Question Vehicle tracker with ignition controls

[Jplay444]

Hello, I am thinking about lending my car out to a client. I was wondering how i would go about creating my own gps tracking system with the options to disable ignition aswell as vehicle shutoff to stop the client from using the vehicle incase of theft.

Is there a way to make a system in c#? How would I install software on the gps device? Would i be able to have it on a website to display the location on the map and control the vehicle ignition?

I'm not firmilar with gps trackers so dont want to buy one until I know its customizable because I would like to be safe and secure incase of theft as the client lives in a rough area and the last car was stolen.

 

[USAFRet]

Create your own? Why?
There are multiple prebuilt solutions for this.

And in case of theft...that's what full coverage insurance is for.
Tracking down a stolen car is best left to the police.

 

[Jplay444]

Create your own? Why?
There are multiple prebuilt solutions for this.

And in case of theft...that's what full coverage insurance is for.
Tracking down a stolen car is best left to the police.

Just so can modify in the future. Using companies is expensive currenclty I pay for a service and have to contact them each time. Would be easier to manage it myself.

 

[USAFRet]

Expensive?

DEALERSHIP CAR GPS TRACKER - GPS Tracking

Auto finance GPS tracker units. Including starter disable, tow alert, and backup battery. Units are 3G on the Verizon Network. Protect your assets with GPS.

gpsandtrack.com

Could a custom solution be written/installed/tracked? Sure.
Can you do it?

 

[Rogue Leader]

Is there a way to make a system in c#? How would I install software on the gps device? Would i be able to have it on a website to display the location on the map and control the vehicle ignition?

Is there a way? Sure. But its a massive amount of programming, and its COMPLICATED. Its something that if you were capable of doing it, you'd know or be able to figure it out without asking such a question here.

This WILL cost you more money than a prebuilt solution, and no offense you don't have the capability to do this.

 

[USAFRet]

A typical standalone GPS (Garmin/Magellan/TomTom) is literally receive only. To report its location, you need some other service. Cell service or similar.

Web hosting (and all that code) to display where it is. Updated every XX seconds.

Then the integration with the OBD and/or ignition to disable. And the testing so it does not shut off while in motion.

Then the battery switchover, so that it is still running when the car is off, or being towed.

Etc etc etc.

 

[Deleted member 14196]

So you think you can make a system that rivals OnStar? Lol. No. Absolutamente no

my car has an app that does everything you want. Go buy a new Ford and use Ford Pass app. That’s your solution. you have complete control over the car

 

[Deleted member 14196]

And I don’t think you can legally loan your car to a client your insurance wouldn’t like that very much I should think

 

[DSzymborski]

And I don’t think you can legally loan your car to a client your insurance wouldn’t like that very much I should think

Yup, besides the complete implausibility of solving the problem, you have this. Loaning a client a car is likely to have great ramifications for your insurance coverage. Your car insurance almost certainly does not cover direct business use of a vehicle and the business relationship with your client will very likely lead your insurance company to turn down a claim and then cancel your policy.

 

[Jplay444]

Your not understanding what I said in the above, the vehicle is a business vehicle and for them to use it in that kind of area I want some kind of protection. As mentioned I have the car system side done already as the company I'm currently with control it. But I want to leave the third party company and control it myself directly full access by myself. I am paying a third party site every month for the service, but when lost the last vehicle I had to phone them. To get updates I have to keep contacting them its unacceptable considering I could just control it myself.

I'm thinking about buying a GPS / GSM tracker with ignition control built in. Then making my own website to login and select the vehicle and then view its position aswell as have the option to shut off the vehicle.

My concern is I'm not sure if its possible, that's why I'm asking here if there is a web example of some kind

Would this work? With my own custom web side on the web host?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Likorlove-...g-Motorcycle/dp/B078KTKQ79?ref_=fsclp_pl_dp_2

 

[sizzling]

Do you really want to take on the liability even if you can manage this. If your remote immobiliser failed/malfunctioned or through installation error caused the car to cut out while moving I’d would expect serious consequences.

 

[Jplay444]

Do you really want to take on the liability even if you can manage this. If your remote immobiliser failed/malfunctioned or through installation error caused the car to cut out while moving I’d would expect serious consequences.

Right now I believe it's the safest option. The last vehicle was stolen found burned out we found it through tracking before the vehicle went offline.

I want to drop out of third party and manage its tracking and cutout alone so I know where it is at all times.

