Tag: i-GotU

Secretly Track Your Spouse With GPS: Data Loggers

Have you ever thought about secretly tracking your spouse’s movements? Has he or she been spending more and more time away from you with almost no explanation at all? If you are secretly being cheated on then you have a right to know. In my mind, you even have a right to secretly track your spouse with GPS. After all, they did promise to be faithful.

There are two main options for the person seeking to track their significant other. The first is a real time GPS tracking device. These devices are able to give you their position in real time and will not only let you know where they have been but also will allow you to follow them around in real time (hence the name). The second option is a data logger. These often have more battery life than the real time trackers, allowing the person tracking to collect massive amounts of data to process and analyze so that they can see exactly where the person has been. Through analyzing this information the person can find discrepancies or patterns in the behavior to see where the person is cheating.

I recently got my hands on a passive GPS tracking device called the iGot-U GT-600. It is a personal tracking device designed to log travel data for the international traveler or to analyze outdoor exercise activity. I figured it would be interesting to see if this device could also double as a covert GPS tracking device. Here are the results:

Preliminary Spouse GPS Tracking Test

Spouse GPS Tracking Test Run

Before I spent hours upon hours tracking my wife with the i-Gotu GPS data logger I figured I should give it a test drive to see how it would work. The picture found above represents my first attempt at tracking my wife’s car. I was in the car with her, so this really represents exactly what we did. We stopped by her friends house to pick up some tools and then drove around the neighborhood until the little one fell asleep.

According to the GPS tracker we were out for 00:24:11 and traveled a little less than 6 miles. The device also told me that we were actually only moving for 00:17:02. All this was captured in a little less than 400 distinct data points.

All this data is pretty interesting and useful for those looking to tracking a husband, a wife, a boyfriend, or a girlfriend. The first point of data – the amount of time traveled, is useful to know because it should correspond with the amount of time that you put the tracker in the car.

Total distance traveled is also valuable because it gives you an idea of all the different place that they could have gone. Just how far away is Target? Or their favorite hunting spot? When this is combined with the total trip time you get an idea of how fast they drive and how they are handling your car. I would want to know that data if it were my wife cheating on me.

The final bit of info that is really interesting is the total time moving. In this quick trip the differencet between our total travel time and the total movement time was only around 7 minutes. If I were to be tracking a husband or girlfriend and there was a trip where the total time moving was significantly different from the total travel time I would begin to get a little concerned. This is especially true if they spend most of the time sitting at an unknown location!

With all this data in hand I devised a plan that would simulate a more prolonged spouse tracking strategy. I would sneak into my wife’s car late at night and place the GPS tracking device in her glove compartment. I would occasionally check on the tracker every week to see if the tracker still had battery power or not. After the device lost its charge, I would grab the tracker and find out what I could about the habits of my wife (who is not cheating on me, by the way).

Here is what I found out by secretly tracking my spouse with GPS.

Extensive Spouse GPS Tracking Test

Spouse GPS Tracking Day 1

Battery Life

One of the first things that I wanted to do on this test is to check and see how long the battery would last on the GPS tracking device. Before starting out, I thought I might get a week’s worth of tracking before the battery would die out – boy was I surprised. I was able to track my wife’s car from November 9th all the way through December 6th. The battery lasted 28 days, which is very impressive.

Long battery life is definitely one of the benefits of using a data logger to secretly track your husband or wife. Most real time tracking devices can last a week at best since they are doing so much to provide all that data in real time. One of the benefits of the i-Gotu is that it goes into a battery save mode when it is not moving for an extended period of time.

Analyzing Data

With 28 days of tracking it was a pain to wade through all the data and try and figure out what happened each day, but if you are trying to find out if your lover is cheating and need GPS to help you figure it out then you will be motivated to go through it all. Since my wife isn’t cheating I had no motivation to go through it all and figure it out.

Thank goodness that the i-GotU software makes it easier to figure out what the data means. When using the Sport Tracker mode for their software you get a nice little calendar that lets you see what days had trips. Simply click on the day and you get some detailed information for that specific trip. This data includes a map of their trip that uses Google Maps, their max speed, the duration of their trip, as well as the actual time spent traveling. This is key if they make a quick trip to a friends house and stay their for hours.

In this micro view the mass of data makes sense. The only problem is that you will have to wade through all the days if you let the tracker run out of battery before retrieving it. What I would recommend for those seeking to track a wife or husband to see if they are cheating is to let the tracker run for a week at a time. This will give you smaller chunks of data to digest at any given point in time. The only problem with this is that you might get caught moving the device in and out so only try it if you can reasonably get away with it.

Viability

I have to be honest, the i-Got U exceeded my expectations. For a device that is not even built to be a covert GPS tracking device this unit blew me out of the water – and with a price tag under $100 you will be hard pressed to find a tracker that is going to beat the price. Similar products run several hundred dollars more than the i-Got U and do the same thing.

