Hi,
I'm changing my phone soon so I will have no use for my current iphone.
I was thinking I can take advantage of icloud to track my car.

Heres my plan. Don't know too much about these things so please tell me if you have some better ideas.

- Put the phone to silent so it makes no noise when it turns on.
- Put the phone location settings option to 'on' (location still works when there is no sim card and 3g is taken off.)
- Connect hidden iphone to power source in car so the phone charges when the car starts.
- Now if someone steals your car, you can login to iCloud and track it.

Would all of this realisticaly work?

Thanks!

 

no sim card, no internet, no location.

Wifi can give you a location but it is a very rough location and not as accurate as 3g.

 

But I disabled 3g, data, and wifi then checked icloud.
It was still able to locate my iphone.

 

its still using sim, try putting in airplane mode or better yet take out sim card and then try.

 

im not sure.
now i disabled 3g, data, wifi anf put it into airplane mode.
i left location services on.
then I took the sim card out.
it still located it when i refreshed it on icloud.
i hope im not wrong. youre killing my dream lol

 

well damn, i actually have no idea how that is still working. i have tried that same experiment before and it didn't work.
if possible, try to leave it like that for a couple hours atleast and see if it still locates.

 

yea that's what I was thinking.
once i get my new phone and have the ability to leave my current phone in this state for a full day, ill try it out.
i'll let you know what happens

 

i just tried it again, airplane mode even with sim card in. location serivices on.

it didn't find my phone. It shows it as offline. The only difference between you trying it and me trying it is that i didn't have a recent history of searching my phone so it didn't have a location it could just guess.

 

Damn that makes sense.
Mine says "located 11 minutes ago".
****...

 

yeah...it was a good idea though. on the other hand, one of the things i am using my old iphone is pandora. I just tether using ondemand mywi, so when i get in the car it automatically gives internet connection to the iphone and that way i have pandora or any other internet radio for essentially no extra cost.

 

Yea that's a good idea.
I wouldnt mind tethering to my old phone too but I only have 100mb (my monthly rates adjusts higher as I use more data).
So I try to limit my data use.

Are there any things I can buy to track my car?
I just want to do it given all the cars that have recently been jacked in my area.

 

it will work as long as location services is on and the phone always have wifi connection. hope that helps as i am an apple specialist.

 

yeah but the phone will probably not be in a known wifi zone if the car is stolen.

Lojack comes to mind.

Most of the companies that offer real time tracking whenever you want to charge a monthly fee on top of the install cost.

Some companies install gps tracker in your car but your only allowed a limited number of tracks per year.

That's what i know, there are other experts on here who can give you a better opinion on tracking. good luck!

 

If you're going to pay, why not open a second line for $9.99 (if you have AT&T) and install the phone in the car. Better than paying $700 for two years service with LoJack, and probably give you more accurate location.

 

+100 and use an old 3gs