> That would be my personal recommendation. I once made a small research on the
> availability of
> GPRS enabled devices (out f personal interest) and came to the conclusion
> that they tend to be very expensive
> for what they do.
>
> So I would suggest:
>
> Buy some good quality gpx trackers, that allow for programming that swiches
> tracking of, if the device
> doesn't move (so if the taxi sits in the parking lot for a night, it doesn't
> collect loads of random points) and
> has a good battery life. Then just get the tracks every couple of days.
I was thinking more of a device that can be installed in some sort of roaming
vehicle (taxi, courier, tuktuk) and left for a year or two to collect data and
send it in without intervention. I imagined something along the lines of one
of the older Windows Mobile devices made by HTC (with GPRS and Wifi), connected
to a GPS with an antenna, and hooked up to the car battery either via the
cigarette lighter or (more intrusively) wired in especially.
Some of the older HTC devices are only about £60 these days - and can have
Linux installed, which would be significantly more stable and more predictable
than WM, and could be pre-configured to detect and connect to known wifi
hotspots, such as those at Petrol stations. A subscription to these (e.g. via
Boingo.com) is very cheap.
The software could have a threshold, whereby after a period of no Wifi
connectivity (say more than X mb of GPX trails stored), it can upload via GPRS
instead. Many pay-as-you-go SIM cards in places like Thailand have an
'unlimited internet for one day' option which would be well-suited to this type
of burst upload.
I guess all you'd need on top of that is something that detects the charge
state of the device and saves and powers down if the charge is off for more
than 10 minutes (since many taxis in places like Bangkok switch off their
engines at traffic lights).
On the social-engineering side, I imagine having a local Thai explain what it
was for, and offer something like 500THB (£10) a month would be more than
enough incentive to leave the thing running....
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