- 1 year of tracking service included
- Small, lightweight and waterproof up to 1m
- Up to 4 week battery life
- Request current location from a computer or smart phone
- Easily attaches to backpacks, vehicles and pet collars with included case
The first year of monitoring is included with no connection fee and each additional year is $50 this is a good value compared to other devices.
After just two days of ownership my biggest disappointment is battery life. I set it up for "ON DEMAND" use only, which should provide 7 days of battery life. I have gotten 24 hours maximum for my first two days. I have an email into Garmin and will update on their response. Additionally I have noticed that a location request does not supply coordinates, just a dot on a Bing map. I lost the device briefly and coordinates would have helped me to find it more quickly.
UPDATE: A Garmin tech got back to me and indicated that if the device is on and stored where it cannot receive both GPS and cellular phone signals, it will deplete the battery rapidly as it seeks to connect. After several back and forths with Garmin, it appears that you either need to store the device where it can get a constant signal, or shut it off when inside, taking the risk of forgetting to activate it before exiting the house. Overall I think this is one of the best devices of its kind out there, but it could be improved. I did end up putting the Velcro on the bottom of the device and the little bag it lives in after I forgot to zip the bag and it fell out onto the ground. Now it is very secure.
2nd UPDATE: February 2012
The latest software update seems to have improved the battery life considerably and the web interface has been greatly improved, showing exact coordinates in addition to the map location. There is also information displayed regarding battery charge and cell/GPS signal strength. I continue to charge the device daily to ensure a full battery if needed. The smartphone app is particularly nice, which I have downloaded to my iPod Touch.
Buy Garmin GTU 10 GPS Tracking Unit Now
-----UPDATE---------After using this thing for a little while I have some useful feedback. It is more sensitive than most to being in doors. All mobile phones and 5 year gps units can get some fix inside my house, but the GTU10 wont attempt a fix with less than 5 satts. If you use the heaviest battery setting you have to recharge once a day. Its that simple. if instead of checking every 5 seconds you check every 15 minutes you can recharge every five days-big difference.
My biggest concern is the mobile apps, both android and IOs. the both seem to take a long time to connect with the device. A device I might have just turned on, placed on the hood of my car, waited for 5 minutes the apps where still giving my last nights position. eventually after pushing refresh enough times it works but I wish I knew what was happening and why it seems to take so long to lock if it hasn't locked in a while. After all, I have the deluxe tracking option so when I download the track history I know the GPS is functioning.
this device is a breakthrough in the realtime tracking market. at 200 including the first year of unlimited location requests it's one of the cheapest. add to this it's size ( about the size of a pack of gum), its outstanding battery life and the very polished iPhone and android apps and you've got a winner.
there are a couple of things that really set this device apart from the rest.
1. it works on AT&T's network. most of the cheaper models, like zoom bak use T-Mobile because it is cheaper.
now you might be thinking AT&T always drops calls. well it does, but this runs on the data, not voice, network and it doesn't need the maintain a connection with a tower for minutes or hoursjust a few seconds to fire off a location report. also at&t has much better coverage than t-mobile.
2. this device let's you configure the frequency with which it computes it's location:
every 5 seconds , every 5 minutes, every 30 minutes, or only when you request it known as on demand. this level of customization is unique and allows you tailor the device to your needs. also you can have it sleep when inside a pre-defined area called a geofences. so if you, using the website or app draw a rectangle around your house you can have the device sleep while inside that area. it will still wake up and take a fix at what ever interval you set, say every 30 minutes, but in between it won't be available for instant checks.
3. the battery really can last four weeks, however it is totally dependent on how you use it. when configuring the device from the web page it will tell you what battery life to expect for each setting. updating every 30 seconds for example will last 20 hours. updating every 5 minutes will last three days. I have personally found these both to be underestimates. but based on this it is easy to imagine it lasting 4 weeks set on on-demand mode.
Some Cons
it doesn't work indoors unless it is near a window or at least within site of a window. the thing is small with an internal antennae. this is a tradeoff. other gps's including those in my smartphone can compute a location in a parking garage, but they only last 1.5 days before needing a charge.
I thought I could keep it in every,5 minutes or every 30 minutes for casual monitoring but if something or someone went missing I could just switch it to 30 second mode. sort of have the best of both worlds. unfortunately this doesn't work. after saving any new settings you get a message saying it can take up 24 hours for the device to be updated automatically, Or you can turn the device off and then on and the changes will be immediately applied. I assume the system does a once a day refresh but it syncs itself every time it powers up.
