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Turbo Mini Forums

Wanting to get some for the minis.. what have people got? Do they all have to have sim cards? If so.. how does a contract work for them?

Thanks in advance

I've got a Rewire Security 102-Nano in both the Mini and my daily.
The one in the Mini is currently de-activated (because the car is in bits) but the one in my daily is active.

This type - and there are lots of very similar ones on the market - use a pay as you go SIM card to send the location etc. data to the server of an affiliated organisation, gpslive.co.uk where you can access it, display the route maps, locations, loads of other stuff for (I think) up to a year in the past.

The gpslive is accessed by a yearly subscription (currently £20/year) and, unless you dramatically increase the frequency that the location data is sent (default is once a minute) or set it to use some other features like text alerts to your phone (I don't, I just look at the maps of where I've been on gpslive every couple of weeks just to make sure it's still working) then the pay as you go cost is very low - I haven't even got half way through my initial £10 SIM top-up in nearly a year since I put the one in my daily.
The rewire security ones use the GiffGaff "network", not an operator I would ever consider using for my mobile phone but it's chosen because it still operates a 2G service, which is all that is needed for the data being sent, and that's what keeps the cost down.

Have a look at the gpslive website, you can setup a demo to see how it works.

EDIT - and I should have added that although I don't think much of GiffGaff as a network, once the pay as you go SIM is setup, they email me once a month telling me the usage and how much credit I have left so, for this simple application, it works well.

Edited by Rod S on 15th Jan, 2020.

Schrödinger's cat - so which one am I ???

Slightly different to the above....

I've one of the ReWire units too.

The SIM card is an M2M card so not locked to any specific network, and operates via data.
As such, it always uses the strongest network, so is effectively roaming all the time. And this also includes abroad.
£60 a year covers the SIM card subscription and unlimited access to the GPSLive app.

You can setup various alerts depending how the unit is wired, and also activate cuts remotely if it's wired accordingly.

No system will be perfect...but every little helps.

9.85 @ 145mph
202mph standing mile
speed didn't kill me, but taxation probably will