What is a Personal GPS Locator?
A personal GPS locator is a small and lightweight unit using assisted GPS technology to help more precisely and reliably determine the location of it. These on-demand locate requests can be done from the internet or from your cell phone.
If you’re using the internet, all you have to do is log in to a certain URL depending of the vendor of your GPS locator, click on a button and a real time location of you and your unit will be displayed on a map. It will also display the immediate neighborhood such as the closest street addresses. You will also be able to zoo m the map in and out as well as scroll it in any directions.
If you choose the cell phone option you just send a message to a number given by your personal GPS locator’s vendor and the same map with the same information as described above regarding the online alternative.
Define Your Safety Zones
A safety zone is another function enabled in some GPS locator models. This is a customized virtual boundary around a location and some models allow you to create several such zones that can be active simultaneously. For models that have this function, you can opt in to receive alerts via email or text messages when you enter or leave any of your self-defined safety zones.
Tracking Intervals
You can set the tracking intervals on your on most GPS locators. The more expensive the model is the shorter tracking intervals you can set, for example every minute, every 5 minutes etc.
History of Locations
Location history can be useful; therefore many models are equipped with this feature. The more expensive the model the more detailed information you normally get. With this feature you will have an overview of stored information so you can see where your GPS locator has moved in a certain periode of time, for example the past hour, day, week or even month. Models with this feature will often display the information on a map, that you are able manipulate as the real-time map, such as zooming and scrolling.
Power Alerts
Depending on the model of your personal GPS locator, you can be notified through email or text message when your GPS unit has been powered off or when the battery’s capacity level is at a certain level, for example when there is 20 percent battery power left.
As you may already know personal GPS locators are in the same class as cell phones and other electronic communication devices when it comes to aviation security, which means you can’t use them on airplanes.