Concertina Tracker

[Kelteglow]

I carry with me two concertinas in a leather case worth say £11k .And only insured if they are left in a locked house or locked boot of a car .If I leave them unattended then they are not insured against theft. I am almost paranoid when playing especially in a public place to see that they are wirh me at all times but you know its almost impossible to do . If I do have to for eg * leave the room* My "Morris Team *are left in charge of the concertinas. Several times when I return to find Morris Team gone and concertinas too. So I cross my fingers until I catch up with Team and concertinas. Now you can buy small *50p size Trackers" designed to track your car with a mobile phone .I was wondering if this would help with the above problem .Has anyone else tried this ? Bob

[Bruce McCaskey]

I hadn't considered that use but I'm familiar with the wafer and coin-sized trackers available that connect with "smart" phones and your idea sounds good to me.

 

One could place a tracker in the instrument case, but they are small and you might be able to find a place to locate one inside the instrument. It seems unlikely that any thief would look inside an instrument for such a device, at least not in the first few hours of stealing it and the first few hours would be your best window of time to locate it anyway.

 

For those not familiar with the devices, they aren't exactly independent long distance beacons, rather their success depends on them being near (up to about 60 feet) other phones running a companion App that constantly scans for the presence of all nearby trackers. When a tracker is detected, the location of that unique tracking device is sent on to the Internet and stored. If the registered owner of a tracking device looks for it using the companion App, they will receive notice of where it was last detected.

 

Because tracking a location is dependent on that tracking device being detected by another person running the companion App, the device is most likely to be detected in highly populated areas where a lot of phones are in use. Most people won't have the App so it's not likely that you'd get frequent location updates, but you only need one ping off of someone to find where to go. Once you are in the vicinity, your own phone's App will be able to tell you if the tracking device is still there.

 

All of these trackers have a limited battery life of about a year, some brands you toss the tracker after a year and buy a new one, while others have a replaceable battery. It would also seem a good idea to buy the most popular brand because more people would be running the Apps that detect them and give you location updates.

 

There's no guarantee that you'd be able to locate a tracker in a stolen instrument, but I like the idea well enough that I'm going to purchase a few and do some testing of this idea. Prices vary, but you can buy them here for $15 to $30 each, the price drops if you buy more than one.

 

Edited to add: I just purchased a "Tile Mate" four-pack (two normal size and two wallet size) and plan to do some testing around the Seattle area, placing them in various locations and then waiting to see if I get any location updates from others running the Tile App on their phones.

Edited January 30, 2017 by Bruce McCaskey

[Patrick McMahon]

A tracker is a great idea, but the flaw is in the app being needed in another phone. It's still better than nothing though, but not something to be relied on. And if thieves have the app, can they detect the tracker? Because they are sure to catch on, and they all have good phones. (for free!)

 

Prevention is still the best bet. A good backpack can enable you to take the concertinas with you without looking weird.

If I had eleven grand's worth of concertinas, I'd slip them into the pack and take them with me, even if I went to the loo.

[Bruce McCaskey]

I can't speak for all brands available, but the one I bought doesn't reveal its presence to others that have the same App and I believe that is typical. The App has a sort of ongoing and invisible automatic scan and report function throughout the user community so that everyone running the App serves as a search agent for you if lose your tracker (and attached item). The trackers are registered to an individual though and only someone signed into the registered account can access the location info for that tracker.

 

There are at least two substantial dependencies related to successfully finding a lost tracker. First, the detection range of the Bluetooth signal the tracker emits. That determines how close it will need to be to someone running the App on a smartphone. Note that the App runs in the background so the phone only needs to be on, but not in active use. I've seen reference to Bluetooth LE and ranges of up to 300 feet, and other suggestions of ranges as short as 50 feet.

 

The second and obviously related dependency is that the user community scan and report function only works if a user of that App comes within the detection range of a tracker. If there are no users in the area, no location reports are generated. In a population dense environment, say downtown New York City, there are likely to be several users around and if any of them get close, you'll get a location report. But in rural areas and small towns, there may be no one other than you. If there is no one but you in the area, then you get no outside help and are going to have to get close, perhaps as close as 50 feet, in order to find your lost tracker.

