Thanks for this. Mine just came in today and is still sitting on the charger, though I have activated for 1 month to see if it's worth my while to do the full 2 year. A couple hundred bucks for more peace of mind is well worth it in my opinion, as long as the tracker works and isn't a hassle.

I've thought about the hard wire kit, but I'll want to find a good hiding place for the tracker first. Super glad to hear it works in your trunk since the Tracki instructions explicitly say NOT to put it in there. Either way I'm going to try and hide it inside and wire it so I'm not having to constantly take it out to charge.

It's a good looking unit, and you're right. So far the setup was super simple and navigating the app has been easy.

 

Y’all know dodge has a free security update in the Uconnect for hellcats and scat packs?

 

HemiMetal thank you for the review! I order the Tracki off Amazon and it also arrived this past weekend. I really do like the compact small size of the tracker. The app is decent and fairly accurate from what I can tell from the last few days. I went with the year subscription to see what is like. So far I'm impressed with this little unit.


Naw, you can keep the Uconnect update the criminals will find a way to defeat it. Once they unplug the battery the Uconnect service is useless.

 

My son put one of these on his SRT8 a few months ago and he loves it. When he first got it,we were looking at it on the dinning room table before dinner. As I was looking at it, the magnet sucked a knife onto it from 10"s away. Scared the hell out of all of us. LOL

 

Can Tracki be hooked up and powered by the cars battery with their supplied battery used as a battery back up in case the cars battery is disconnected?

 

Yes, Tracki does makes a hard wire kit for this unit. I have not used this, but may upgrade to a bigger battery.

 

@Hemi_Life @HemiMetal Using the cars battery as primary power, and the batter as secondary seems the way to go, wouldn’t you guys say?

 

Yes. The only gotcha there is if the hard wire is intentionally disconnected, will the cable be traced back to the tracker? It's possible the person disconnecting it thinks it's just a wire for some other accessory like radar detector or dash cam.

The battery will last a minimum of a day with like 1 or 3 minute updates (per the manual). Goes for much longer if updates are spread for longer duration. I've had mine on for about 12 hours with 30 minute updates = 89% battery remaining. So fuzzy math puts it at about 5.5 days battery life at this rate. I'll likely drop down much lower once hard wired.

I can confirm what @HemiMetal posted. Tracki works in the trunk too. Had the car parked in a parking lot near the beach, so it's not like it was locating using wifi. So let your imagination be your guide regarding hiding spots.

 

How easy is it to jam the Tracki with a simple plug-in GPS jammer? Many thieves we catch down here have these.

 

That I don't know, you might have to ask Tracki tech support. BTW, their tech support is five stars. I sent a question by email over the weekend and was surprised when I got a email response two hours later from an agent who was letting me know she had tried to reach me by phone (I missed the call). I called back and was on the phone with another rep in just a few minutes. And it wasn't an offshore help desk.

Back to your point. For any security measure you can implement there is a way to counter it. The main value of the Tracki (for me) are the movement alerts that I receive immediately by email and text when the Tracki is moved. For example, I removed the Tracki from my trunk this evening and I got a text buzz just a few seconds later. Even if some really quick thieves make off with your vehicle before you can rush back, pinpointing the time of the theft has to be an advantage when reporting the theft to law enforcement or (at the very least) your insurance carrier. I like the advantage of knowing when a theft might actually be in progress.

 

As always, better to prevent the theft than react. If that becomes the case, we’ve already lost.

 

That's right. Just because pretty much anyone can jimmy my door lock, I shouldn't bother locking the doors?

 

Locking doors keeps honest people honest. Door locks don't protect you from thieves either... but it does protect you from some random opportunistic teenager walking by who spies your iPhone in the console. Statistically, the majority of Hellcats are stolen by tech savvy thieves. They know all Hellcats have GPS trackers built-in. They aren't going to try and steal one unless they can defeat it. Unless they're absolutely dumb or been living under a rock. Anyone can order a GPS jammer for under $100 that defeats most GPS trackers, and anyone can order a signal scanner to get your key fob ID for less than $50. Smart thieves will simply stake out where you park it and wait to nab your frequency ID and it takes them less than 2 minutes to steal the car.

