Style2k6

Ok but why else would you want to track your car other than if it were stolen? I would hope you'd know where your car was unless you lent it to someone or a family member is driving it which leads us back to the real us of the Sprint Family locater. I was simply stating that the other 2 cars have the ability to be tracked if stolen, ok let's say you car is stolen you track it on the web, what is the next step? You sure can't leave the house and go to the location of the car becasue by the time you get there it may not be there and I doubt you will be able to take that internet access with you I would rather let the police do the work for me. Who knows what your going to be up against when you do find the car.

I love good debate!

EBMCS03

Heres more info on BMW Assist.

It comes standard for 4 years now the brochure link is old. Not bad... everything for 4 years including concierge service. I really like the collision notification. If your airbags go off someone will be calling you right then and there thru the car and your location will be sent to BMW Assist so they will call the police / ambulance if its needed.

http://www.bmwusa.com/NR/rdonlyres/B...ochure_Web.pdf

EBMCS03

Huh? what debate? I'm not debating... I was mearly saying that BMW Assist doesnt do all that. The GPS is only used to track your car if its stolen. you cant do it yourself. Oh and its used to show your location if you press the button and need help. or if your airbags go off. But not ment for owners to randomly track their car.

Oh and Mercedes has this too.

Style2k6

Ok wrong choice of words a good discussion would be better. I'm sure it also offers some type of insurance discount also.

EBMCS03

Ya. 20% off comprehensive portion... which is $18 a year for me. Big Whoopie Dooo

kensteele

Sprint Family Locator can be used to minimize the time it takes to discover your vehicle is missing. If you can get it down to a few hours, I think you stand a better chance of recovering the vehicle undamaged, intact, or before your tactics can be thwarted. My understanding of the BMW assist is that it is strictly for vehicle recovery, not for vehicle tracking. Before you call BMW, you needed to have first called the police, file a stolen vehicle report, etc. To me that sounds more like a salvage operation.

If I came out of the mall after 2 hours and I went to my parking space and my vehicle was gone, I could start the Sprint Family Location application on my phone and on the small screen it would show me exactly where my car was located. From there I would call the police and they could be near my car within minutes. If I were at home, I could travel to the scene using a second car, friend's car, anyway I could get there. If the car is moving, I get updates on the road using my mobile phone and provide new data to police. These activities increase the likelihood of recovery substantially.

RCPiercy

I just need to find a way to get a Sprint phone into the car I ordered. Any ideas?

kensteele

Any Sprint phone with Bluetooth capability will work with the basic functions of the 2IS bluetooth system.

diablo1

How come you always leave one cell phone in your car? Wouldn't you want to have it with you when you aren't in your car?

kensteele

I only keep my primary phone with me at all times in my pocket. If you take your phone with you when you go inside and someone steals your car, how are you going to track it (a phone that is in your pocket).

So I leave a second phone in the car, hooked up to power, and paired to bluetooth. That phone serves as a [semi]permanent gps locator beacon who only purpose it to use in the car for gps and for calling out using bluetooth. no one knows the phone number so it doesn't get incoming calls unless i forward the calls from my primary first phone.

EBMCS03

He's rich enough to afford 2 phones. While I cant... I need that extra $10 to go twards the car payment.

kensteele

hehe, no i work at sprint and part of my responsibility is to test alot of this. anything phone related. but there are really inexpensive sprint phones that you can add for this...plus the $10. it's better than an onstar fee or a useless gps device or lojack imo.

here's the recent pr: http://www2.sprint.com/mr/news_dtl.do?id=11280

EBMCS03

Awesome! Can I help you test those things? Wonder if T-Mobile will have somthing like this soon.

kensteele

hehe, already have lot of testers in Calif as you can imagine. But all major carriers should have this if not soon since most newer phones are GPS capable.

This would be the beginning to other location-based services. Imagine one day your phone reports your location, speed, direction, etc to a master database and since nearly everyone is reporting, you get realtime traffic on your cellphone. Hit a button and your screen split four ways showing you all the cameras at the next intersection. Hit another button and that screen transfers to your Lexus nav screen using bluetooth. since you paid the hefty "premium highway services" fee, traffic lights are trained to hold longer on yellow just for you to allow you thru and police radar (in rural areas where gps can be more precisely assigned to a car) also tied into the network, flash "exemption" on the speed display unless you are 30 or better over. LOL

it is remarkable that nearly every urban taxi cab in japan and korea has gps with maps for directions both in the cellphone and in the dash. in south korea, law enforcement use fixed cameras and photo radar to catch speeders and they are practically everywhere. i never saw a patrol unit much less traffic radar. drivers use their cellphones and gps radar detectors to alert them when they approach a camera. the service provider has gathered the gps coordinates of all the known cameras and flashed them into the devices, i saw it working (very well) several dozens times.

RCPiercy

It was a joke. I haven't received my car yet, it's being built soon though. Just wanted to see where it is.