How to install and activate a vehicle GPS tracker online?
As one of the leader of GPS tracker manufacturer, we have experienced a lot of after-sales services in teaching customer how to install tracker and activate them online in platform. Beyond all doubt, all these services have increased our job, and sometimes it caused bad customer experience either because of the time difference. Now we simply sorted out the procedure below so to help customers.
In General, there are 3 major points need to complete, firstly, we have to carefully read the user instructions provided by suppliers, secondly, activate the tracker online in platform, at last, hide and fix it in vehicles.
Hereinafter we break it down in detail.
- Read the user instructions and diagrams
When we get a tracker, we should acquire the product user manual and diagrams from supplier whether it is PDF documents or brochure since different supplier would have different operation procedure. Usually we could find out the configuration command in the user manual and the definition of each cable in trackers. Learn the knowledge before installation in case damaging the device or wasting time.
- Activate the tracker online in platform
Many customers don’t understand why we put activate tracker online to second point. However it can help us save time and creating better customer experience. if you fixed the device firstly in vehicle and then try to activate it, and accidently it doesn’t go online because of parameters error, message error, or network issue, it will embarrass you a lot standing ahead of customer without any comments. It’s better we can prepare a Power adapter, Power supply or a car battery that can support device power in office environment. If you really cannot make it, it still doesn’t matter, because device itself have backup battery, you can open the backup battery to test while you need to speed up the testing procedure since internal battery won’t last long.
- a) Insert SIM card
Before connect the device to power supply according to diagram, we need to find the device SIM slot and insert the SIM card into device, because different supplier would have different appearance design, some SIM slot are easy to be found in surface while some may be hidden inside the shell, we can find it according the user manual. If it’s not easy to install, we can use some tools, anyway, we have to pay attention to the SIM card direction so to insert it correctly and make sure the slot chip would touch and read it. SIM card is the important part in tracking system, the tracker is connecting internet via GPRS (3G/4G) network feature in SIM card, and transmit all the location data and vehicle driving data to tracking platform. In first activation, we may prepare the SIM card with the feature of voice, SMS, and GPRS (3G/4G) flow rate so we can call the SIM card in device to check the working status and use SMS to configure parameters.
- b) Configuration in tracking platform
No matter you use tracking platform provided by supplier, your own developed one, or the third party’s, we should have the username and password to login and add vehicle information into the platform first as per the user manual. Each vehicle should have a unique identification (hereinafter we call it “ID” for short) for platform to recognize. The ID is the important parameters for a tracker to be activated online in the platform. Some supplier would use IMEI as ID, some use preset number, and some use configurable number.
- c) Use SMS or Configuration tool to activate
All kind of tracker in the market should be able to activate by SMS, in addition, some supplier would provide customer with configuration tools which can help in massive configuration and saving SMS cost, and some supplier even help customer preset parameters in factory. Whatever tools you are going to use, you will have to configure the correct parameters into tracker so to activate it online. Besides the ID we have mentioned above, we also need other parameters like server IP and Port, SIM card’s APN information. If you configured with corresponding parameters, the tracker still offline, we should check whether there are mistakes in parameters especially the APN information. If the tracker comes online, it means successfully activated, and then you can switch the SIM card to the one you are supposed to install in tracker for future use.
- Hide and fix the trackers in vehicles
- a) Before we install the activated tracker into vehicle, we should check whether all the accessories are ready, and print the diagram and find the features of each cable in tracker. Let’s us take our basic tracker as an example below:
Red cable – Car battery positive
Black cable – GND
White cable – ACC (for detecting ignition on/off)
Orange – Relay output (for remotely disable/enable engine)
When you are connecting the other cables, please keep the power disconnected in case damaging the device.
- b) Make sure all the connection is well and water resistant according to correct diagramsin case it cause fire to vehicle or sometimes feature not work such as disable/enable engine feature. If possible, connectors should be protected by heat-shrinkable tubing or waterproof electrical tape, and cables should be fixed by plastic bandingand placed in order.
3) After fixed the connection, we should find a place to hide the tracker. Because the GSM signal is affected by metal and radio, we should try to install it far away from metal or radio, and keep the GPS antenna side upwards to face the sky. Usually we would hide it under tool case of driver seat or passenger seat, or window shield pole if the size is small enough.
When you complete all the procedure above, congratulations! You have made it successfully and now you can lie in bed, sit in sofa or in front of office desk to check your vehicles online at an ease.
