My brother in law has been missing parole meetings and is getting into some REALLY bad stuff. The U.S Marshalls and state police are looking for him which makes me think that it is pretty bad. I would rather see him in prison again than dead.
which brings me to this:
He shows up at random asking for pills which we don’t give him, now my wife has surgery on Monday which he knows about. this means that I can likely expect to see him later next week asking for whatever they give her.
I have an old LTE Mavin that I have installed a GPS locator app on (Prey) I need to know if locating it will require the phone having service, Or will GPS be able to locate the phone if it is near an access point for long enough? My wife drove with the phone down the street for about a mile and the software could not reach the device, however, she did not stay in a place that long.
should I get a pre-paid card to make sure GPS functions?
(I built a small plastic box to fit under his tool box, It only needs to work for about 24 hours.)
GPS will function regardless of network connectivity as the two technologies are unrelated. It may take some time for the phone to pick up the GPS signal initially, but once enough satellites have been found the position can be tracked instantly and contiunously. Thus there’s no need to stay at the same location.
Of course the phone can’t report it’s position without phone service though, so you’ll have to ensure that the phone has internet connectivity for you to be able to read out the current location.
Okay, so it DOES need service. Thanks. I was under the impression that an AP would pick it up and report the location of the phone regardless of the fact that it had no permission to be on that AP.
I am sure they can track him regardless of gps devices. Such as photo identity. They can find out what stores he has been to even his he just paid cash. Or the way of his walk. And habit’s. Humans are creatures of habit after all.
If you know he will turn up at your house, why track him?
Also, no offense dude, but its hard to trust a sob story online when the “solution” you want involves tracking a individual without their knowledge or consent… normally such a thing requires a court and a judge, and for good reason.
All that said you can totally have an app log location and upload when ever the device can connect to the web, be that via wifi or cell data. Like others have said, the GPS itself is in no way related to the function as a phone, it’ll work without any sim at all, and doesn’t even transmits, just listens for the time being transmitted by saterlights and (in a way over simplified way of saying it) figures you which are closer thus its position.
I agree with @SheepInACart. You know hes likely to show up and you know when hes likely to show up. Why are you not telling the marshals? You said your self you’d rather he be back in prison than dead.
I am not going to try to convince you, I have an Idea of when he might show. and if throwing a $50 smart phone into the back of his truck helps get him some help to get off meth, so be it.
I’d say only do it if there is no other option whatsoever (i.e. contacting the Marshall when the guy shows up at your house), and consider whether the information gathered will count for anything, which is not a given. There is sometimes a fine line between doing what is right and what is thought to be right, but is not. This can be applied to both going ahead and do it, and not doing it.
I’m sorry for the troubles you’re going through.
If you want to be able to locate your device you need service otherwise GPS data will just be logged locally to the phone. My suggestion is to log directly on the phone and use service to monitor where he is so that, if there’s no service for some reason, when you get back your phone, you’ll still be able to see where it was.
I agree with @SheepInACart. But I mean you can spend like 60$ or whatever and just buy an individual tracking solution.
Yeah… not to mention prison isn’t a ‘solution’ to a drug problem. Of course, I can’t say what else he is into, but often prison doesn’t simply ‘fix’ a drug problem.
Also (and I’m not a lawyer or anything) I just want to mention, I don’t imagine if you’re questioned and lie about his whereabouts will the authorities be very pleased.
I agree, prison is seldom a savior. And however much it pains me as an atheist to say this, religion often is, for drug abusers. I’d also like to mention that we don’t know what has been tried already, like an intervention (God are those hard, but can have a profound impact, if done sincerely and without the blame game. Anyhow, just wanted to get it out there). So we, the forum, can’t say whether this is a good idea, GPS tracking and jail, whether it is or is not the last resort and damage control in what has perhaps been a life long struggle for the family and the individual. To be fair, OP asked a technical question and got his answer. The rest (like this) is minded to be a caution and is well meant, but we are basing it on insufficient knowledge of the situation.