Lost and Found, Stolen and Protected
Like many of us who own smartphones in which we have invested both money and time, I’m terrified of losing my Fuze (okay, maybe not terrified; I guess I reserve that feeling for my children). So what’s a boy to do?
I came across Smartphonetracker, a nifty app that can help you find your phone several ways. Here’s what it has to say:
“SmartPhoneTracker allows you to locate your phone via GPS coordinates, useful if your phone gets lost or stolen, and for locating missing family members. Basically, SmartPhone Tracker is configured to listen for a certain text message. When it receives that text message, the program will wake up, activate the phone’s GPS and obtain a lock. Once it has GPS satellites locked, it will send an email or/and text message with a link to Google Maps with the phone’s location and exact GPS coordinates. If there is no GPS reception for 5 minute, SmartPhoneTracker will send the approximate Cell Tower location.”
I tried out and it really works…with a few limitations. First, I had my wife hide it outside in our neighborhood. I followed the instructions and not only got a GPS lock on it, but I also got a nifty photo from the camera. I was able to track my phone down easily. Unfortunately, the photo was of a bunch of trees and sky, so it is a cute feature, but unless it is facing a street sign or some such, it isn’t very practical. Next, I had her hide the phone indoors at a friend’s house. The problem is that without a GPS signal it is pretty worthless. Yes, it provides a Cell Tower location approximation, but that is in a range of about 1000 meters (a needle in a hay stack comes to mind).
One nifty feature is that, if stolen, it will notify you when the SIM card has been removed and replace so you can be sure to alert your mobile phone company to stop your service before you get massive usage bills.
See below some other options for finding your device with a brief review from Agent Blair over at xda-developers.
Remote Tracker – Searched the thread and haven’t found anything on if it works for the Fuze.
Mobile Justice – No parent site, no support. No idea if it works.
Smartprotect – Not sure if it works on the fuze, saw a comment saying it doesn’t.
Ultimate Theft Alert v35 – doesn’t work with VGA from what I hear.
W.I.M.P. (Where is My Phone)- I tried this and the SMS does not work
Sprite Terminator – I tried the demo too and the SMS also didn’t work. And yes, I use GPS test.
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Comments
Cassetti Holy Crap, This is freeking sweet
My last phone was stolen, this would be has been PERFECT to catch the guy who stole it at my house party last time!
Dave Not a plug for or against, but Smart Protect does work on the Fuze and it seems to work just fine with WM6.5 as well.
Anudeep Is there any program out there that will survive a hard reset? i am guessing for that to work it has to be cooked into the ROM. and also it would be nice if the device will send you call history and things like that so if it is stolen u might be able to track the person based on who he/she is calling. speaking of which i did some searching of my own on xda and found this
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=527423
this might be a good program to have in conjunction with the tracking software or if someone can put something them both together it might be even better.
Derekw I didnt have a lot of luck with it, I hope it ends up working better once its out of beta because it could be awesome
|Jason8| I’ve tried out phone creeper, and it is one of the best tracking programs I’ve used. It auto-installs on a hard-reset if you put some folder onto your SD card. Cool stuff.
Anudeep posted a link, but here it is again:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=527423
Derekw @Jason How do you get a GPS lock before sending the getpos command. If I dont get a lock before hand the longitude and latitude is just 0,0.
[...] GPS reception for 5 minute, SmartPhoneTracker will send the approximate Cell Tower location. [ via FuzeMobility [...]
Chuck Meitner I don’t get it. How do I actually receive the information on where my phone is? In other words, now that I’ve lost my phone, how do I find it?
Glad you found one that works! I kind of gave up my quest on searching for a GPS tracker that worked on my Fuze and settled for Remote Tracker, which automatically sends back the SIM card number and all of its information when it’s swapped with a non-approved SIM card. I will definitely try this one and I’m glad you got those results! I was still using my stock ROM when I posted those comments here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=472868 back in January.
Another great security tip is changing the start-up splash screen by flashing it with a custom image displaying your name, phone number, address or whatever you want by following this guide: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=2709600&postcount=1. There’s also a way to put in a full-color non-black image but I don’t have that link at the moment. Even if someone steals it and hard-resets the device, they’ll be stuck with that start-up screen every time they swap the SIM card or reset the device, basically branding your phone. Unless they know how to flash a Fuze, they’ll have no other choice but to return it or keep it and have that annoyance.