 

Clearly, the more users, the better your chances that one might get close enough to your lost tracker to generate a location report. The maker of the tracker I purchased yesterday claims they've sold over six million, but there's no good way to determine from that number how many users exist because some people buy multiple trackers and the non-replaceable battery only lasts one year. I bought a four-pack for example. My guess is that the number of actual users is closer to one million.

 

All that aside, I bought the trackers to do some real world testing. I'm going to position a few around Seattle (one in a popular Irish pub, one in a friend's house on a residential street) and then see if I receive any "user community" generated detection reports.

 

Of course as noted above, the best protection against loss is to never let your valuable instrument out of your control. However, if it is stolen, then anything that might aid recovery would be welcome, even if there is no assurance of success. I suspect these tracking devices are a pretty uncertain recourse, but even if there's just a 1% chance the use of one would help, I'd likely give it a go.

 

By the way, I note that some brands of these devices offer a sort of geo-fencing function. I've not investigated the details but my impression is that if the tracker (and associated item) gets out of range of your phone then it generates an alert on your phone. Likely it'd already be out the door at that point, but at least you'd know as soon as it happened and might still be able to spot the culprit on the street if you are quick.

[Alan Day]

I have seen many players just leave their instruments un attended,in one place where a hand bag was stolen.One I remember recently was in a cafe and on the floor down beside her as she was eating.The thief just picked it up on the way out .

I have for many years been asking about tracking devices ,not only for instruments but for children and other valuable items. Micro chipping is an idea that could be thought about fixed inside concertinas and used by dealers to check the instrument owner.

A massive market out there for the right device.

[alex_holden]

Bluetooth doesn't work very well through walls, so that 50/300 feet range would be in open air.

 

There are more expensive trackers available that have a GPS receiver in them and send regular position updates to a server in the cloud via the mobile phone network. They tend to have a monthly fee though, and you'll probably need one that's specifically set up for use in your country.

 

This article lists a few possibilities:

http://www.safewise.com/blog/10-wearable-safety-gps-devices-kids/

Edited January 31, 2017 by alex_holden

[Patrick McMahon]

If you combined a nice little backpack, with one of those personal attack alarms, that screech when one part is pulled out from the alarm, then you could tie the alarm trigger to a chair, and it would sound when someone picked up the pack and walked away with it.

 

Of course, you would be bound to forget, and set it off all the time, but it's a thought.

 

Edit: Of course, velcro would do for tying a loop to a chair, so it could be pretty easy to do.

Edited January 31, 2017 by Patrick McMahon

[Nighthawk]

You could do something like the lo-jack approach using bluetooth. You run an app on your phone and via an inertia sensor in the instrument get a notification (as loud or as subtle as you desire) when the instrument is moved.

[David Barnert]

For those not familiar with the devices, they aren't exactly independent long distance beacons, rather their success depends on them being near (up to about 60 feet) other phones running a companion App that constantly scans for the presence of all nearby trackers. When a tracker is detected, the location of that unique tracking device is sent on to the Internet and stored. If the registered owner of a tracking device looks for it using the companion App, they will receive notice of where it was last detected.

 

Thanks Bruce. Fascinating stuff. Does the report you get give you the location of the tracker or the phone that detected it? If it’s your own phone, does it tell you which direction and how far away it is, or only that it’s within range?

 

And if thieves have the app, can they detect the tracker?

 

If they do, it will send you a report.

 

The maker of the tracker I purchased yesterday claims they've sold over six million, but there's no good way to determine from that number how many users exist because some people buy multiple trackers and the non-replaceable battery only lasts one year. I bought a four-pack for example. My guess is that the number of actual users is closer to one million.

 

A more relevant question would be “How many people have downloaded the app?"

 

 

All that aside, I bought the trackers to do some real world testing. I'm going to position a few around Seattle (one in a popular Irish pub, one in a friend's house on a residential street) and then see if I receive any "user community" generated detection reports.

 

Please let us know what you discover. I would suggest doing so as a continuation of this thread, since those of us who have posted in it will get automatic notifications, whereas we might miss a new thread. Thanks, again.