Read Best Reviews of Garmin GTU 10 GPS Tracking Unit Here
UPDATE: We have had 2 of these for about 9 months now. I wrote the review below after about a week. The units continue to serve our purpose (see below) perfectly. We get emails when the battery is getting low so we charge them in the car. They work while they are charging and GPS/Cell phone reception has been as good sitting on the seat charging as when sitting on the dashboard. The tracking website continues to get tweeked and is better than the original. There have been several firmware updates to the units as well. We depend on them now and would not want to do without them. Garmin will start charging for the tracking service in about 3 months -hope it is not too much. I see the price has dropped thirty since we bought them.---------------------------------
Original Review:
I was going to give this 4 stars but I could not think of why I was dinging it a star. Maybe because I wish the battery life was more or that it was built into the Nuvi series. But my one week experience is that it does (including battery life) what it claims. So 5 stars.
Satisfaction with this device might depend on how you want to use it. My wife and I drive independently between the San Francisco Bay area and the northern California coast. These are winding two lane roads sometimes becoming one lane. Accidents and people over the side happen every year. So we always tell each other the route we plan to take and call when we have reached our destination, or call to announce our estimated time of arrival.
So this is the use of the GTU for the week: Monday and Friday about 4 hours of driving, otherwise in a geofence sleeping. Tuesday through Thursday about 2 hours of driving each day, the rest in a geofence sleeping. The setting was "balanced"
The battery died about 2 hours short of the end of this week. But I pinged it heavily throughout the week as it is a new gizmo and I wanted to see how it was working and what it would do. I think under normal use it will last the week. I will probably move the setting to "moderate" as 15 minute intervals should be fine for us. (I THINK the battery died, it was ambiguous. Garmin could not find the unit and suggested the battery was dead. But I still got emails when a geofence was transversed. So it could have just been a temporary glich in the system).
Now we are free to change our route on the fly if we wish. No need to check in -emails notify when the destination geofence has been entered. And even, by email notifications as geofences are transversed on route, have estimated times of arrival for such mundane things as dinner preparation or meeting up. If no emails are received, or the car is not where it should be when we expect, we can start calling. If there is trouble there will be tracking available to find the car. I liken gadgets like this to garage door openers; they are not a life necessity but it just makes things a little easier, safer, less stressful.
Often it seems smartphone apps are diminished versions of their desktop counterparts. The opposite is true here. The iOS app I use on my ipod Touch gives more information than the desktop version. (No actual desktop software to download, just a browser connection to Garmin's website).
We have ordered another one for the second car.
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so I've used and own a bunch of garmin devices and generally am a fan (60csx for hiking / geocaching which is a great unit, edge 500 for cycling which is good and a nuvi which we weren't crazy about).. in this case, there's some things I do like about it very much, and for what I need, it works great -but I wanted to clarify what I was told by Garmin about the tracking, because the web site is very misleading in my opinion on the differences between the two plans (standard vs. deluxe) and what tracking information is available.I use the device for cycling so that when I'm out alone on longer road ride, my family can know where I am, and if for some reason I go off in a ditch, they will know exactly where I am -this is helpful in case I change my ride route along the way (vs. when I would previously tell them and then call if I changed, or just stick to the planned route), and also to know exactly where I am so they don't have to guess if they need to find me. I live in an area with decent AT&T coverage where I ride (northern NJ) and the GPS aspects of the unit are very good I put it in my camelbak backpack and it does a great job of receiving the satellite signals and getting the cell phone signal out. The build quality is very good and although I haven't had to test it, it looks quite water resistant (the rubber on the power button is very good).
So for my use, the most important feature works well finding out where exactly I am as needed. My wife put the android app on her phone, and with my log in, can tell exactly where I am when she queries it (it's not a constant update pushed to her phone, but rather when she uses the app to ping the garmin device, it reports back). I don't really need the geofences and I don't really have any battery issues since one charge is plenty for even a century ride. What I do like is that the web site and also the android app correlate the GPS location to a street address, and that address is shown as well very cool, in my case for navigation to that address, but if this device is with your child, you would know the street address, etc). The android app works well, and it also shows battery level, cell signal level, etc.. so for that functionality, it works solidly well really like it and it does exactly what I got it for peace of mind (and occasionally they check where I am during a ride kinda interesting and real-time). GPS has always been accurate (suburbs, not city). I have set up a geofence around my house, so when I get back from a ride, if the family isn't home, the service sends out an email so they know I made it home successfully without having to check the app all very cool. And, I have it email me and my wife on low battery, also great (I left it on after a ride, and with the email, I remembered to recharge it before the next ride). That's why I give it 4 *'s .. working quite well and the basic functionality and even the web site and the android app are very good (I know there were updates to the site and the unit firmware during the past few months, and those seem to be for the better).