Overview

You should definitely consider this tracking device if you want to secretly track your spouse with GPS. It is a multipurpose GPS tracking device that is relatively easy on the pocket book (when compared to some of the alternatives). While it is terrible to have to be in a position where tracking your spouse is an option that you have to consider, getting a data logger like the i-Got U is definitely a choice that you should consider taking if all your other efforts to get at the truth have been unsuccessful. You have a right to know what is going on with the “flesh of your flesh” and the one that made a promise to you to be faithful.

Here is ouriGotU GPS Tracking Data Logger Review if you want to find out more information about this solid personal GPS tracking device.

iGotU GPS Tracking Data Logger Review

The i-GotU is a GPS tracking data logger created by Mobile Action. There are two main models under the i-GotU brand, the GT-120 and the GT-600. This review deals specifically with the i-GotU GT-600 and will discuss the main features listed by Mobile Action for this personal tracking device. After that, we will take a look at some of the various applications of this device – several of which will stray from the applications proposed by Mobile Action in their promotional material. This device is not a real time GPS tracking device, so it will only be tested in in data logging activities. Finally, we will take a look at the overall rating given to the device.

i-GotU Review Highlights

  • GPS sensor works great outdoors but looses signal indoors
  • Reading instructions on product operation is a must and does take some time to get used to
  • Sport tracking feature is useful and accurate, but could be better
  • Serves multiple purposes, making it more useful than some devices because of the software package included

Features

The i-GotU comes with the following list of features (taken from the i-GotU website):

Fun & Easy

The i-GotU is relatively easy to use, once you get a basic understanding of what it is you have to do to get it working. As an example, I figured out how to get the basic tracking down after one or two uses but have yet to figure out how to use the motion sensor capability of the device. To turn the device on, simply press and hold the one button on the device until the blue light comes on in the top left hand corner. To turn off the device, press the same button and hold it until the red light appears in the top left hand corner. Simple enough.

But when I follow the instructions printed on the back of the i-GotU packaging for the motion activated tracking feature I was unable to get the device to activate no matter how fast I would go. Here is the picture of the instructions on the packaging:

iGot-U Motion Detector

There must be a setting in the @Trip software that I have to turn on for the device to power on automatically when it senses motion, I just haven’t had the time to search for and figure out exactly what I have to do for it. At the very least, the instructions on how to do this could be improved.

Power Saving

Since I have not been able to activate the motion sensor I am unsure of just how battery saving the device is. I have been able to run the device for 5+ hours without having to charge it while I have been capturing my location at the most frequent rate permitted. Even after running it for 5+ hours I would only plug the device into my computer long enough to download the data to the @Trip software for analysis. I continued this behavior for 3 weeks and have not run out of battery yet, bringing the total amount of tracking to over 16 hours with very little charge time during that 3 week period. Overall the battery life has been pretty impressive.

@trip Service

The @trip service is an online community where you can share your travels, photos, and insights with other iGotU users. I created a profile in all of 1 minute and shared my first trip in less than 20 seconds after that. It is seamlessly integrated with the software that downloads onto your PC and works like a charm. When you share a link with your friends they can view your trip in 3D using a Google Earth plugin – a neat feature if you ask me. The appearance of the trip pages could look better, but it they definitely are a lot nicer than anything I could put together myself. Overall, the @trip service is a nice addition for the traveler who likes to share his adventures with family and friends over the internet.

@trip Software

The @trip Software, which includes the @Trip PC, Sports Analyzer, and Where I Am application, is both useful and feature rich. @Trip PC allows you to log your travels and integrate picture that you took from a digital camera into the journey. It also uploads your trips to the internet very easily. Here is a trip my family took to the zoo where we had the GPS tracking device attached to the stroller: Trip to the Zoo . Most of the pictures were taking at the beginning of the trip since the phone we took them on, an HTC Incredible running the Android OS, was running low on battery.

The Sports Analyzer is also very simple to use and easy to understand. The interface is pretty intuitive and the graphs are pretty interesting/helpful for not very serious sports people to understand and analyze. Here is a screen shot of the service:

Sports Analyzer iGotu GT600

Locate & geotag photos

Geotagging photos with the iGotU’s software was a breeze. All I had to do was open the trip and import the folder that had all the photos that I took with my camera. It really was that simple. There is a pretty easy to follow online demo of the process that Mobile Action put together. It can be found here: Photo Locator: Locating my photos easily

The only thing that you want to be sure of is that your digital camera is actually set to the correct time. If you don’t know how to do this on your digital camera I recommend that you pull out your manual and figure it out. I was able to find it pretty easily on my camera, but I know not everyone has the same camera. If you can’t do this, the geotagging feature won’t work because it uses the time stamp on the photo to sync it up with the location that was gathered from the iGotU.

