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Why are two trackers better than one?
The tools available to professional vehicle thieves include scanning devices which can locate a GPS tracker on a vehicle by detecting the GSM signal the device emits when it’s connected to the mobile network. Once the tracker has been located and ripped out, the vehicle can no longer be tracked … or can it?
For extra protection we recommend installing a second GPS tracker elsewhere on the vehicle. You may be asking yourself, won’t the thief just use the scanning device to locate the second tracker? The second GPS tracker we recommend to install is a rechargeable asset type tracker. The asset tracker has a deep sleep mode allowing the device to shut down the GPS and GSM modules and remain undetectable to scanning devices most of the time and only waking up once every few hours to update the GPS location. The asset tracker is a fully self contained device with no wires to connect, simply charge it up, switch it on and hide it in the vehicle so it can be easily self installed. Based on a GPS location update once every 24 hours, the asset tracker will last around 1.5 years on a full charge.
Many of the Teltonika GPS tracking devices have Bluetooth capability and support a range of bluetooth beacons and sensors. Here we will learn how to configure the device and check the beacon data is sent to the tracking server.
Firstly, check the beacon is working and sending out a UUID code by downloading a simple ‘Beacon scanner’ app onto your smartphone then scanning for nearby beacons.
Now we’ll run through how to configure the Teltonika device to recognise the beacon and check the beacon UUID code is received at the tracking server. Connect the device by USB cable to your computer and launch the configurator tool. Once you are connected to the device, check the following are set as follows.
In the main menu tab ‘SYSTEM’ – The data protocol needs to be set to extended.
In the main menu tab ‘BEACON LIST’ – You can add the UUID for each beacon you wish the device to recognise for security. Each UUID is made up of 32 characters but do remember to add 2 colons at the end of each entry as shown in the diagram below.
Once you’ve configured your device, you can test to see if it’s recognising any nearby beacons.
In the main menu tab ‘STATUS’ – click on ‘beacon info’.
You should see any authorised beacons in range show up on the beacon list. These beacon UUID codes will be sent as data packets to the GPS tracking server.
If your using our white label tracking server, you can log into the Air Console to see the beacon data in the data stream list. The full UUID is 32 characters long and will not fit in the data stream box but if you click on the UUID number and copy to the clipboard it will copy all of the 32 characters.
Using the Air Console, you can easily add/overwrite beacons on the authorised beacon list remotely by sending the command
setparam bbbb:UUIDnumber—
bbbb – parameter for beacon (starts at 1600 then increments by 1 for each additional beacon)
UUID number – The unique UUID number of the beacon.
Example commands
setparam 1600:00000000000000000000000000001234–
setparam 1601:00000000000000000000000000002458–
etc etc
A sample configuration file for the FMB920 device is available below. You will need to set your own APN details and if you’re not using our white label tracking server you will need to configure the server and IP address of your own tracking server, but all other settings are ok for standard tracking. It’s also worth noting that the sample configuration file is set to recognise ALL beacons so you might want to update the setting from ‘All’ to ‘Configured’ in the beacon list tab and add the UUID of your own beacon/s.
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