So I did learn one thing about the history tracking that you should know it works a little differently than the garmin web site implies I suspect this is due to firmware updates and other changes (to manage battery life, but also I think to further differentiate the two service levels). The web site hasn't been updated and needs to be because you don't get quite as much with the standard service as would be implied from the site. When I read the site, the history tracking on the standard plan seemed to be the same level of detail as on the deluxe plan, just for a shorter period (24 hours vs. 7 days). In fact, when you set up your device, the site has you select how often you want the history recorded on the unit, and that impacts battery life but of course tracking. HOWEVER, what I learned is that (now) on the standard plan, there is only history for a few events, and in fact the setting of tracking frequency and battery life is basically ignored on the standard plan. My beef with garmin on this is that the advertising and the setup are very misleading and imply that you get more out of the standard plan than you really do very bad on their part may not be intentional but it needs to be fixed (and I bet some of this comes from their product team trying to maximize revenue, etc). What I was told by garmin support is as follows (and kudos to their support for being honest and accurate despite the misleading web site):
"The differences between the two plans follows. The device does not record history without the deluxe tracking plan.
Standard Plan
· The plan limits the device to up to 10 points in the last 24 hours
· Track points are only recorded in the following situations:
o Enters and Exits Geofence
o Low Battery
o Power off
o Power On
o When you navigate to Locate Page
o When you click Locate for the Locate Page This page is limited to logging a point to once every minute regardless of your power settings
· Points are NOT logged at the intervals specified in your battery settings
Deluxe Plan
· The plan limits the device to up to 20,160 track points in the last 7 days
· Track points are only recorded in the following situations:
o Enters and Exits Geofence
o Low Battery
o Power off
o Power On
o When you navigate to Locate Page
o When you click Locate for the Locate Page This page is limited to logging a point to once every minute regardless of your power settings
· Points ARE logged at the intervals specified in your battery settings. "
SO, this gives something to think about when selecting the plans, since the incremental payment for the deluxe plan will cost more / year (as of now) than the standard plan in the first place. I would love the additional flexibility of selective tracking intervals, etc. but probably only if bundled for better pricing or an annual plan discount, etc. Or, I would like to see garmin modify the standard plan so that interval tracking is selective but as they first advertised, perhaps for a shorter period of time, etc. OR, what I would really like to see is pricing bundles based on type of use -e.g. I am not dog tracking so don't need all of the features of the geofences, etc. but would like better interval tracking so would love a CYCLIST plan that combines standard + intervals, but perhaps with only 1 geo fence, for less than the combined current std + deluxe costs (it's not really terribly expensive when you think about it but it's not extremely cheap either). Hopefully as garmin sells more of these and gets some more experience, they will create better and more reasonable plans (but not too many or too confusing).
Overall though I have been very happy with this product for my use and for others thinking about the same, would definitely recommend it.
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My application is much like C.Bailey's post of Jul 9 where instead of a child I'm keeping track of an elderly AZH parent who is very mobile but has no short term memory and my experience is much as C.Baily's -this tracker is not Real-time enough. When my parent gets "lost" and wanders away, I want to be able to find him. Trying both the Android and IOS apps... Shows you the last fix for that last time you used the app, NOT the last fix the unit checked in as you would expect, which should have been 30 seconds ago... so it's showing you a fix that's over a day old. Then I hit refresh and it spins for 10 minutes and does nothing. After about 2-3 refreshes it might give me a fix but it's already been a half hour to get my first fix -how nerve wracking.The size, weight, build quality and even the battery life seem fine. The $50/year web service is the ONLY way to interact with the device so it's not an option. The first year service is included in the purchase price so that is nice. GPS connectivity is much more sensitive (harder to get a signal) than one would think.
The biggest issue for my application of finding a lost person, is NOT being able to get an immediate fix and then not getting position updates unless you keep hitting the refresh button. It's not real-time enough. It's so frustrating in the app that the phone knows how to show YOUR PHONE position in real-time -but you cannot see the real-time position of the Tracker! Except for maybe once every 5-10 minute (and that's with the tracker already set to check in every 30 seconds) not sure why that is.
It is unclear that if I pay the extra money for the Deluxe online package if then I would be able to see, the positions real-time as someone else claimed... I thought the only difference was that it kept history for 7 days. Hard to understand what that means as it's supposed to keep history for 24 hours now but the only history is when ever I use the app and hit refresh -NOT whenever the unit is supposed to be checking in. So it's a history of my queries, not a history of where the Tracker has been -not very useful.
What works better, for my application, seems to be the GPS tracking on the iPhone. The "Find my iPhone" app gets a fix very quickly (15-30 seconds) when I bring up the app and it's showing where the device is right then -not the position of the last time I checked a few days ago. Like the Garmin app, I have to hit refresh to update but again it takes 10 seconds not 2-5 minutes like the Garmin. I would have hoped for better from a GPS company like Garmin but I guess they really don't understand what people want, just technology.
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