By smartcubs GPS trackers have become an irresistible part of modern-day life. Having first been developed to help track the vehicles and their movement they have slowly become one of the most important items used around. Car GPS trackers or vehicle trackers have allowed for an improved driving sense and a tacking of the issues that were previously unmanned for.
This has also led to a reduction in car theft and several other issues. Not only that it has also helped in the increment of the productivity of the employees. With GPS technology advancing at a breath neck speed every single day, the positivity and the future for GPS car trackers are enormous. But there needs to be hindsight to these things. Although car GPS trackers are advantageous, certain things do not work in their favor. We here take a look at the pros and cons of car GPS tracker down below. Read along.
How Does GPS Tracking Work?
GPS trackers are loaded with a GPS that you can use to track a vehicle or an object. These systems use the Global Navigation Satellite System Network to identify the position of the car. At any time, the track connects to three or more satellites, and this data is used to determine the latitude and longitude. Using these coordinates, the position is plotted on the map. The change in coordinates is tracked, and this is how the route & the speed are calculated.
The GPS Tracker connects to a power source in the car, and the wireless transmitter is connected to the SIM module. This SIM module is used for transmitting the location of the GPS tracker to your device. You can view the real-time position on your mobile, and some hardwired GPS trackers are even capable of immobilizing the engine. Because of these advantages, you can use these trackers for real-time positioning and recovery of the vehicle in case of theft.
Advantages of Car GPS Tracker
There are loads of advantages to the G. Such has been their need and offers, that most people cannot do away with the GPS tracking these days. We here pick out some of the best advantages on offer for car GPS tracker down below:
1. Real-time monitoring
The thing about GPS trackers is that they provide real-time monitoring to users. It takes a mere 1/15th of the second for the signal to be transmitted from the satellite and displayed on your screen. This is significantly faster than any other display means and is great to monitor the accuracy of the movement of the vehicles.
GPS trackers have allowed companies to easily track and monitor the work and staff with ease. The advent of GPS tracker means that there is no need for such deployment of additional manpower to monitor the movements of the staff and the vehicles. Without GPS, this may end up being a hard task.
2. Low Cost
Since the development of GPS, now companies don’t have to rely on additional manpower or additional supervision to help monitor the staff and all. This means such a large operational cost outlay for companies. Although one,may argue that buying a GPS tracking system may cost the company an initial outlay, still comparing the cost of using a GPS tracker with the cost of manpower or supervision cost may bring light to the matter that car GPS tracker tends to be on the cheaper side.
And with the development of technological advancements, GPS trackers have become quite cheaper these days. They don’t create a hole like the previous days when GPS trackers were marked quite high in the price range.
3. Sense of Security
Car locks and keys can easily be vandalized and broken into. The cases of car theft are ever rising and keeping your car safe from it is of utmost importance. But how do you stop car thefts and build a sense of security? A car GPS tracker can be your answer. Car GPS trackers have helped build a security zone and allowed car owners to rest assured.
A GPS tracker can be designed or configured to feature sensors, alarms, or even virtual perimeters so that so one can breach with ease. This will help build a secured zone for your car and help protect against vandalism, theft, and more. It has been well documented that GPS trackers have helped reduce car thefts significantly over the years.
4. Recovery from Theft
As much as we stress about safety from car theft, the thieves themselves are getting advanced. And in many cases, thefts do happen again. This has led to many car owners losing their cars. It is well documented that over 40% of the cars never return to the owners. But do you know GPS trackers help to recover the cars in many cases?
With GPS trackers you can track your cars and whereabouts with ease and find out where your car is being moved to. With the use of GPS trackers, you can quickly check into the details within seconds from your smartphone or computer. The chances of recovery are higher for the first mover cases. So getting that extra edge is always vital.
5. Increased productivity
Previously if you’re an owner of a fleet of cars or any other vehicle, you’d have to rely on the word of mouth of the driver to know about the whereabouts. Or say you’d have to rely on their report of how the day and the working went along. Not anymore. With GPS trackers you can simply install them on the car of your employee and monitor it.
This will build a sense of accountability and a sense of mapping of the employee’s activity giving you a complete know-how of their movements and performance. This has known to create increased productivity for the employees and greater benefit for the companies.
Disadvantages of Car GPS trackers
There are certain downsides to the car GPS trackers that hinder their overall acceptance. Here’s a take on some of these:
1. GPS can be inaccurate at times
How many times have you faced this issue of GPS not showing accurate data? Well, many have accounted for this issue. A GPS unit helps calculate the location of the device with the use of signals. These signals may see technical difficulty or hinder signal transmit often affecting the performance of the device. This is why sometimes you may encounter inaccurate results using a GPS location.
GPS is known to offer accuracy of up to 3 meters but that’s about it. You are more likely to see differences as you are likely to see accurate results using GPS.
2. Battery drainage and technical mishaps
GPS trackers are after all electrical devices made up of different components. They run on battery and more often than not, the battery may drain out after some time. The GPS trackers are in use all the time even when the vehicle is in an idle state. This may create drainage of the battery. Not just that, you may face some malfunction issues too from time to time. This is one of the downsides of the GPS trackers and something that’s being reformed.
A few GPS trackers do come with solar power mode or even sleep mode for longer shelf life for the battery. You can find a few commercial-grade products with longer battery life and low technical mishaps but those tend to cost much higher.
3. Offending the employees
This is one thing that can be one of the downsides of the car GPS tracker. Human beings are often people of emotions and there’s a fine line to tread between when looking to build bonds. The same can be said of the employee and the employer. The bond and the term between them directly affect the performance and the results of the business or the organization.
While tracking employees has become a common thing, a good few employees still feel offended by such tracking. They may see tracking as the lack of trust from the side of an employer which may affect their morale and overall performance. This will dent the company’s overall profile.
4. Jamming
The issue of jamming a GPS signal is much more in use than you can ever think of. There are ways to circumvent the GPS signal and the tracking, something which many people tend to do to bypass it. Although using a GPS tracker gives a better profile and results, people can intervene and manipulate the data. This often causes skewed results on paper whilst in reality, the performance may not be any better.
Apart from that, a GPS tracker houses lots of data, about the route maps, driving preference, driving habits, and more. Anyone skilled enough can tap into the system and access confidential data. This data can be misappropriated used to affect the individual.
5. Transition period
As is the case with any other transition, moving from a normal driving system to a GPS driving system and tracking takes a bit of time to learn. This period can not be reduced and hence is known as the transition period. It’s common for all sorts of technological transitions. But the period for transition can create a dent in the pockets of the company and the user. By the time a car owner learns to use the system, they may have spent much time, effort, and money in getting it right. Although looking at the bigger picture, these are all worth it, but at that very moment, those transition phases can be tricky and cumbersome. It’s not necessarily a big drawback but for some individuals, this can be a hindrance.
Car GPS trackers are quite common in today’s time. You’d hardly find a car without a GPS tracker device. Such has been the acceptance of the device’s performance that you’d likely to end up using it. There are quite a lot of advantages of the trackers and a few disadvantages too. The disadvantages are likely to iron out and be resolved with time and technological development. Overall, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages by a large margin.