Okay. So… I live in Portland, Oregon. One of the nicer neighborhoods, but it is still peppered with crime, graffiti, and rampant car theft. Such a sad state for such a once warm and inviting city.
I have 3 Mercedes of various ages, and frankly, I’d like to keep ’em! So I bought 2 for my daily drivers, just to see if they were any good.
They arrived, and they are really just a little boxes. Thats it. The service is $30/mo per car, so NOT cheap. But my insurance discounts my policies by $15/mo, so that’s something.
I charged them. and set ’em up on the website. I had little problem there… just remember the easiest place to “add a tracker” is on the login page. They have all connected without issues.
The webpage is just fine… it locates the cars within 50′ or so… that’s fine for my uses. Lots of customization. Perimeters were a big deal for me, I was able to customize them. My neighbor is going to get one of these for his teen… just to keep his teen “honest”! It should be great.
I liked the performance enough (mine are inside body panels and they get a signal just fine, they also track in real-time fine, too) that I bought another unit for my classic ‘benz as well.
Don’t kid yourself… they’re just “giving” the units away to get you signed up for their service. I don’t know if these units are “unlocked”, so I can go with another, cheaper service, but you CAN change the sim card.
Overall I think the units are really a great value, the online service is very good (if pricey for multiple units), and, so far, feel like I “paid a quarter and got back a dollar”.

So, there are quite a few glowing reviews on this product. To be fair, it’s pretty decent, but there are a few quirks.

Cons

– The website used for all tracking and reporting IS NOT HTTPS (secured using TLS / SSL); your logon and password are sent unencrypted for the tracking portal. I would expect that at least the logon part of the session to use HTTPS.
– Your entire browsing session for the SpyTec Portal IS NOT HTTPS; anyone able to sniff your network traffic knows exactly what you are browsing while on the Portal
– The GPS seems to be off by up to about 30-40 feet on our unit; may lead to improper street address resolution. We’ve found this to be the case if the unit is indoors, or outdoors, but especially if it’s inside a building somehow.
– The web portal seems to be geared to tracking “drivers,” as if this product is only to be used for tracking vehicles. Not a big deal, but it is small enough to be able to be used for just about any useful GPS purpose. Not exactly a con, but it does make using the web portal slightly strange.

Pros

– The SpyTec web portal is well thought out in general
– The web portal can be accessed from any modern browser, not limiting you to a specific Android or iOS application, for example
– The service does allow you to define areas to be notified when the GPS leaves / returns to certain area
– It appears to be much more effective than bracelet GPS devices sold for children, especially in that it works to some extent inside buildings
– Mapping / Reporting is based on Google Maps, and that’s pretty nice

Background:

We purchased this unit to track our 3 year old child that suffers from an Autistic Spectrum Disorder. He’s doing well, but he can’t communicate well verbally. Recently, he ran away in a large mall, and it was nearly impossible to find him, let alone track him. After doing a fair bit of research it was clear that many of the devices on the market do not work well inside buildings, etc. We purchased this unit to enable us to be able to find him in a mall.

Our success is mixed, but it DOES generate enough information to allow law enforcement to know where to look. Moreover, you can give them the logon and let them search with as close to real time data as you can get.

On an adult sized individual, the device would be fairly small. On a small child, the belt clip would be a decent size, and would likely be noticed. However, if put inside a jacket or coat, the device is easy to hide and harder to find. (The down side would be if the coat was taken off…)

I do want to be VERY clear about the lack of security on the Spy Tec website portal. There is none.

It’s extremely odd that in this day and age they would not have a secure website. The fact that the logon (at minimum) is not HTTPS (specifically TLS if you know what that is) means that your user ID and password are easily picked up.

DO NOT USE A STANDARD USER ID OR PASSWORD WITH THE SPY TEC WEB PORTAL.

Right on as to baggage location except for last stop.
Maybe due to low battery

The device feels sturdy. Easy to set up. Almost instant sync. Very clean tracking on a bicycle. The only thing is they monthly cost is a bit much for my taste. Twice the cost of the device for one month is a BIT much, in my opinion. But maybe that’s a good deal

Bought late September. Tracker worked great for two charges. Third time I tried to charge; it will not charge. Tried everything to get it to charge but it will not, including different charging blocks, different cords. Dead unit.

This tracking device is perfect. It works well and will not give you bad information. The battery life has lasted me about 15-20 days . I strongly recommend this product along with its service .

The units are easy to setup. They work great and pretty precise.

Up to the second on alerts. The additional text messages really help as well. Definitely a good tracker and well worth the money.