And, before folks go bagging on Dodge for their terrible security system, the above works on lots of cars from other manufacturers. Lambo and Mercedes, for two.

I have a GPS tracker in my car, but I am also thinking about getting a 2nd factor ignition switch (aka something like an under dash key cylinder) installed. Still researching the best way to go about it. But, once I get it figured out, the car won't be able to start unless you have both the key in place AND the key fob. I know how to do it on non Dodge vehicles (aka Mustangs and older vehicles), but I don't know the Dodge wiring so well. It's a research project at this point

 

If you don't set it up to alert whenever it starts or stops (moves), you won't get any notifications. But you can hit refresh to get current location. I'll turn on move notifications when I park somewhere for a while. No sense getting notifications while I'm driving it.

 

Thanks HemiMetal I do have it set up to receive SMS but did not notice notifications were sent from a "real" phone number. So I set that phone number from the Tracki as contact and set to the most load and annoying notification tone!! This is what I was looking for. The only alerts I have set up now are the movement alert and geo fence which I may not need since the movement alert will go off first. Also I have Automatic updates turned Off. Hopefully this will help with battery life. You can hit the refresh button to get current location.

 

Also I have Automatic updates turned Off. Hopefully this will help with battery life. You can hit the refresh button to get current location.

I was going to order the extended battery when I remembered that I have three unused 24,000 mAh power banks sitting on my desk. Last night I connected one to the Tracki and buried the power bank away from the Tracki in a side panel. With 24k mAh having 7x the capacity of the optional tracki extended battery, it's quite possible I can go months before I have to recharge the power bank.

I'm considering the hard wiring option but I think I'm going to see how the power bank plays out for me. At $21, it's a more affordable option that the $40 Tracki extended battery.

I also put a sunglasses sleeve made of nylon over the Tracki. The magnet is super strong and I don't want to scratch paint (even if I can't see it) when moving or removing the Tracki.

 

Tracki says they use GPS and GSM. I know the GSM is used to communicate, just not sure if it's also used for location when GPS is not available. It does use Wifi too. Not quite sure how that works either.

4 days now. Charge is at 59%, updates set to 10 minutes. But I don't have move notifications set, and I've driven the car only 1/day for less than an hour each time.

 

Like Hemi_Life, I've turned off the automatic updates while the HC sits in the garage. There is a manual update option on the upper right corner of the home screen that looks like a refresh icon. When I want to check on the tracker I just hit that. It also refreshes the battery's current charge level and the movement alerts will still send. When I take the HC out for a run or a trip, I'll set it to update every 60 seconds.

 

Well just installed the hard wire. Got it off amazon, and FYI, that one does not include an add-a-circuit/fuse tap. But it is assembled to go straight to the battery. So I just added a terminal to the fused positive wire (ground already had one) and connected to the battery. Easy peasy. Thing should never read less than 100%.

And I changed my updates to every 2 minutes for more accurate tracking. I was worried about alerts, but it doesn't auto update if it's not moving, and it doesn't send movement alerts unless you turn those on. So my text/email isn't blowing up and I can check the map on Tracki to see everywhere my car has been. Heck, might go to 1 minute for giggles.

Looks like I will go ahead and do the 2 year subscription because this thing just works.

 

Can you name it Litigation Buddy and have it update every minute after you drop your car off at a dealer?

 

Yes, yes you can

 

Interesting read from a non techy type.
Could have a lot of uses as I read, keeping tab on teenagers amongst other things.

 

great

 

Just got off the phone with Tracki support. The extended Tracki battery I bought last December from Amazon had stopped charging, maxing out at 38%. I contacted their support via email shortly after 6 AM this morning and got back a texted reply at 7 AM. I didn't see the text until later today at which point I replied and got a phone call within five minutes. The responding support agent wasted no time setting me up for a replacement extended battery after verifying my Amazon order number (no shipping charge). While still on the call, the support agent advised me that my two year old Tracki device was likely 3G and I was eligible for a new 4G version free of charge. We checked the device ID and confirmed it was eligible. Again, no charge and no shipping fee.

If you have a Tracki, contact their support at «Tracki» • Contact information and feedback form and ask them to verify if your device is eligible for this free upgrade.