I just took delivery of a new toy: had just about forgotten I ever bought it when I found the purchase confirmation email from August 2012.
An email to the nice people at Yellowbrick Tracking provided me with a UPS waybill number that told me the package had been “out for delivery” for the last 8 months! A phone call to friendly Janet at Trioptimum Solutions (UPS agent for Botswana) and it was soon tracked to the customs bond area at Sir Seretse Khama International Airport. One import duty invoice and a bank transfer later saw it loaded onto local courier for the last leg of delivery to me.
It’s now sitting charging, but I couldn’t resist turning it on and sending one position report to make sure it works, which of course it does. Confidence inspiring to see that it still had >25% charge after sitting in a box for all that time.
The Yellowbrick website has all the technical data, but it’s basically a GPS receiver with an Iridium transmitter in it, so it sends location data to Yellowbrick using the short message service, and they make it available on a map through their website service.
The model/package I’ve bought also has the capability to interface over Bluetooth with a smartphone (Apple or Android only) in order to send/receive SMSs to/from any number, so it can be used for emergency communication when outside the coverage of normal cellular networks.
Watch this space for when I try it out on a trip…
Update: And lo, it has been tested.
