Hi All Thought I'd share a little story with you regarding my Datatool Snitcher. it's not often that bike security gets praised however in this instance my Snitcher allowed for £3.5k of damage to be repaired to my Honda commuting bike. for those not familiar with the DS, it's basically an SMS text alert system which can work with or without an alarm system. Once it detects movement it will send a text to your mobile, you can control various functions by sending the unit a text message, it will also alert you when the battery starts to drain. The unit also works as a Tracker however Datatool no longer support this, however 3rd parties will take this on. Incidentally for reasons unknown to me Datatool have discontinued the brand, although still available on eBay etc. The story goes like this. I park my bike up in London, Disc lock chain etc, arm the alarm and I get a text showing the bike is armed at 8am. At 15:54hrs that day I get a text, now being lazy I didn't react as I would expect 2 or more texts if someone was tampering with the bike, usually it's just a clumsy biker booting my bike as he gets onto his Fazer. At 17:00hrs I return to my bike only to notice a huge scratch across the front cowl across the headlight and hugger where it would appear that a vehicle has come into contact with my bike. Not only that but my bike was on the center stand, the vehicle caused by bike to rock left and right impacting onto the 2 neighbouring bikes resulting in minor scuffs to both left and right hand fairing panels. FFS my bike was mint prior to this and nobody left any details behind, what a surprise. Anyway thanks to the Snitcher the Police were able to identify the vehicle using CCTV, the incident was not captured however it placed the vehicle at the scene at the time and date, no other activations had taken place as evidenced by the text message on my mobile phone and the driver admitted liability. Bonus !!! So I collect my bike this weekend, all new fairing panels and looking better than she initially did prior to the incident. I recommend the Snitcher it certainly saved me a few £'s
I had a sintcher on my R1. it was almost like having a mistress I'd get texts out of the blue all the time, I loved it, but I was a bit pissed off when DataTool stopped the location service. I was also disapointed with the sim top up. I had to phone up custermer services to top it up wich was a pain.
I've been bench testing one of these Mini Tracking SMS GSM GPRS Network Vehicle Motorcycle Bike Monitor Newest Track | eBay The results are quite good. It's not GPS based as the casing might suggest but uses the GSM cell to locate itself. It had me within 200m of where I was. You can also set it up to text you if movement is detected. Using the data in the received text you can locate the tracker using CellTower Locator - find a cell phone location using LAC/CellID or SID/NID/BID It's not bad for under £12 plus a free SIM and £5 top up.
My little tracker arrived today, much smaller than expected Seems like a good little gadget which also encompasses a movement sensor, which acts as a handy heads up if someone is tampering with the bike. Off to test it now
