Best Equipment Tracker: What to Look For Before You Buy

What is the best equipment tracker?

It is the one that fits every unit thieves are likely to take, and tells you when one leaves. Lists of trackers rank devices by features. For a fleet, the first question is how much of it a tracker can cover.

Most of what gets stolen is easy to move. A 2016 theft report by the National Equipment Register (NER) counted 11,574 equipment thefts reported to police. Ride-on mowers and garden tractors, mainly commercial mowers, made up 41 percent. Excavators were only 4 percent.

NER names value and mobility as the two factors behind theft. It notes that large excavators are valuable but seldom stolen, because they are hard to move. So a tracker kept for the most valuable machines misses most stolen units.

The heavy equipment tracking guide breaks the larger machines down further, from skid steers to excavators.

What does the best GPS tracker for equipment need?

The best GPS tracker for equipment still needs two things on every unit: power and a data plan. On a machine with an engine, it can be wired in. A trailer, a plate compactor or a tool case has nothing to wire into. So the tracker carries its own battery, and someone has to charge it.

It also sends each position itself, so every unit carries its own data plan. Those two needs are why tracking used to stop at the biggest machines. Each extra unit meant one more install or battery to charge, and one more plan.

A crowdsourced tag needs neither. It has no GPS receiver, no wiring and no data plan. It broadcasts a Bluetooth signal, and any phone that passes reports where it heard the tag. These networks are large (Apple counts over a billion iPhone, iPad and Mac devices, and Google over a billion Android devices).

So one more unit means one more tag. It fixes with an adhesive pad, and the two larger sizes can also be screwed on.

The battery powered GPS tracker for equipment guide covers what charging means across a whole yard. The GPS tracker for equipment guide compares what a data plan on every unit costs across a fleet.

What to look for in an equipment tracker

Look for coverage of every unit, a battery that lasts years, sealing, site alerts and a dated record. Each card shows how a tag meets one of them.

• Coverage

  It fits every unit that could leave on a trailer

  With no wiring and no data plan per unit, mowers, trailers, compactors, light towers and tool cases can all carry one. A tag goes on anything with a flat surface.

• Battery

  A battery measured in years

  A tag battery lasts up to six years, depending on its size. There is nothing to charge between jobs, and the cell is replaceable when it runs down.

• Weather

  Sealed for units that live outside

  The two larger sizes are sealed to IP68, so units that live outside can carry one all year. The smallest suits tool cases kept dry.

• Alerts

  An alert on every jobsite

  NER found equipment spends most of its time on work sites, which have less security than a fenced yard. It adds that when equipment moves between sites, a theft may go unnoticed longer than one from the owner's yard. A geofence around each site sends an alert when a unit leaves.

• Records

  A dated record for police and insurers

  NER lists missing or wrong ownership records among the reasons so few units come back. It advises keeping a list of every PIN or serial number. The tracker adds a dated history of where each unit has been, so one call gives the police both.

The best equipment tracker for a mixed fleet

For a mixed fleet, the best tracker is one that goes on every unit, whoever made it. An excavator from one maker sits next to a compactor from another, a rented light tower and the trailer that carries them all. A tag goes on each of them, so every unit shows on one map.

Units you rent can carry a tag for as long as you have them, and units you own keep theirs. Either way, each unit shows on the map with where it was last reported.

How to set up an equipment tracker across a yard

List the units, tag each one, then draw a geofence around every site.

1. List every unit that could leave on a trailer, including mowers and compact machines. NER advises weighing how easy a unit is to move as well as its value.
2. Add each unit's PIN or serial number to that list, read off the plate on the machine.
3. Pick a tag size for each unit by where it lives: dry and indoors, or outside all year.
4. Mount each tag out of sight, where the work cannot reach it.
5. Draw a geofence around the yard and each jobsite. The geofence guide shows how.
6. Set an exit alert on the units that should not leave without you knowing.

The equipment tracking system guide covers running the yard once the tags are on.

What to expect from tags on equipment

Tags give you a dated location record for every unit, and an alert each time one leaves a site.

• Updates come from passing phones. Any phone that goes by reports the tag. A staffed yard updates all day. A remote site at night updates less often, and picks up again when someone comes near.
• Building-level position. The position comes from the phone that heard the tag. It gets you to the right yard, site or stretch of road, and the unit number does the rest.
• Location, not engine data. A tag reports where a unit is and when it came and went. Engine hours and fault codes come from the machine's own feed.
• Mount it where the signal gets out. Inside a closed steel box, a tag may only report once the door opens. Where a steel cover guards the tag, leave one side open.