Detect where I am in real time

I have never been able to detect where I am in real time with the iGotU. This is probably because I have always been indoors when trying to use this feature – and the iGotU did not have very good GPS results when indoors. This may service may work great when outside at a cafe or park or some other historic or beautiful destination, but when I was in my home or in class I was not able to find my location.

Record & analyze detailed routes

The iGotU definitely does let you record and analyze detailed routes. In fact, over the course of 3-4 weeks I got to use the device to record my bike commute to and from work in the efforts to see just how detailed and useful the GPS tracking function on this device can be. Overall, I was very impressed with the accuracy of the device and how the information is presented to the user. There were, however, a few drawbacks to the device.

First, lets deal with the short comings. The first is that GPS tracking does not begin immediately upon turning on the device. This is not that big of a deal since all GPS devices have this drawback, but what did make it particularly annoying in this case is that the process could take several minutes. There area few ways to make the cold start less annoying, like holding the device parallel to the open sky, but getting a GPS fix could take anywhere from fifteen seconds to two and a half minutes.

If you do not realize that the device needs to get a fix from the GPS satellites before you start moving you can come to the conclusion that the iGotU personal GPS tracking device is not very accurate. This is a false conclusion, but that is what it will seem like when you analyze your data and get results like this when traveling the same exact route:

DateDistanceTime
9/36.7100:25:56
9/46.6800:23:58
9/56.3400:22:11
9/67.1700:29:53
9/76.6400:23:59

As you can see, for taking the same exact route each day the difference between the distances is pretty extreme. There is almost a mile difference between the shortest and the longest time! This would make any GPS tracking device very innacurate, but in this case there was user error that created the large discrepancy. I simply did not wait for the iGotU to get a fix before starting my journey and got this bad data as a result.

When I waited until the GPS got a fix I got the following results:

00:25:1500:24:01
DateDistanceTime
9/106.87500:23:50
9/116.848
9/126.862
9/136.8500:23:27
9/146.82500:24:06
9/246.98900:24:36
9/256.84400:23:01
9/266.8500:22:50
9/276.86100:23:29

The results of this data represents a much closer grouping of distances given that I take the same route home from work each night. When you take away the reading from 9/24 (6.989 miles) the largest deviation from the average between the various distances in only 141 feet. That seems very accurate to me.

So what about the reading on 9/24? Why is this so different from all the rest?

Here is a picture that explains it all:

9-25 Sports Analyzer Mistake

I did not take my bike on this route when I started the night of the 25th. This is an error in the GPS personal data logger. To me, its not that big of a deal, but to a seriously hardcore mutli-sport lunatic this might make them a little upset.

In my opinion, the iGotU GT-600 is very accurate – it is just prone to wander a little bit.

Share trips & photos on 3D maps

I mentioned this above when talking about the @Trip service, but you can share trips and photos on 3D maps using the service provided by Mobile Action. It is pretty cool and uses Google Earth to display the 3D images for the end user. I think its cool, but each person is going to get their own mileage out of it. You can check out my demo trip here:

Trip to the Zoo

Applications

The iGotU is branded as a personal GP tracking data logger. As such, it has two main functions – to record the places you go on trips and to record the places you go during sporting activities. As a travel logger and personal fitness GPS the iGotU does a decent job, but it is obviously a trip tracker first and a personal fitness GPS second. I still like using if for both, but the sport side of it could use a little beefing up if it is to hold a candle to GPS tracking watches and other sport specific GPSs. But for an all-in-one device the iGotU is pretty solid for both activities. Over the next couple of weeks I plan on putting together some posts highlighting the iGotU’s strengths and weaknesses in the following areas:

Personal GPS Tracking

  • Travel Logger (Full Post Coming Soon)
  • Sports Tracker (Full Post Coming Soon)

Besides the uses discussed by Mobile Action, I wanted to see if I could use the iGotU as a covert GPS tracking device. It is relatively small and could easily be concealed inside a car. Since there is a lot of interest in tracking down a spouse or a teen driver I thought I would put that to the test and see if the iGotU can pass muster. I plan on testing this personal GPS tracker in the following capacity and posting my results here.

Covert GPS Tracking Device

  • Teen Driver Tracking (Full Post Coming Soon)
  • Spouse Tracking (Full Post Coming Soon)

Check back soon for more ways on how to use the iGotU.

Verdict

I would recommend the iGotU to anyone who is interested in a GPS tracking device that allows you to do more than one activity with the same device. The GPS tracking capabilities are solid and the trip sharing software is simple, easy to use, and practically idiot proof. I wish that some of the operations of the device and software were a little more intuitive, but you can get by with some trial and error, looking over the instructions, or watching some of the walk-throughs online. Overall, I think the iGotU is great way to get into the world of personal GPS tracking.