Pocket-sized peace of mind for your bike…
Lately, it seems we’ve had a rash of motorcycle thefts in our local area, and a quick look at social media shows that we aren’t alone — friends across the country (and world) are constantly posting photos of theirs or their friends’ stolen bikes. When a friend’s Macbook Pro was recently recovered by police using Apple’s Find My app, we became curious as to what was available in terms of a GPS tracker for bikes.
Believe it or not, only a few days later we received an email from the good folks at Invoxia, a French company that’s had great success in Western Europe with a range of trackers that use low-power networks like SIGFOX and LoRa. Now they’ve brought their expertise to the US market:
“Late last year we launched a new Cellular GPS Tracker in the U.S. that operates on brand new 4G LTE-M networks. The largest share of our users are motorcyclists and we thought you might be interested in reviewing it. With theft on the rise across the U.S., keeping an eye on your ride has never been more important.”
Here are the product highlights:
- Intelligent tracking and detailed journey history
- Anti-theft, motion and tilt alerts
- Customizable geofencing (set unlimited zones)
- Up to 4 months between charges
- 1 or 2 Year subscription included to 4G LTE-M networks
- Weighs only 1 oz. and is discreet and concealable
- You can see more here: https://www.invoxia.com/us/
gps-tracker#/
We were immediately interested and agreed to review one of these new Invoxia Cellular GPS Trackers ourselves. The unit arrived quickly and we found it indeed discreet at a size of roughly 4 x 1 x 0.5 inches — perfectly sized to hide inside the wrench holder of our Honda XR350R’s tool pouch — and we immediately downloaded the Invoxia GPS smartphone app, which paired easily with the device.
The unit is rechargeable, and battery life depends on how often you set the tracker to update its position:
“Our innovative Cellular GPS Tracker lasts between 15 days and 7 weeks in a single charge, depending on the location update frequency you chose. If you are tracking your own vehicle, smart battery management allows the tracker to last up to 4 months. Classic GSM trackers last between 1 and 5 days on a single charge. Charge your tracker in micro-USB in 1h30. Cable included.”
We’ve had our unit in the “Every 30min mode” and can report that, after a little over one month of testing, the Tracker still has 27% battery life left — not bad!
Zone Alerts
In the app, we can see a history of the positions from the Tracker, and we also set up Zone Alerts for home, the shop, and some favorite hangouts. This way, the Tracker tells us if the bike exits any of these locations. If you’re on the bike, you quickly get used to the small single vibration from your phone — the notification telling you you’ve left one of these locations. Obviously, if you receive the notification when you’re inside the coffee shop or away from home, you know that someone may have taken the bike!
Tilt / Movement Detection
We also set up Tilt Detection and Movement Detection on our Tracker, which alerts us if the bike is tilted or moves after being at a standstill for five minutes — basically, any suspicious activity while the bike should be stationary. Tilt Detection is especially nice, as it could notify if you a thief (or wanker) is tampering with your bike before they even have a chance to steal it — or if a motorist knocks it over while parking, etc.
Proximity Radar
If the bike has been stolen and you need to find it, Proximity Radar can help you once you’re in the close vicinity of the machine. For instance, if you’ve narrowed down the location to a specific street. Once you’re within about 65 feet of the Tracker, a colored circle appears on the radar display, telling you both the direction and general distance in feet you are from the Tracker. You can even make the Tracker make a noise when you’re close!
Great Support
We did have a small issue when our Tracker wouldn’t pair with our phone’s Bluetooth to work with Proximity Radar, though all of the other functions kept working. (This may have been due to leaving it on our toolkit during the MX5000 enduro and motocross race, where it surely took some abuse.) In any case, we went through Invoxia’s regular support portal in order to see how the support was. It was great! When they couldn’t diagnose the issue, they sent us a replacement Tracker free of charge. With the next software update, our existing Tracker started working again — so now we have two!
Conclusion
We really love the Invoxia Tracker. It’s great peace of mind in these days of rampant bike theft, costs less than our monthly insurance premiums, can easily be transferred from one bike to another (or any other possession), and could assist law enforcement in recovering your bike if it’s stolen.
