MasTrack- GPS Tracker W/No Contract | Track On Computer Smartphone | Fleet Monitoring Tracking Employees, Teens, Spouse| Plug Into OBD Port Instant Alerts & Engine Diagnostics

This is a completely re-written review. I had previously given this product 2-stars, but that was due to a combination of miscommunication and unrealistic expectations. As you can see, I changed my rating to 5-stars... I am rounding up from 4.5 stars. This product is very good... just not perfect. Chances are, it is exactly what you are looking for.First off, let me warn you: depending on your state, it may be illegal to use this product. You may want to research this. In Texas, I can legally use this, because even though I am not the driver, I am the owner of the vehicle (that may not be enough in your state).The next issue I had with the product was that I had questions about the normal operation of the device. I studied the online documentation, and there was no troubleshooting section. Not sure if there was a contact phone number, but I didn't see it. I mistakenly got the impression that this company was a small seedy company that didn't have a customer service department. One night I got frustrated and left the 2-star review. Mea Culpa. My apologies to Mastrack. They contacted me because I was displeased. I should have just emailed them with my questions. They have been very responsive and helpful. I chose email communication, so I can't comment on the phone service, but my negative impression of them initially was all my fault, they didn't deserve it. The only thing I can fault them on is the information on their website. If I could have learned the information I learned from support, then my expectations of what the product can and cannot do would have been more realistic.So I am sure you are wondering: what is it that I had such a problem with the device. There are several factors of which you need to be aware. Any one factor happening would cause mild confusion, but when they all happen, it seems like the device is erratic and malfunctioning. Now that I know about them, I can figure out what is going on at any given time. Here is what you need to know about the Mastrack (and this is probably true about other similar products):1) If the device cannot get a good position from the satellites, then it doesn't tell you anything at all.2) If the device temporarily has poor or no cellular service, then it saves the data points and dumps them all on you once cell service is restored.3) The "time to first fix" (TTFF) is variable depending on several factors. For techies, there is a wikipedia article that explains it, but I will explain a little here. The device downloads from the satellites information about the satellites every 15 minutes when it is in use. If the car starts up and the satellite info is old, you have to wait until some satellite info is downloaded before it can figure out where it is (GPS info). As a result, the first position after starting up the car may be (up to) 15 minutes from where the vehicle started up. In actuality, most times, the start up position was where the car was... just not every time.The problem I had was that the device was in a vehicle that often parked in a structure that had poor/no cellular service. Sometimes it would be between tall buildings that would affect visibility of the satellites. So, if you start the car in a location where it can't get a good fix, then you will have to wait for the TTFF (approx. 15 min) plus you won't see a data point after that if in those 15 minutes the vehicle drove to somewhere the satellites are blocked (like near tall buildings) and then if the car drives somewhere there is poor cellular service, again you won't get data. Some days, all 3 of those would happen. Somedays only 1. Until I understood these effects, I was frustrated and confused. Now I can tell you the device operates very predictably. Even on days when all 3 of those factors would be in effect, that would only affect a brief period of time, and the rest of the day I was receiving positional data. These factors have a greater impact when you are concerned about live positional data. If you are looking at historical data, it is less of a big deal, because for all the data you don't get due to a loss of cellular signal strength, once the cellular signal is restored, you'll see all that historical data.Installation is ridiculously easy. Takes 5 minutes of online research to find the OBD port for your car, then 5 seconds to install. Online, you can set up various alerts. It sends me a text message with position each time the vehicle is turned on and off. You can also ask it to notify you of harsh braking and excessive speed and a few others. You can communicate with the device with any SMS enabled phone, but the description of the location is not as good as the online mapping. The online mapping is difficult to use with an iPhone/iPad, but it works. A native iOS app would be a lot better.IN SUMMARY, if you are using this to keep an eye on a vehicular asset, this is an exceptional product. If you are using it for live tracking of a vehicle, it is very good and will work almost all the time. I showed it to a police officer friend of mine, and he was impressed on how this technology is in many ways better than what the police are using.

I bought this device to track my girlfriend's car. Here is how easy it was to install. I popped the GPS Tracker unit into the OBD port of my girlfriend's car while she was in the car with me and I was driving. OBD ports are on all cars made past 1995 and they should be within reach of the driver - usually under the steering wheel and is basically hidden. The OBD port is powered all the time, so you will know if the device has been purposely or accidentally removed.Record the unit's serial number before you plant the tracker because mastrack will need that number when you call them to activate the device. Also, they will need your credit card number, but the first month's service is free. I paid for the most expensive plan, which is 39/mo.All the data you need is accessible to you via any web browser (IE, Firefox, Safari and chrome all work).Tracking Features: The device records and transmits, speed, location and heading at 1 min intervals.How to Access the Data: This is a real-time tracking device. You log into the company's website (mastrack), after you have activated the device and you will immediately see the location of the vehicle's location on Google Maps.Alerting Features: You can set up alerts to send a text or email when the following events are triggered:(1) Ignition is turned on or off(2) Unit is removed - text is sent indicating the car's vin# once it is back online. Basically, if the driver tries to pull it and place it in a different vehicle, you will know the moment it is plugged back in.(3) The driver exceeds the speed limit that you designate in the online tool.(4) The driver accelerates or brakes aggressively(5) The driver goes outside of an area you specify.Reporting Features: You can pull granular reports by hour, day, week, etc to track where the vehicle went during a specified time frame.Overall, this device is near flawless. There is one minor issue. During prime time rush-hour in the evening, mastrack's system appears to be unable to handle the alert volume demand. I assume this is a standard problem since a large percentage of drivers are heading home at that time causing a flood of ignition-on events all at one time., so you will not get accurate texts and email during this time, but if you log into the website, the vehicles location, even while moving is apparent.

Very disappointed. It worked very well for a couple weeks and then the tracking started being super flaky. I was under the 1mn plan but I would only get update every 30mn or every hour... when it worked. I contacted the company and unit started working again as expected (even though company did not acknowledge the issue) but after a few days the tracking started to be buggy again.Also, if I didn't drive the car for a couple of days, my mastrack unit would drain the battery.Maybe I got a buggy one... but for the cost and the lack of support, I felt like I ended up throwing money away.I just switched to a syncup drive from tmobile (new as of november 2016) which does the exact same thing, cheaper and more accurately (and doesn't drain my battery).

nice and simple

Easy to install. Setup was a bit strange - a bug in their website. For some reason I couldn't create a new account and activate at the same time, but logging back in and adding a device worked fine. Might have been a browser issue on my end. Not sure.

Doesn’t work in Canada. Had to return it and reorder another directly from the supplier.