GPS control for personal use (Part 3. System overview)

In this part of the article, I will continue to review systems. Two systems “Live GPS Tracking” and “M2M gps-tracker.com.ua” are presented here .

In the previous parts we considered:

Part 1: General considerations on the use of GPS monitoring systems for personal monitoring.
Part 2: The systems WHERE MY, GPSHome, and GPS-Trace Orange were reviewed

Live GPS Tracking (Russia)

The company has been operating in the market of satellite monitoring systems since 2010.

For private users, the monitoring system is free and provides the ability to control children, the elderly and pets, as well as the ability to share real-time information during their trips and travels.

The company does not produce its own, but supports working with a wide range of devices (more than 180 models of trackers), including a large set of personal trackers.

The company provides a ready-made working monitoring system that can be easily integrated into customer sites (without involving IT specialists).

Limitations: up to 4 devices can be connected in one account for free; history for 6 months; up to a maximum of 4 geofences per device.

I did not find access to a system focused on the use of mobile browsers with low resolution. But there is a special program for managing devices and viewing trackers on the Mobile Dispatcher map (Android).

In addition to the smartphone application described below, the developer company provides a number of other personal monitoring programs for smartphones: “Live GPS Tracker”, “GeoMessageService”.

Useful features of the system

• Cartography: Yandex, OpenStreetMap, Google; road traffic (Yandex).
• In the Favorites section there are four mini-maps in which you can display the current location of various devices (or the location of the device at different map scales).
• In the additional device information panel, the current data on speed, azimuth and charge is displayed by dashboard widgets.
• The display of tracks can be configured taking into account the setting of parameters: parking time, off time, type of movement, ignoring coordinates on cell towers, noise filtering and smoothing.
• There is a detailed display mode of the track. In this mode, for each point you can get detailed information in the information window. On the map, the display of points is accompanied by a marker of the direction of movement. Points whose coordinates are obtained from cell towers are highlighted with special icons.
• In the alarm settings panel, notifications are generated for turning the device on and off and entering / exiting geofences.
• You can set the tracking and centering of the map on the selected device.
• You can create a tracking link for the selected device. Access to the link can be arranged with password authorization and limit the time during which it is valid. The created link is a URL and can be accessed from browsers (this link can be integrated into other web pages).
• Tracks of their devices can be uploaded to various formats: KML (standard, advanced); PLT; GPX
• You can upload tracks created on other systems to your repository.
• Links to tracks from your repository can be published on social networks (Twitter, Facebook, Vkontakte and others).

The system also provides additional tools:

• Create travel routes. Routes can be published for discussion with friends and saved as a track for upload to the navigator.
• Work with points. You can create, edit, and delete your point sets. Points can be accompanied by photographs and comments. Point sets can be exported and imported.
• Multi cards. Displaying a map of one location in various mapping services (Google Maps, Yandex Maps, Bing Maps, Yahoo Maps, OpenStreetMap, Kosmosnimki, Wikimapia, ProGorod, Visicom). Including, simultaneous display of one location in two services at the same time is allowed.
• Converting tracks from one format to another (the set of valid formats is very large). Recalculation of coordinates, calculation of distances between two points.

Application for smartphones "RealTimeTracker"

Key features:

• You can create a tracking link for a smartphone (similar to tracking links for a selected device in a web application). Directly from the application, you can share the link through the channels available on the device.
• Warning mode that the GPS service on the smartphone is disabled.
• Setting the interval for collecting coordinates.
• Installation of providers of determination of coordinates (GPS or GPS + LBS).
• Setting the interval for sending coordinates to the server.
• Setting the battery saving mode (setting the waiting interval and collecting coordinates).
• Setting actions when connecting / disconnecting external power.
• Setting the settings mode for recording the current track to a file.
• Management via SMS commands from preset numbers (3 numbers).
• Settings for SMS messages to specified numbers (3 numbers) by pressing the SOS button.
• Setting a password to change application settings.
• Setting actions when restarting the smartphone.
• Setting the indicator in the notification bar of the smartphone.
• Enabling logging of the application in the log.

