SpyLamp and SpyBike GPS tracking device!

skipray

I bought one(spycap) and I'm happy with it.It wasn't as easy to set up as they make it out to be, but it is working pretty good for me.

cooldad

mcnultycop wrote:

My first post on a forum is usually "hello" or something. Not obvious advertising spam.

Saves me typing.

EH_Rob

does it work better than a lock and an insurance policy? 100% of the time? inside? in areas of poor GPS/GSM signal?

thought not.

also, just out of interest, has anyone attached one to the inside of someones DH/freeride bike to see how long it lasts?

skipray

Hello all,even you COOLDAD you friggin troll.
I guess if I worked for the spybike company I wouldn't be addressing your smart little remark.
I read a few of your posts cooldad.You like to bash people on here.
Rob,no it's not 100% theft proof.I guess an armed security force would be.
Your lock and insurance wouldn't cover that much for a replacement.I have been that route many times.
I have never had one nicked on the trails,but I have lost a few in the city.Gps/gsm is pretty good in the city.
As far as this being spam, I don't care if any of you guys get a spybike.I was sharing my thoughts on the one I have.
So respond with whatever smart remarks you want.You look like the jerk not me.

the_cyclist_of_catan

The Spylamp costs about the same as a decent D-lock but weighs a lot less. Which is better at preventing your bike being stolen/helping it be recovered if it is? No idea, because nobody's stolen my Spylamp-equipped bike yet (and touch wood, it won't happen). But we know exactly how effective D-locks actually are against a determined thief, and won't help a damn to get the bike back.

As for insurance, I'd not trust them to replace my bike with what got nicked. You *always* end up losing out - excess, accessories, insurer insisting on going through an "approved supplier" who doesn't carry the same make as your lost bike. Having had to claim for a car jacking, I don't expect them to be any easier to deal with over a bicycle, and when my insurer *says* "Oh yes, it's all fine, you're covered, no exceptions" I *know* that I'm being lied to.

I'm now 100% happy that it works well and tracks well in an urban environment. I finally managed to flatten the battery today, after about a month without charging it during which time it's spent at least 4 hours tracking and uploading its position, which have all been flawless tracks. If I'd remembered to disarm it on a couple of those rides, the battery would have lasted a lot longer (it uses much more power to track than it does just sitting in a shd armed and on standby).

I've no stake in seeing the manufacturers succeed. Actually, in a perverse way I'd rather none of you cynics did buy a Spybike/Spylamp. If it remains a very rare niche product, thieves are less likely to be on the lookout for them, and less likely to remove them/jam them as a matter of routine. All I know is that I'm *very* glad I have one, as it gives me immense peace of mind to know when someone's moved my bike (and a way to tell at a glance whether it's because someone nudged it, or is in the process of riding off on it).

hoojammyflip

Having read my way through this thread, it would appear that its advertising under false pretences. Seriously, if you have a product to sell, which is worthy of attention, someone somewhere in a magazine or on an internet site will pick it up and review it. Maybe others are less cynical than me, but at the very first post in this thread, I thought it didn't pass the smell test.

Anyway, there is obviously a market for bike security and a lack of a range of products out there.

bennett_346

What's the point? Once it's stolen it's stolen; you're hardly going to go and get it back are you? The police WILL NOT take notice of the fact it has this device on it, trust me, they simply do not have the time/interest/resources to go collecting stolen bikes off people let alone prosecute the theives themselves. Been there and done it, it's a waste of money simply put.

cooldad

Some not so good advertising here
viewtopic.php?f=20005&t=12946880&p=18612640

babua

There's a new article about it here: https://www.insecure.ws/2013/11/19/spyl ... your-bike/

It doesn't seems so bad.

cooldad

babua wrote:

There's a new article about it here: https://www.insecure.ws/2013/11/19/spyl ... your-bike/

It doesn't seems so bad.

Another first post, first spam.
What will you call yourself next?

chrisw333

FFS. Can we delete this thread? It crops up so often its ridiculous.

michaelbeadle

Guys,

I have recently also have my bike stolen. I have read all the posts below about the SpyBike and Im waiting to come back into stoken to buy one my self.

Have a look at these trackers

http://www.thetileapp.com/?utm_source=A ... pmt=&pdv=c

They work great and much much cheaper I bought 8 for £60

cooldad

A faint whiff of spam?

Girl1mex

Im planning on buying two of the spylamps in the next week to 10 days - anyone got any more feedback? Cheers Linda

chrisw333

cooldad wrote:

A faint whiff of spam?

Oh Marone

chrisw333 wrote:

cooldad wrote:

A faint whiff of spam?

recylefunk

Girl1mex wrote:

Im planning on buying two of the spylamps in the next week to 10 days - anyone got any more feedback? Cheers Linda

Hey Linda I'd hold back if you can, I've ordered one of these 3 months ago and have not been able to use it as the driver for the security screws were the incorrect size (so I can't attach it to my frame), I added my own sim and when I logged in a few days later it disappeared and when I attempt to add it again it does not work, I've open up support tickets and have not had a single reply in over 2 months.

