We are looking for a stolen car and find it yourself.

Much has already been written about what to do to prevent a car from being stolen. There are different ways and, in my opinion, the best of them is the author's anti-theft, which combines electronic and mechanical locks. But today is not about that. Today, how to find a car, if it is still stolen.







If you read this article after you have hijacked the car, I can only sympathize with you and advise you to write a statement to the police and then devote a week of your life to a thorough study of all the nearest quarters, dead ends, parking lots, garage cooperatives - places where you can leave the car for a while until it is no longer searched hard. In general, the article for those who do not hope at random and is preparing for the fact that his car will ever be stolen, now.

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So, the device, which will be discussed today, is called differently: car wash, GPS-tag and so on. I will tell on the example of Avtofon Alfa-Beacon.

What is the essence

His main idea is to transfer his coordinates to the owner, and thereby help to find the stolen car. In fact, instead of a car, there can be anything: a dog, a child, a grandfather, a tourist, an Amur tiger, a suitcase, an ATV, a bicycle.



It is extremely easy to use. You activate the device itself, hide it in the car with a GPS / GLONASS receiver (labeled) up, register in the application or on the website and do nothing until the car is hijacked (or until you have sold it).

How does it work

By default, the device is in sleep mode and once a day sends its approximate LBS coordinates to the server, that is, coordinates calculated not by satellites, but by cell towers. In the metropolis, the accuracy of this method is about 50 meters, in the villages the error can be up to one and a half kilometers. And if there is no cellular communication in this place, then the coordinates cannot be determined at all. However, this is enough for the standby mode.

In combat mode, when the car is hijacked, you can enable the transfer of coordinates of the location of the vehicle by satellite. You can set the time interval with which the coordinates will come, you can enable the permanent online mode. The disadvantage of a permanent online mode is that there will not be enough batteries for a long time (the count will go for days or hours).



In standby mode, the charge will last for 2-3 years. But all the commands that came to the beacon will accumulate on the server and be carried out only once a day, when the device is activated to report its coordinates. Of course, in the settings you can change the interval and the time to contact, but the more often the device is activated, the less time will be enough to charge the batteries (three finger). In the settings, you can also ask the device to transfer each time not only LBS, but also GPS coordinates (again, you will have to pay the charge).



For someone, the fact that the device comes in contact once a day, and therefore accepts new commands also once a day, may seem like a minus (for example, for me when I tested it). But in reality, when the car is all right and it stands where you left it, more often it is not necessary. Moreover, this was done by default not only to save battery power, but in order for the hijackers to not be able to determine that the car has a beacon and drown out the GSM signal. Coming to the connection once a day, the device is active only 3 minutes a day and the probability that it will be detected tends to zero, given that the jammers are usually turned off after the car has been placed in a sump.



Data is transmitted over the GPRS channel, that is, only when there is a cellular signal. In other words, the main disadvantage of this device is that if you put the car in a sump in a place where it does not catch the connection, it will not help. In the Magapolis, such places can only be concrete underground garages. But in the outback to the garages are added tiny villages, ravines on the slopes and just god forgotten places.

What to do if the car is stolen

Now imagine for a moment that you go out, and the car does not. Two options. Either she was evacuated or hijacked. You can find out about the evacuation by calling the traffic police, but you can not find out and immediately go to the police to write a statement about the hijacking (they will check the evacuation information themselves). After that, you need to call the AutoPhone response service, call them the number of the application you just wrote, and wait. They will interact with the police themselves if the device comes in contact.



In this case, the beacon must be transferred to the online mode. Or at least in combat, that he sent the coordinates more often than once a day. At this point, it may annoy you that you need to wait for the moment when the alpha beacon wakes up (I remind you - it does it by default once a day).

As soon as the device is awakened and went online, you can track it on the map from the mobile application. If you imagine a situation where the coordinates brought you to the garage array, you need to activate the microphone by calling the phone number that is tied to the device's SIM chip. By default, you don’t even know this number, because it is prepaid three years in advance, and there’s no point in knowing it. After you have learned the phone number, the refill lies on your shoulders, but you can call the device and, knocking the garages, understand where the car is, whether there is someone or the car is in splendid isolation.

What is the result

As shown by my tests, if the device works as it should work, you will find the car very quickly. In my case, the device sent the exact coordinates from the standard concrete garage, and from the multi-storey above-ground parking. Failure had to suffer only in the underground parking, where the signal from both satellites and cell towers disappears.



