neighborhood you have no idea about and go knock on the door? The police, at least where I live have no interest in going after a stolen GPS or cellphone for that matter. My daughters and friends brand new Iphones were sitting on top of the table at a sports bar while they were sitting there. Two young punks ran by grabbed them and beat it out the door. The police took a report but that was the end of it. Theft of these devices is so pervasive that the police would use up all their time. You really have to think through what you would actually do to recover your electronic item.

Could find a way to do this, I was thinking of creating a Power Cord for the device that has this capacities to track where the cord is... I know it would be useless if they replace the cord but most who would steal the device would just sell the whole thing.

Just a thought is someone wants to get rich... LOL

the OP may have heard about the special units that are made by various companies for businesses to install on their vehicles so that they can track where their drivers are at any given time. I have read that these are relatively popular in England for monitoring the performance of employees.

I have also read that these devices have spawned a thriving "counter-warfare" traffic in jammers that prevent any nearby GPS from being able to receive a signal that allows it to determine its location. The jammers are illegal, but that has apparently had little deterrent effect.

- Tom -

The devices put in company vehicles are not using the gps to track us. It is a device that is under our dash. The gps gets some "communication" type software and we receive traffic reports, but the gps does not need to be in the vehicle for the company to find us. I have one in my vehicle and they know exactly where we are 24/7.

There are several different methods of tracking vehicles and the employees assigned to them. The two common points in all of them is they require a GPS to determine location and another means of transmitting that information back to the central location. Some use cellular communications through a modem, others a private radio channel and still others write the data to a recorder that gets plugged into a computer (think Progressive's Snapshot device).

Many governmental agencies use AVL or Automatic Vehicle Location which receives coordinates from a GPS and then transmits the coordinates on a schedule using either their private radio system or over cellular modems. The key thing is that it takes additional hardware and the GPS is only an input.

Going back to the OP's question, it would require an app or extension to the software in the GPS which would then interface to an external device to send that data. The problem with this would be the controls over who had access to the data as it will surely raise privacy concerns.

Just assume an application was running in your GPS and every time it encountered an open WiFi network it posted its identifier and location to a server. Yes, if you knew your identifier you could then track the unit but so could anyone else knowing the identifier. The privacy issues alone are why I believe the manufacturers would not enable such an application.

The OP could buy a GPS tracker and glue it to his Garmin!

Tracking would likely not be exact and for a $100-$200 Garmin the police are going to do what? I can see it for a high priced laptop or a car but GPS unit? Just go buy another and hide it better in your vehicle, if you attach it to the windshield make sure there are no suction cup marks on it when you take it down.
I for one always remove the unit before I park. You never know who is watching as you pull into a stall in a parking lot.

http://www.stolen911.com/category/191/Stolen-GPS-Devices.htm...

If law enforcement involved then

http://www8.garmin.com/law-enforcement/

The note on the Garmin link pretty well answers the OP's question:

Gps and phone companies make to much money from the theft of these devices to want to do anything about it. Cell phone companies have the built in capability already to disable a phone if it was stolen rendering it useless. This would stop the theft of phones in it's tracks. They will not activate it because they make to much off the replacements. I'm sure GPS units could have this same capability.

I linked to the Smart Phone to get Traffic Info, not my location. The area coverage currently available for HD Traffic is pretty sparse when compared to the other services. We travel on the Eastern Shore of VA & MD a lot and there is absolutely no coverage there until you get near Wilmington DE.

The code would use the Smart Phone to send out it's location to a server or an email address. Of course, I know that Garmin would have to create the code and place it in their software/firmware. I don't think anyone else would do it - but it is possible I suppose. Reverse Engineering happens all the time. Unfortunately, home-grown code would have to be Reverse Engineered again anytime a firmware update happened. And it would take some code being added to the Garmin Smartphone apps.

You would need some kind of trigger: GPS queries server through smart phone to see if unit was reported missing. If yes, send location to server or email periodically.

Code could also use a PC connected to the internet, that is, if anti-virus software will let it.

Just a dream, not a demand. Don't really seeing it happen.