M2M gps-tracker.com.ua (Ukraine)

The project has been working on the telematics market for five years, and started in 2009.

The system can be used for personal monitoring: control of children, the elderly and loved ones.

In addition to devices of its own production (M2M Smart, M2M GPS-Tracer), the system provides support for more than three hundred types of various trackers.

The company provides licensed software "M2M Profi", which is installed on the client server and has functionality identical to gps-tracker.com.ua.

Limitations: free monitoring is carried out to connect users of the mobile version of the Android application up to 5 objects; for organizations of socially significant importance (Ministry of Emergencies, tourism sections, etc.), regardless of the number of connected objects.

Useful features of the system

• Cartography: OpenStreetMap, Google, 2Gis Map, Ovi, Visicom, Luxena, Bing; road traffic (Google).
• The ability to display meteo data on a map for large cities.
• Searching for a location on a map at Geocoder can be selected (Google, OpenStreetMap).
• Geofences: a polygon (a convenient opportunity is to quickly delete the last created point).
• Geofences: convenient editing, deleting, changing colors, setting the transparency level, showing / hiding selected zones on the map. Ability to export geofences in xml format.
• A handy tool for adding your own objects to the map. Icon selection. Automatic address detection. The radius of the coverage of the object. Ability to import objects in CSV format.
• Ability to add video surveillance cameras to the card. View the archive of photos of CCTV cameras.
• The ability to manually enter coordinates from the device, and display this location on the map.
• Quickly (from the application window) reference information is available and the ability to contact technical support.
• At the bottom of the screen, you can show / hide the device event log (parking) panel. Information can be displayed by filtering data according to various criteria.
• Having marked in the list of devices (panel on the left side of the application) the necessary ones, it is possible to track a group of devices on the map.
• By selecting a device in the list, you can view and edit information on it (including setting the maximum speed and satellite limit).
• By selecting a device, you can get an archive of photographs received from it.
• You can create html links to static and dynamic maps with the selected device.
• The display of the tracks of the selected device can be configured taking into account the parameters: stop speed (km / h) and min.stop time (min). On the map, for track points in the information window, you can get detailed information. On the map, the track line is accompanied by a direction marker.
• There is a developed system for the formation of traffic routes planned for devices.
• There is an extended event generation system. You can define the logical condition under which an event is generated. (the logical condition is described by a formula containing various parameters of the state of the tracker).
• Notifications on device events can be configured on various information transfer channels (journal, e-mail, sms, pop-up window, visual notification).
• It is possible to prepare commands and send them to devices under certain conditions.
• You can create stops on the map (with a description of their names, comments, addresses and coverage radii).

Smartphone application “GPS Tracker official client”

Key features:

• Setting the application launch mode when the smartphone is turned on.
• Setting the display of the application icon in the notification bar of the smartphone.
• Setting the ip (or domain name) and server port to which data will be transmitted.
• Setting the data transfer protocol (MAIN or TR-151).
• Setting the operating mode (“Tracker”, “On schedule”, “Lighthouse”).
• Setting the data sending mode (by time interval, by rotation angle, combined).
• Setting the minimum parking speed.
• Building interval sending data in movements and in parking lots.
• Setting the rotation angle (to determine the need to send data).
• Setting the mode of motion analysis on the accelerometer.
• Setting the Internet connection mode.
• Setting the battery saving mode (setting the minimum percentage of charge at which the application is turned off; setting the timeout (in the case of determining the rest / activity mode using the accelerometer), after which the GPS service is turned on / off.
• Setting the administrator password for the application (controlling the possibility of changing settings and deleting the application).
• Setting the panic button.

In the final parts of the article, I will look at a few more foreign systems and talk about our ViaLatM system (in the near future it will be finalized and updated).