It turns out that the beacon will not help only either in the godless forgotten wilderness, where there is no connection, or if the batteries are exhausted. But in any case, you can try to find the car on the track, which will be in your personal account, and on the last marked point on the map.



Statistics show that hijackers in most cases do not bother to hide the car where they do not catch the connection and do not receive satellites, as they are not aware of finding the label in the car, and in all other cases there is no sense in it. Most often the car is located a few blocks from the place of theft, in deserted alleys, dead ends and abandoned areas.

Details

The device is comparable in size with a matchbox. Places where it can be hidden in the car, mass. There are only two conditions: it needs to be inscribed up (the navigation module is pointing there) and cannot be placed under a thick layer of metal, otherwise the signal will be much weaker.





You can enter your personal account from a computer, tablet or smartphone. Search the car is most convenient with the last in the hands.









Two screenshots that clearly demonstrate the accuracy of determining the coordinates by satellite (GPS / GLONASS) (left screenshot) and by cell towers (LBS) (right screenshot). In the first case, the coordinates of the car and me with smartphones in hand are the same, in the second case I am still in the car (“I” point), but according to signals from cell towers, the car is allegedly located one and a half kilometers from me (point “A”).





Judging by the image in the application, I am standing next to the car. Actually the car is five meters behind me. The actual accuracy is 5 meters, the promised accuracy is 15 meters.









If the transmitter does not communicate or is in a place where there is no network signal, the car tracks will remain on the server. By default, the points on the map are connected by straight lines. The coordinates of the points in the standby mode are determined by the LBS coordinates, so that you can only determine the approximate direction of the vehicle (the right screenshot is the movement in the city, the average between cities and suburbs). If you put the device online, you can track the exact route down to the streets and houses by satellite coordinates (right screenshot).







Imitation of a closed above-ground multi-level parking (the transmitter lies in house number 13, in a thick-walled saucepan far from the windows, behind two brick walls, in a closet, heaped with a bunch of rags). The beacon gives coordinates on one side of the building, then on the other (the wing of the building, by the way, is defined correctly), but does not really want to admit that it is in the building. And, of course, there are problems with the definition of the floor.





The car is located in a standard closed garage of reinforced concrete slabs with iron gates. Judging by the screenshot and the error of 16 meters, the car stands in one of six garages near point "A." In fact, it is. To accurately determine the garage, you need to activate the microphone, call the transmitter and, tapping the gate, listen to the echo in the phone. If it is clear, then this is the desired garage, you can call the police and open.

What to look for when buying

I tested and talked about the device Autophone Alpha Beacon. This device is completely domestic development, which is assembled in Russia. The principle of operation of other lighthouses (if it is not Chinese fake) is similar, but there are nuances.



1. The SIM card may not be built in, then you will have to choose the operator yourself, the tariff and keep track of the balance.

2. The device can be connected to the vehicle’s on-board network, and if it doesn’t have its own more or less capacious power source, when the car’s battery is disconnected (and the hijackers often do), the device will be useless.

3. There are models of beacons without a microphone. In this case, if the coordinates lead you to the garage complex or parking with individual boxes, it will be very difficult to find a car (no one will let you open all the garages).

4. There are models where instead of batteries the battery is built in and it needs to be charged periodically.

5. Do not confuse GPS-beacons with LBS-tags. The latter can only send you approximate coordinates on cell towers. They cost less, in the standby mode they are almost no different from GPS beacons, but in combat mode they will be almost useless (imagine what it is to search for a car in an area of ​​10-15 square kilometers).

6. The autophone that I was testing can be controlled through the application, which is intuitive. Some manufacturers make it possible to send commands to the device only via SMS, which is not so convenient.

7. As I wrote above, the device I tested (I’ll not call it again so it doesn’t look like an advertisement), there is a free service that takes over interaction with the police. Many other manufacturers do not have it.

8. If you often travel abroad, check with the purchase whether the device works outside of Russia. Often not.

Alternative

In fact, a GPS beacon is a cheap alternative to expensive Caesar Satellite satellite alarms, which, in addition to being expensive (from 25,000 rubles), also require a monthly fee (about 1,000 rubles per month). Moreover, satellite navigation is often installed on expensive SUVs and premium sedans, and hijackers, knowing this, jam them. Beacons do not give out themselves most of the time. In addition, if you hide two or three beacons in the car, the probability of returning the car does not increase two or three times, but dozens of times.



Alexander Dolgikh, Ulyanovsk



With a 10% discount, the Alpha Beacon Autophone can be purchased using the GEEKT-AF promotional code .