How to return a stolen car: artful beacon (completed competition)

Beacons are different, and the choice of "last resort" for the return of his friend's four-wheel it makes sense to overpay a little for the sake of a dedicated beacon, created specifically for the car. The fact that the most important requirement for such a beacon (of course, in addition to the possibility to transmit the vehicle position) is the ability to resist the action taken by hijackers.

We decided to test this functionality and purchased the company "Dadzhet" lighthouse popular Russian manufacturer "Avtofon». Why it - explain below, but one of the reasons was that the "Avtofone" respond well to car owners. But experts in the services it is not very fond of, because to install "Avtofonov" they are, in fact, not necessary. You get immediately a turnkey solution that requires almost no your intervention and can be immediately installed in the car. The devices are manufactured in Russia and, most importantly, designed to address our harsh climate.

We tested the "Avtofon D-Beacon." The device, as seen in the photograph, is comparable to the size of a matchbox. This allows you to hide it in the car in a variety of the most unexpected places.

Inside is a compartment for the bundled two 3V lithium batteries size "keg".

Claimed battery life - one to two years. Modern lithium-ion batteries do not suffer most gadgets of heat and cold, but because they have no place here.

«D-Beacon" is able to determine the location of the vehicle using as a GLONASS / GPS, and through GSM-mobile network operators. GSM will allow to find cars under roof, garage and other places where communication with the satellites is not, but the available mobile phones. This feature is also useful if the satellite signal drowned by an attacker. For GSM operation in heat resistant beacon installed SIM-card MTS with a special tariff, sharpened by lower costs for data transmission - regardless of region of Russia.

The map is already 50 rubles, so the pre-fill the balance is not required. Simply insert it into any phone and call the number 0887 to activate. Now, insert the card and the batteries into the Light and close the lid. Everything. With a box do not need to do anything else, she is ready to work.

Next comes the RF-tag. It is supposed to carry when on the beacons installed alarm mode when changing the location of the vehicle. In this mode, "Avtofon" will send a SMS to the owner or call as soon as the car moved.

When the label next to the beacon, then when moving the alarm will not be triggered. Just wear it on the keys as keychain or in your wallet.

Began to read the instructions on the remote beacon management, we first come to the horror of dozens diverse SMS-commands, by which you can communicate with the "Avtofonom", but it turned out that the device is already set up for work. The only thing that is required - to send to the phone number Beacon SMS, to tell him the number of the owner and get back a unique identifier of its beacon.

Everything. More instructions are not needed, it is necessary to register in avtofonovskom monitoring service, and you can start testing.

Go to the site monitoring and control of the manufacturer and register. The procedure is completely standard.

In your personal account under "Devices", you must register your beacon on the unique identifier (for this and needed a SMS to the device). That's all. The setting can be considered complete.

Now you can monitor the location and movement of their cars through a browser, Windows-application or from your smartphone.

In the first case, go to the website a-map.ru your login and password personal account. As you can see from the screenshot, the history of the locations of car clearly displayed on the map.

Similarly, the application is monitored through "Avtofon". The principle is the same: enter the username and password, and then the map shows the history of moving cars. Apart from tracking the user can directly through the app to perform beacon management.

Mobile Applications "Avtofon" for iOS and Android is not provided with the visualization function of the arrangement of car on the map, but allow to rid yourself of entering complex SMS-commands with the fine-tuning of the beacon. Through them, the whole process is reduced to a few tapam on the necessary options.

But the main use GPS-beacon is still not the case. More importantly, it is often the last hope of a stolen vehicle owner. As mentioned earlier in this article, the main purpose of the beacon - not palitsya and counter the actions hijacker.

It is unlikely that the hijacker will keep jammers included after the full-time deactivates the alarm. From that moment the beacon will be back in business and report the coordinates.

And here we come back to the reason for choosing it "Avtofona". One of its main features is that most of the time it complies with radio silence and get in touch for a very short period of time, then went quiet and did not himself detects. The likelihood that attackers will notice its transmission and aware of the existence of tracking devices, tends to zero.

The second point - it is work in GSM. We just can not imagine how the hijacker reserves recently stolen car outdoors. It will be indoors. Here GPS is not working, and therefore any beacon, which works only on satellites would be useless. But cellular communications is likely to be.

As a bonus, the owner is able to remotely control the operation of the beacon and, if the situation so demands, to listen to what's happening around the device. After receiving a command on SMS, «Avtofon" goes into wiretapping mode, call the owner and include a built-in microphone.

When the location of the machine is determined, the manufacturing company in conjunction with the Ministry of Interior forces will provide free service response and exit on the location of the stolen vehicle.

Well, the last time - convenience. In practice, it all comes down to two actions:

• once a year or two, change the batteries (the need to change batteries "Avtofon" advance report using SMS);
• sometimes remotely check the balance on the beacon and refill the account when needed.

At other times, the owner does not think and does not remember about the beacons. The device is easy lives somewhere in the car headrest or even more tricky place, waiting in the wings.

We sincerely hope that neither you nor your loved ones will never happen a situation in which the beacon is necessary to fulfill its purpose, but if this happens - it is better to be prepared. With a hidden in the car 'Avtofonom».

COMPETITION

We then thought about it and decided that it would be great to give one such a great beacon to our beloved readers, and so on Layfhakere competition again. Rules are absolutely standard, honest and very loyal:

1. Make sure that you live in the Russian Federation.
2. Come to your social profile in Facebook, «VKontakte" or Twitter.
3. You make the status of the form "How to return a stolen car //lifehacker.ru/2014/12/08/kak-vernut-ugnanny-j-avtomobil/».
4. Leave in the comments to this post a link on their status.
5. Look waiting for results.

We take a close look at your profile, simultaneously eliminating explicit disposable fakie "purely for registrations and competitions", and then assign each comment number. Winner will be impartial random.org. Results will be announced here in a week, on 15 December.

competition results

Today, December 15, and that means it's time to announce the results of the competition! Thanks to everyone who participated and stay tuned.

We are pleased to announce that the winner is Sergey Bratyshkin.

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