So, I got home from driving around in my Firebird the other night, and couldn't find my phone.

I rushed in the house, sure I'd left my phone in Wal Mart, and googled how to find an Android phone.

I quickly learned now, if you have an android phone, and a google account, all you have to do is open a Chrome browser and type "find my phone", and it'll show you right where it's at.

Sure enough, it did. It showed the phone right at my house. The browser window also has a button you can press to make the phone ring for 5 minutes. I id so, and quickly found the phone. I'd left it on the roof of the car, and it had slipped down the hatch window, caught on the spoiler, and hung there for nearly 50 miles. Boy did I dodge a bullet.

It got me to thinking, though. Why couldn't you buy a 30.00 pay-as-you-go Android phone, put the phone and the charger up under the dash, and power it from the battery?

If the car gets stolen, you sign in to google under the account you created for the phone you're using this, and type "find my phone".

Not only that, but you'd have an emergency phone in the car, too.

Would this work?

 

Seems like it may... but it would need to be powered / on all the time... so if not a daily driver, at some point, battery drain...

I'm not sure how much LoJack is, I have a Viper Smart Start GPS, $250 for unit and then yearly subscription.... But it has tons more features than just finding the car... lock / unlock, start engine, trunk / 2 aux channels.... setup GPS fences, or MPH limit warnings, etc....

I think it may be a nice inexpensive choice...

I tried "find my phone" on chrome... didn't pinpoint it, had trouble, but the ring feature was immediate.... I guess I need to have my GPS on too ( more drain)...

Yup... with GPS, my home and "accurate to 70 feet"...

 

I keep my car on a Battery Tender Jr when it's going to be parked for any length of time, so for me, that battery drain issue wouldn't be a problem.

With GPS turned off, it says the location on mine is accurate to 139 feet. Opening Device Manager, it says accurate to 64 meters. I'm at home, though, and the phone knows that location. I'm gonna test it at locations the phone doesn't know.

 

http://www.rmtracking.com/

 

Exactly what I'm not wanting.

 

The only other thing that would make the Android phone useful would be an app that texted your other phone when it moved from a certain area.

 

Yeah, that would be cool.

I've been thinking about this a lot. Seems like you could strip the Android burner phone you mount in the car of every unnecessary app to keep power consumption at a minimum.

I don't know if those burner phones feature smart charging to keep from overcharging the battery when the car is running a lot. I'm pretty sure my Nexus 5 does. If they don't, I'm sure you could buy a smart charger that does, and mount it inline to 12v constant power.

What about mounting a battery pack between the charger and the phone, for more power when it's parked for a long time?

The more I think about your app idea, the more I like it. You could build in a low-power consumption mode, where the phone hibernates for 2 hours, powers up, the app on your personal phone or computer picks it up, logs the location, and goes back into hibernate mode. You control that from the app on your computer, or personal phone. If you see the car is not where it is supposed to be, you could switch it into constant-on mode.

There's a lot of things this thing could do.

 

I don't know about hibernation / low power mode... as long as it still got cellular signals and GPS would work...

You would need a smart charger or some sort of circuitry... best to buy a phone with that already going for it...

As for the App... develop it yourself... then you can add all you need, GPS tracking to another phone, website, email or text....

 

Yeah .... that would be a skillset I don't have.

I was looking at LoJack; 750 bucks.

Then, there's this: http://www.walmart.com/ip/36723799?w...282392&veh=sem

 

Looks to be a great basic alternative to just tracking...

I was actually working on my Viper / Smart Start GPS this weekend....
I had purchased a DEI backup battery but the tiny battery it came with was half dead... so I bought a little bigger battery (think it was like $15 shipped via ebay) 2x2.5x1.5 inches or so... The DEI came with a circuit box that charges / maintains the back up battery... maybe a choice for what you want...

I rewired mine and connected my Smart Start to the backup battery... so if main battery cable is cut, the backup powers / sounds alarm and runs the Smart Start GPS to call my phone

Rafael