Garmin Lock?

Well, I started using the lock since day 1 - it would make it harder for someone that swipes it to make use of the device. My home and other saved sites would be hidden. And, if nothing else - I'm not letting the thief make use of something I bought.

After reading all these comments, I have locked my Nuvi 1300T and relocated the home to the nearby police station. I also have a built-in GPS in my wife's Lexus. I've moved that home address as well.

Thanks for the tips.

Blessings,
Pastor Ray

I was on a trip out of state and there were times the 885T would start-up without prompting for the password.

May want to check with Garmin tech-support on that one-

If your gps has a lock why not use it. If you loose your gps or some one removed it from your car at least they have hard time to find its number key. I use the lock just another step to secure property.

I agree!

I put the security code in my 255W about two miles from my house. Just to make sure.

I locked mine before and had problems, so I just said to heck with it and went a different route..I just insured it. It protects my investment but doesn't keep information out of a thiefs hands, necessarily but I try to avoid putting personal information, especially my home address, in my unit.

I agree too
!!!

Me too!!

I read just this week where a person was at a football game and someone broke in and took their GPSr. Upon arriving at their house, they found that it have been ransacked and all of their valuables had been taken. (One good reason not to have your GPSr list your home location.) A better way is to have your home location set someplace else; say, your local police dept. or a local service station. That way, if you need your GPSr to help you find your way home, it will direct you there and hopefully, you will be able to find your way home from that location. I have also talked to Garmin about including decals that you could affix to your vehicle windows warning that the GPS inside the vehicle is locked so that a thief would bypass the vehicle. Even though Garmin stated that it was a good idea, I have not seen any of the decals yet.

However, I always wondered if this wasn't just another way to tell a would be thief that there was a GPSr in this car.

If you read some other threads on these forums you will find where Garmin and others could care less about getting in the middle of these disputed ownership units.

More likely they would toss the unit in the trash than get in the middle a stolen GPS unit and two people claiming ownership.

why would anyone steal one knowing it would be useless?

If you find that you don`t want the lock you don`t need to turn on! If the gps is stolen and can not be used maybe thieves think twice before they steal another gps!

I haven't read all the posts in this thread but did read a lot and want to add my 2 cents.

If you used the security code to lock the unit and it's stolen, a thief can't find out where you live from the unit itself so why not use your home as the unlock location. If you're worried about other information in your car that a thief can use to find out where you live so they can unlock it there, that is the least of your worries.

Most people have garage door openers in their cars, so if a thief can rummage through your car and find where you live then also steal the garage door opener, they can easily get into your home.

Therefore it is imperative that you remove everything in your car that has your home address, phone number etc. Don't worry about your GPS giving your home location away as much as personal information on papers in your car.

My insurance company does not put personal information on the proof of insurance card that I have to by law keep in the car. They have the VIN # on it.

If there are other items that you leave in the car that might have your address on it, use a magic marker to black it out, that includes mail. That garage door opener can really cause you headaches.

I could not agree more!

Same here!!

i use it all of the time. I figure if it's stolen I'd rather the thief not be able to use it. Also, I'd rather the thief not know where I live, they might decide to rob my house.

who doesn't use the HOME option anyway? That's just a flag saying, ROB ME!

Am I being paranoid?

Home, at least on the GPS is the middle of an intersection of 2 major roads about a 1/4 mile from my drive. I know the way to my door from that intersection and the travel time is negligible for routing purposes when I tell it to "Go Home,"

Yes.

If they can't boot it because it's protected by a password, they can't find where you live to rob you.

YES, I should initiate the lock feature - more than the loss of the GPS is the loss of personal information such as my home and other personal locations.

Rather than a year, you could use the last or first four of your Social Security number, telephone number, driver's license, passport or other number you can look up if you "forget" the code.

Sometime it doesn't work. I turn the unit on and it go straight to the map screen even I'm 1000 miles away from the safe location. It happend with both my unit 765 and 885.

Forgive the resurrection of an old thread but I came across this and am in total agreement. Many years ago, Pioneer used to have a similar "Secret Code" feature to unlock their stereo head units when power was removed, making them useless to thieves. They eventually dropped the feature because too many people were too dumb to remember the code they set... that was a sad day. As was said above, if more devices had these features, everyone actually USED them and they were relatively secure, then the thieves and folks who support them by buying stolen goods would get no benefit and we would all benefit in the long run.

Help us all and lock your unit.

- Phil

Drive to your local police station and and enter the coordinates and use that address to lock your unit.

A very practical way is to set your security location at a point where you drive most of the time when you leave your home. It should be far enough to allow the unit to have locked on the satellites when you drive by -- say 30sec for example.

That way, you just leave your house and ...tada, your unit unlocks by itself when you pass by.

Of course, people will say BUT it means thieves can come around your house and will find your security location and unlock the unit. I say so what? They still cannot change the lock code (you must enter the old lock code to do that, even if your unit is unlocked) so once they unlock the unit, they can never switch it off without coming back to that location to unlock them again...

Other people will say BUT that will allow them to find your other favorites etc. Well, so what? I don't think they were planning to sell my unit there anyway...

Thanks for all the comments on this subject. I have my set near a place I visit everyday so its ready to unlock when I need it. All I mostly have on mine is geocaches but I wouldn't want them to know how to get to my house.

