Review of Spy Tec Real Time Car GPS Tracker

A great looking car GPS tracker by SpyTec but there are some obvious downsides compared to other car GPS trackers we have reviewed. We go through how it works, what it can do for you and how it compares to other trackers further below.

The SpyTec GPS tracker is not an expensive tracker, but if you are to use it’s full features, you will need to sign up to an additional monthly subscription, on top of how you manage the sim you use with it.

For example, once you have purchased the tracker, you also purchase a sim card to work inside the device. in the UK, we recommend using a pay as you go as you are only receiving text messages from it which means that a £10 top up should last a while, unless that is you wish to use it a lot. Then we would recommend a monthly contract, where you know you can send and receive updates from it as much as you like.

After this set up, if you wish to keep all data stored of the cars location, you can through SpyTec, but this is where the additional fee comes in, at £9 a month, they will keep all location information, where it has travelled from and too, how fast, length of stays at locations, etc.

This is the only other gps car tracker we have reviewed which actually has extra charges on top of what you pay for the sim card in the tracker. This though, is entirely optional and you do not have to do this, but to reap its full features it will cost extra.

Fitting The Car GPS Tracker

This is the simplest to fit out of all of the trackers we have seen but you need to purchase an extra magnetic and/or waterproof case if you are to put it hidden under your car or vehicle. The reason it is so easy to fit is because it is a stand alone item, it works straight out of the box, no wiring or anything is really needed.

Features

There are many features with this car GPS tracker, most of them are controlled and received by messages from and to your phone. The sim card which you place in to your tracker can send back certain bits of information about what is happening to the car to your own phone, so you know what is going on and most importantly, where. Some of the features that are accessed by messaging are;

• A max speed notification, if you set up a speed of 75mph and the vehicle breaks that speed, you’re notified.
• You can be warned when the car starts or stops.
• An important notification is when the tracker is low on battery, this will give you an advanced warning so you can take it from where it is and charge, either in your car or at home.
• You can set up Geo fencing on the SpyTec GPS app online and if your car moves out of this area, you will be warned.

As well as these ‘standard’ features, you also have access to a GPS Spy Tec platform, which gives you a couple of really powerful security features. One being live updates (within a few seconds), of where your vehicle is. This can be accessed using a smart phone, tablet or desktop, so a bit more advanced that just using messaging to control things. As well as this, you can set up the Geo fencing to keep track of the vehicle when it leaves an area. This is great if you’re leaving a car in the same spot for a while or a family member has the vehicle and they are meant to be using it at a certain location.

Using The Car GPS Tracker

Now we’ve told you more about how it works and what you can do with it, we’d like to tell you a bit about how it is when using it.

The answer is a short one, it’s very easy to use! As long as you know how to use a sim card, register it and install it in to the tracker. You can fit the tracker to the vehicle you like and that you are ok with messaging it with the information you require, that’s pretty much it.

We only required to check that the car is still sat in a car park when we went for a meal and with a quick message, we were looking at a map of it’s location to find it was still there.

The best thing is that if something where to happen to the vehicle, the tracker would be in place to help us locate it for up to about 2 weeks or more (depending on the battery life).

A mini, lightweight and portable car gps tracker that you could probably use other places or in other vehicles, not just in a car. We liked the features it had and how simple it is to use compared to others we have tested, which feel like they want to butter your toast as well as track your car.

Very happy with it if you only require it to keep tabs on where your vehicle is with sporadic messaging. It doesn’t cost extra for this and the battery will last longer if you are using less features.