Mark

Soulcharger

I recently bought a Spybike Tracker, it doesn't work. I have tried to contact the company with no response. 5 x e-mails, 4 telephone calls and a Support ticket. Their silence is worrying. I have done all that instructions ask, consulted and tried all the troubleshooting tips but it still doesn't work. Be careful if this company, their technical support is non-existent. Frankly I would have been better paying for an insurance and getting a decent lock. Avoid !!
I have yet to read a positive review.

cooldad

Soulcharger wrote:

I recently bought a Spybike Tracker, it doesn't work. I have tried to contact the company with no response. 5 x e-mails, 4 telephone calls and a Support ticket. Their silence is worrying. I have done all that instructions ask, consulted and tried all the troubleshooting tips but it still doesn't work. Be careful if this company, their technical support is non-existent. Frankly I would have been better paying for an insurance and getting a decent lock. Avoid !!
I have yet to read a positive review.

So why did you buy one?

CitizenLee

3 things that will survive a nuclear apocalypse...

-Cockroaches
-Nokia 3310s
-This thread

97th choice

cooldad wrote:

Soulcharger wrote:

I recently bought a Spybike Tracker, it doesn't work. I have tried to contact the company with no response. 5 x e-mails, 4 telephone calls and a Support ticket. Their silence is worrying. I have done all that instructions ask, consulted and tried all the troubleshooting tips but it still doesn't work. Be careful if this company, their technical support is non-existent. Frankly I would have been better paying for an insurance and getting a decent lock. Avoid !!
I have yet to read a positive review.

So why did you buy one?

Probably read this thread.

GggMmm

It’s been two months ago when I bought a GPS tracking bike lamp, which goes under various names: SpyLamp, SpyBike GPS tracking device, XY-B01, XY-B02, etc., with a range of similar models based on exactly the same technical device inside. I bought it directly from a producer in China (it cost me approx. 150 USD, although the initial price to pay, together with the shipping was promised to be 96 USD).
I installed it properly, put a separate SIM card inside etc. The device worked for 3 days in total. Then it stopped.
It stopped responding to the so-called master number, i.e. my proper mobile phone which communicates with the SIM card in the GPS tracking lamp. It did not communicate at all for about 3 weeks. Afer I contacted the producer lots of times, the lamp suddenly responded and started sending SMSes to my master phone number permanently, and then I began to received allert phone calls continuously: 18 phone calls within three hours at night, when everybody was asleep and the bike was just standing there in the next room.
The lamp tracked the position of my bike only for the first three days. Then it stopped for ever.
The vibration sensor in the lamp activates itself at random with no correlation to the vibration in the real world. It begings to blink in the middle of the night or any time of day and night without a reason. However, when the bike is really shaken or in motion, the sensor NEVER reacts.
The producer also ceased to respond to my queries and does not care: there is no help from their side.
So, be aware: the lamp promisses a lot (and as an idea it sounds great), but in practice is is USELESS. It’s a waste of money.

The Rookie

God will this thread never die, where is Harold Shipman when you want him?

Yes we know it's shite......so wouldn't buy it anyway!

GuyCope

LOL.....
Without wanting to unnecessarily arise this post from the ashes like some demented phoenix, I thought I'd add my two-penneth from my experience.

Firstly, I'm definitely not associated with Spybike or Integrated Trackers. I'm just a bloke interested in knee-capping a few scroats if poss and stopping my hard-earned property being TWOC'd. I'm also a fair bloke and if someone's getting a bashing, possibly unnecessarily, I'll stick up for them if I can. I didn't want peeps to think the device is a complete load of Sh1t when it's possibly not.

I obviously came by this thread after googling the tracker. I was steered away from the device after reading some of this feedback.

However, after having a scroat casing my house out a week or so ago under the guise of asking for directions (to a place that was 25 miles away in the opposite direction to where he was heading) I changed my mind. Whilst I was talking to him he was looking past me and into my garage at my bike, obviously not interested in what I had to say and obviously not genuine. I was concerned that perhaps a more-professional type of scroat now knew I had a valuable looking bike in my garage and may have had the opportunity to see what type of security I had installed and the ‘lay of the land’ he could feed back to his nicking-chums.
That was enough for me to think I needed to beef up my security and protection on my bike. I ordered the Spybike (Top-cap) tracker and it arrived on Saturday.

I've got it working (very painlessly I have to say) and have tested it.

