Using a pycom gpy as basis for a gps tracker

Support Product Questions
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In the pycom gpy tutorial getting started with pycom gpy, Chris made a comment: “looking forward to building some projects with this I’d like to have a low jacking bug for my ebike, so the fit if ever wanders off it’ll tell me where it’s gone”.

I suspect he may have been talking about using the gpy as some sort of gps tracker but I’ve not found any info to suggest he ever built such a beast.

So my question is whether anyone at Core knows whether Chris (or anyone else for that matter) ever did get to build a gpy based gps tracker (or similar) or not?

There is some anecdotal evidence here to suggest there were some sort of network constraints for these devices where they suddenly stopped working on the Telstra network - but that was quite some time ago and it sounds like it was resolved (just not sure what happened)

I have been poking around the Core forums (and more broadly) for ideas on whether using a gpy is a viable option for a gps tracker project (something relatively simple where location data is sent via the ‘network’ to a basic web service or maybe a periodic sms as I’ve seen in some other projects) but haven’t really found anything conclusive yet.

Of course, there are commercially available gps trackers here in AU …just prefer to see if a DIY was possible before heading in the commercial direction …any feedback/comments on this topic welcome.

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Hi PKA,

The Pycom module won’t actually track accurately as it has no GPS built-in. However there is a module designed specifically for GPS tracking by pycom, check it out. Chris also has a video on it.

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Hi Mitchell,

I understood the gpy had no gps capability itself and figured the pytrack would be a good candidate …am sure other gps modules/breakouts could also be used.

My concern was more about whether anyone had used the gpy as the basis of a gps tracker project …just haven’t found much evidence (as yet) to suggest that it’s even possible using gpy over 4G network(s) here in AU.

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Hi PKA,

Yes, the pycom module will work with 4g networks in Australia. I did find this, which is for car tracking but similar principle: https://github.com/abradbury/Pycom-GPS-Tracking-System For your setup you will most likely have to write some of your own code

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Good find - thanks Mitchell ! …so much for my search capabilities :slight_smile:

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