GPS Luggage Tracker

 

Anyone have experience with the new GPS or cellular location based luggage tracking devices? I’m not sure how helpful they would be in actually recovering lost luggage but at least you would know the location of your bag.

The Trakdot product is well reviewed on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Trakdot-Luggage-Tracker/dp/B00KL3ZA4M

Itraq seems to offer the best value with no monthly fee but isn’t available yet.
http://promo.itraqtag.com/travel

well

It would be great data to mine so you receive messages about coupons and specials wherever your luggage happens to be. I see it as a great boon for advertisers and another chance for your personal data to be stolen. How nice to know your home is probably empty as your luggage is a thousand miles away and you are probably with it.

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Illiterate? Write for free help.

Seems optimistic

GPS receivers need to be able to “see” the satellites to determine location. Not likely to happen if surrounded by metal (e.g. airplane, car trunk) or piles of luggage and the air terminal building. The same obstructions also make it harder to get a cell signal, ignoring that cell phone operation is banned on aircraft. Then there is the issue that moving a GPS receiver a substantial distance (often more than 500 miles) without a fix can make it dramatically slower to establish the new location. Of course to be useful (and maybe even legal) everywhere, the device would have to support multiple cell standards and determine what the local standard is.

Then there is the little matter of battery life. GPS usage and cell service (especially with poor reception) are notoriously hard on battery life. Reviews indicate that real battery life may be well under a day. If true it is likely that a lost bag would not be recovered before the battery died.

interest

I would be interested in hearing from anyone using something like this in the USA. My expectation is that (in addition to the obvious problems of satellite reception) the sad situation with cell phone providers in the USA makes using such a device completely impractical. In Europe and most of the rest of the civilized world and even a lot of the less civilized world you can buy a pre-paid SIM card and use such a device in a reasonably affordable fashion. Here our pricing and our lack of standards make using such a device much more challenging.

If someone does use such a device, please report on the cellular costs and if you are an extremely frequent business traveler or a more casual vacation traveler.

Of course, the biggest luggage problem in traveling is the baggage handlers and TSA stealing stuff from the luggage while it is being loaded and unloaded. This device will not help with that unless they steal the device too.

Not Me

My friends say I'm a certified geek but I don't think these are for me.

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Bob: My toys: Nüvi 1390T, Droid X2, Nook Color (rooted), Motorola Xoom, Kindle 2, a Yo-Yo and a Slinky. Gotta have toys.

My experience with cell

My experience with cell phone reception in an airport terminal or the baggage area is pretty bad. If you do get a signal it is weak, sometimes with a lot of interference.

1. Your missing luggage would probably be stored in an area where even your cell phone would have trouble getting a signal. The tracker will not be any good here.

2. If the contents of your luggage was stolen, then the tracker is of no use.

3. If the luggage is stolen, and the thief is stupid and he carries your luggage around "as is", then you may eventually learn where it is. If it is not in your hometown, would you be willing to spend the time traveling and track it down yourself? The local police would not be bothered.

I personally think this is "much ado" over nothing.

My experiences with "lost luggage" has been mostly that the bags were routed to another destination and after my reporting them missing, they show up in a couple of days. I have never had a bag go completely missing forever. BUT I have had bags riffled thru and items taken. Tracker WILL NOT prevent the "trusted baggage handlers" from being thieves.

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I never get lost, but I do explore new territory every now and then.