Basically the tracker does not lock onto the GPS when it's in my garage or van. In short, from what I’ve seen it does not appear to track without a clear view of the sky. It will ping my phone the moment it's moved via its inbuilt vibration sensor, so you do get a heads-up your bike has been tampered with or is on the move.
What you’ll get is track ‘lock-ons’ when the bike appears back in the open air (i.e. when the scroats unload it and move it elsewhere). These pings may help the feds identify the scroats, if the locations where the bike is taken to and gets a ping out, can be linked to a known scroat (i.e. his house/lock-up or where he/she’s known to use). So on a map you may get a line on the map when the bike’s moved from your garage and down your drive/garden and then nothing until it pings again x miles away. When the tracker is in the open air, the location pin-pointing is very accurate, down to a few feet.

Whilst some may think the lack of tracking when the bike’s under cover is completely useless, I do think it’s better than nothing as most of the high-end worth bike thefts are probably from hardened bike knicking gangs that may be known to the police, but have just evaded nabbing as they can’t be associated with the theft/s. Pings to a given location may be that well needed association.

Where it will help you is in the common scroat nicking situation where they nick your property and then dump it somewhere secluded for a day or two and then come back to it once they’re happy it isn’t being tracked or they’ve got a better time window to move it without being stopped by the feds mid-move. (I’d pay for the chance to be there waiting with a few tooled-up equally well hidden mates that’s for sure ).
If you’re unlucky to have it pinched by real pro’s who then drive a van into a covered location and strip it there and then without ever moving it to another location, you’re pretty stuffed.

If however, you’ve left it outside the café at BPW and some opportunist twags it and rides it home, you stand a very good chance of tracing them/the bike in a situation where otherwise, you’d be stood there with your burger in your hand cursing the empty space where your bike was.

Re. the support from Spybike. The ‘Contact Us’ link from the Integrated Trackers website was fairly slow, but that was perhaps me being impatient as they did respond the same working day. I got a speedier response and the exact response I needed to get the tracker working by private messaging the Spybike Germany (i.e. parent company’s) Facebook page. The fella there came back at 7pm at night within 20 mins of me messaging the page. I couldn’t fault it.

The tracker’s SMS’d me each day with a battery charge level update so that feature’s working too.
Tracking is done via a dedicated Spybike web site/server.

It’s not “fully live” (i.e. you DON’T get a moving line progressing along a map as you watch it). You have to refresh the view by clicking the ‘view’ button to get progressional updates to the visual map. Not a problem in my view. You can set the duration between GPS pings or ‘fixes’ in second increments or at least 10 second increments.

The issue you’ll have, if like me you live out in the sticks, is that you can’t be driving around with your phone in your hand tracking the tracker unless you have a decent web connection. If you can’t load a webpage on your phone at the location you are in, you can’t update the map visual. My map didn’t update on my phone as I drove around with the tracker on my dashboard, but my wife who was sat at home with full wi-fi on the ipad, was getting constant map changes.

Hope that helps peeps form a better opinion of whether the device will work for them personally.
I hope I don’t ever have to test it but having an expensive bike sat there, the £100 cost was a fair enough punt for me.

cooldad

Nope. Still crud.

GuyCope

"Each unto their own" I guess

Worse-case is I helped you form a better opinion LOL!

kest

Screw it.... Just bought the Spybike. Hope it turns up and fits and works...

I also bought the kryptonite m18 AND kryptonite mini D-locks, and insurance of course.
Also considering the atomic22 bolt sets even though they are pricey..

just bought the Cube Hyde Race, have yet to take it for a ride with my exams looming.
http://www.cube.eu/uk/bikes/tour/hyde/c ... lack-2015/

I live in Hackney, London, so this bike is going to stand out... I am NOT getting my bike nicked easily!!!!!
I can imagine someone taking one look at that silly Spylamp and booting it off cos it looks ugly. I wouldn't trust the asian knock-off 'Spybike' stuff on eBay also.

I saw this which seems silly and steal-able:
http://bikespike.com/

and this which can recharge itself by pedal power for an extra £100... bit pricey at £200... but it does have a key unlike the Spybike which i believe uses infrared or bluetooth? hackable...
http://www.back2you.com/gps-bicycle-tracker.html

These are also rechargeable, and have two years free GPS tracking. They need more work though as they look ugly and don't fit cycling shoes... and wont come out till December 2015
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/conn ... le-pedals/

jaguar57

I have the Spylamp and after a few good rains it stopped working. I took it apart and found corrosion on the components board. I cleaned it up and am recharging the battery now and I'll try it again tomorrow since it is real slow to charge up. If it still works then I will use glue to completely seal it from the rain.

The Rookie

Bin bags are waterproof, put one in the bin and then put the device in it.....

jaguar57

Well, after charging it all night it would not connect to the telephone network so I think the moisture damaged it. I should of placed it where rain would not hit it. This is a warning to everyone else interested in this. The spy lamp looks like it is waterproof but it is not.