I don't bother with that. It just takes longer to get it (the gps) up and running.

I use the lock and set my home location to my work.. the police department. Be careful that the 'safe' location that will automatically unlock the GPS is not your home. Just in case the thief knows you and where you live.

using the security code doesn't slow anything down as far as the unit is concerned as it starts locating the satellites as soon as you turn it on and doesn't wait for the code to be entered.

That's right.

I second this!!

Amen!

I wouldn't put my home location in there either. It helps the thieves to find your house. There was a ring of thieves that worked with a valet parker at a exclusive country club here in Florida. You can figure out how that worked.

That's pretty scary, and sound advice. You could avoid the problem of them using info in the GPS to find your house by programming a PIN, but you'd need to be sure and remember to turn OFF the GPS before you turn the car over.

Of course, all they really need to do is look at your registration and they have your address... no GPS required.

- Phil

Don't give 'em anything to go on!

I thought this was an interesting device to secure a GPS in the car. If I saw this thing clamped to a GPS even in plain sight, I don't think I would bother breaking in just to see if I could make off with the GPS. http://www.gpsmaplock.com/

I could stick in my pocket a lost faster then going through all this to secure the gps.

I'd rather the thief not being able to use it. I lock mine.

I apologize bc this is an old thread and I definitely don't feel like going through it all but I had to mention a point or two after reading this. Your Garmin may be stolen or it may not, same as say your wallet. The worst part about a wallet is the info, drivers license etc.. not the money per se, it's replaceable and credit cards can be shut off. Likewise, the Garmin being stolen will suck, but if you have your home location set, perhaps one of the people who has the phone number listed also just to be thorough.... see where I'm going. Say I stole the hypothetical Garmin from a park or RR Station, now I know where you go regularly... and if I happen to see your vehicle there then I know you're not home. I already know where you live from the Home setting, I've probably checked it out already once or twice. If you put your phone number in there I can even double check by seeing if anyone answers the phone. Or the Garmin could have had some level of protection on it and hopefully just tossed in the garbage or completely re-formatted to bypass the security. Hope I made some kind of impression here lol... in case I didn't and you don't list your info... do you have your kids homes, relatives, neighbors, friends listed? Just pick four numbers and get some piece of mind. Even if you carry it with you, the word "mugger" is in the dictionary for a reason.

I don't leave the GPS in my car, and I don't lock it. Seems like locking it would be overkill, like a belt and suspenders.

Have you ever got caught with your pants down, so to speak? I see the lock as a "just in case" measure, because most everyone I know slips up once in a while... even when they normally follow an iron-clad routine.

Better safe than sorry!

It's just four numbers that you get to pick and they wont guess.

I have to say, it never really occurred to me that a thief would take the GPS and then go back to my house to rob it as well. I suppose it could happen. It makes sense to protect yourself in the ways described here (turn on the password, set your home location to a place near your home, but not actually at your home). However, I have plenty of stored POIs of family and friends. I like seeing everyone around me on the map. It would be too cumbersome, in my opinion, to set locations near all those people.

I think my solution will be to try to minimize someone from robbing my GPS in the first place. One thought on that: I once heard that thieves would observe cars and break into ones that had an obvious suction mark on their windshield (with the idea being that the car must hold some kind of valuable windshield-mounted gadget.) I have since bought a dashboard mount, and feel (somewhat) safer.

still wish there was a way to self destruct the unit if lost. how ironic that a GPS gets LOST and needs to be found.

Just so you know, they also look for dash-mounts or related dash-suction marks as well. Your best bet is a bean bag mount, which should be hidden completly out of sight by you every time you park your car. Beanbags work quite well!

Always LOCK your GPS too, just in case. You don't want to just hand it to them on a silver plate, should they by chance get it one day!

I have had my actual home address set since having my first GPS, a C330. I have used Garmin Lock on both my C550 and Nuvi 765T. However, my unlock address IS NOT my home address as that would be too easy.

Why use the actual address for home? Several months ago, my State Senator sent out an email blast advising the very same thing; do not set your GPS home address to your actual home address OR put any identifying address on the unit itself. All fine and good except I wrote back to him and told him "the state requires us to carry in our car at all times a copy of our registration and proof of insurance. All those documents have my name and home address on them that can easily be read. If someone breaks into my car, why would they just take the GPS and not grab what is in my glove compartment as well?" I never did get an answer. I was going to suggest that the state require that all name and address information be displayed only in the PDF417 barcode format as they already have it on those documents. They would simply have to drop the plain text. Most police already have scanners to read your documents in order to avoid typos so reading them should not really be a problem.

I always take it out of the car and remove the mount (and clean the round circle left behind) whenever I get out of the car. I am more interested in me not being pissed off that it got stolen than I am the thief being pissed off because he cant use it or possibly re-sell it.

Think about all the documents, both in your glove compartment as well as your wallet, that have your name and address on them. I'll bet even the phone company publishes your name and home address. Your County Auditor's web site may even have pictures of your house and property on it, mine does. Ditto for Google.

Most people who engage in smash and grab out of a car aren't looking for anything more than a way to pay for their next heroin fix or line of nose candy. If you want to lock your GPS then do it but don't think you are safe just because you have set a password in your GPS.