They only mention phones and tablets on this site.
All modern smartphones and tablets already support this sort of thing, either natively or with an add-on app.

There is no mention of auto GPS units on that web site. In order for this to work, you would have to be able to install an app on your auto GPS. And we can't do that on our Garmins.

Does anyone know what the GPS satellites know about the devices they are connection to? It would seem like those satellites would have the capability to track individual devices. For one thing, the companies that own the satellites (e.g. Iridium, etc.) are different from the GPS device makers, and they have to get paid right? So you would think that they might want a list of devices connected to their satellites; at very least they would want to know who to send the bill, but even better would be how much they should charge based upon bandwidth usage. So there you already have {deviceId, dataUsage} Is that the extent of the data, or do they satellites know more about the devices that connect?

Absolutely nothing. Does the radio station know where all the receivers listening to its programming are located? Same principal. The GPS satellites are transmitters and the receivers don't have transmitters.

Here you are mistaken, the GPS satellites are owned by the Department of Defense and we as civilians are allowed to use some of the data they transmit.

It's just like a radio in your car. It is one way only. The transmitter has no idea what is receiving the signal being sent out. A normal over the counter does GPS not transmit any signal, other than the low level Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) that most digital computers generate.

Trucking companies do not use a normal GPS that is bought at Best Buy or Amazon, etc. That is a special unit that does transmit a signal, but not back to the GPS satellites.

Unless the GPS is hooked up to another computer or blue toothed to a smart phone, our Garmins are invisible - electronically, that is.

Edit: Box Car beat me again. Darn!!!

On this one of the OP's links: http://gpstracklog.com/2007/06/protect_your_gp.html the company claims their system works with various Nuvi models. They also state their system sends you an email when someone connects the stolen device to their (internet connected) computer.

If the Nuvi were set up to appear as a hard drive, as mine is, couldn't you use an autorun script to have the host computer perform some task when the device is connected? I've never considered it before, but even flash drives can run programs when you plug them in, it might work with the Nuvi.

Autorun is a "feature" in Windows that can be disabled. It should be disabled, as viruses have shown up on many devices from memory cards and flash drives to digital picture frames, and you risk serious problems whenever you plug in a new USB device if you have autorun enabled. BestBuy is infamous for reselling things that have been returned to the store and this is one way that such viruses can be spread, but there even have been cases of infections at the factory. If you allow autorun you're just asking for problems.

On the other hand, if the person who gets the stolen GPS has any clue, they will be attaching it to a computer where autorun has been disabled, and all of the hype about the GPS being tracked when plugged into a computer will be just that, hype.

I would report it stolen, be nice if they could program stolen GPS so you could not update. Only take a few keystrokes and would really mess up the bootleg market!

Why do you think that? Do you believe that there are, or even would be, many people who insist on checking if they can update the firmware in the device before they buy a stolen GPS receiver? Do you think that anyone buying a stolen GPS would be likely to even know about firmware updating? And if it is registered to my account, I don't believe that the firmware can be updated at all anyway unless the person in possession of it is logged in to Garmin as me, even if Garmin hasn't been told explicitly that the device has been snatched, yet that hasn't stopped the low lives who break a $300-$400 window to snatch a $99 GPS receiver from doing exactly that.

Well I don't know if Garmin has any more records as far as updating is concerned. I have a feeling that it is now contained in the GPS software. It used to be that I had to log on to Garmin with a User ID and PW for each GPS I own for any update.

Now all I do is plug it into my computer and I can update anything available. This is from my summer residence up north as well as from Mexico in the winter.

My son updates the Unit I gave him with out any problems. He just plugs it in and it updates. All Garmin checks is to see if it is LMT.

Garmin doesn't know if unit was stolen. They are not assigned to user but to account, and you don't have to register with Garmin. But if you will inform them that your GPS was stolen it may be possible that they will "brick" this unit when it will connect to internet.

Since they travel the same sewers, so a brick could lead to the buyer hunting down the seller! Being of less then upstanding citizen qualities buyer might do more then our legal system would to take justice on seller!

Vivosmart HR+ has a GPS in it. Do you think Garmin would have thought to have a way to find it?