 

[Rogue Leader]

And I don’t think you can legally loan your car to a client your insurance wouldn’t like that very much I should think

Actually this is incorrect (source: I was a licensed insurance agent in 38 states in another life). You absolutely can loan your car out to anyone, and they are covered. Now if you're renting it out (ie money exchange) and they find out you're dropped, but the car is still covered. Also if you've loaned your car out to someone and something happens to it they will likely add the person to your policy (unless they can prove they have their own car/insurance). But insurance follows the vehicle and it is covered.

Your not understanding what I said in the above, the vehicle is a business vehicle and for them to use it in that kind of area I want some kind of protection. As mentioned I have the car system side done already as the company I'm currently with control it. But I want to leave the third party company and control it myself directly full access by myself. I am paying a third party site every month for the service, but when lost the last vehicle I had to phone them. To get updates I have to keep contacting them its unacceptable considering I could just control it myself.

I'm thinking about buying a GPS / GSM tracker with ignition control built in. Then making my own website to login and select the vehicle and then view its position aswell as have the option to shut off the vehicle.

My concern is I'm not sure if its possible, that's why I'm asking here if there is a web example of some kind

Would this work? With my own custom web side on the web host?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Likorlove-...g-Motorcycle/dp/B078KTKQ79?ref_=fsclp_pl_dp_2

We are understanding, your original question was developing this yourself. Now you're asking about accessing a device that is designed to connect to a proprietary server via the internet. You would need to reverse engineer these devices to access their data. This is NOT a simple thing.

The things you linked seem to allow for real-time review of the location of the car. The point we are making is you are not getting out of using a 3rd party service for this. The car needs to communicate with the internet somehow (cellular) and barring you building a device that does the transmission you're not accessing that info without going through that 3rd parties interface. You can't just "make your own custom web side as the host" as you'd need to access THEIR servers to get the data.

How you'd do this on your own? You'd need a GPS transmitter, then you'd need to program something like an Arduino to read and parse the inputs, and use a channel of it that can activate an ignition cutoff. Those inputs would need to then go to something like a Raspberry Pi that can read the information and put it into a format that is readable by your software. This involves programming an interface on the Pi that can take commands and send them back to the Arduino to enact them. The Pi would need a cellular connection (like a WiFi hotspot) in the car. On the simplest level you'd need to know the ip address of it to then connect it with your web software, which can send these commands to your Pi Based software. Of course this all has NO encryption, we haven't even gotten into doing that.

Again, this is not a "Hello World" program, if you've never done something like this there is NOT an online tutorial that says "oh just buy these parts and run a little script" its WAY more complicated than that. Thats the point we are making.

 

[Jplay444]

Actually this is incorrect (source: I was a licensed insurance agent in 38 states in another life). You absolutely can loan your car out to anyone, and they are covered. Now if you're renting it out (ie money exchange) and they find out you're dropped, but the car is still covered. Also if you've loaned your car out to someone and something happens to it they will likely add the person to your policy (unless they can prove they have their own car/insurance). But insurance follows the vehicle and it is covered.



We are understanding, your original question was developing this yourself. Now you're asking about accessing a device that is designed to connect to a proprietary server via the internet. You would need to reverse engineer these devices to access their data. This is NOT a simple thing.

The things you linked seem to allow for real-time review of the location of the car. The point we are making is you are not getting out of using a 3rd party service for this. The car needs to communicate with the internet somehow (cellular) and barring you building a device that does the transmission you're not accessing that info without going through that 3rd parties interface. You can't just "make your own custom web side as the host" as you'd need to access THEIR servers to get the data.

How you'd do this on your own? You'd need a GPS transmitter, then you'd need to program something like an Arduino to read and parse the inputs, and use a channel of it that can activate an ignition cutoff. Those inputs would need to then go to something like a Raspberry Pi that can read the information and put it into a format that is readable by your software. This involves programming an interface on the Pi that can take commands and send them back to the Arduino to enact them. The Pi would need a cellular connection (like a WiFi hotspot) in the car. On the simplest level you'd need to know the ip address of it to then connect it with your web software, which can send these commands to your Pi Based software. Of course this all has NO encryption, we haven't even gotten into doing that.

Again, this is not a "Hello World" program, if you've never done something like this there is NOT an online tutorial that says "oh just buy these parts and run a little script" its WAY more complicated than that. Thats the point we are making.

Appreciate the response, the vehicle is business registered employees can use it but we have a tracking on it at the moment through third party we pay them to do everything. But we want to manage it ourselfs as dont need a company to keep tracking it.

So what I was asking is how would I go about hosting my own panel on my own site so I dont have to pay so much just for a third party to tell me the position.

I would like to be able to see the position of the vehicle and control its cutoff if its stolen as mentioned the last vehicle was stolen in this area and we couldn't get the position update in time to actually be able to do anything.

So if I can host it on my own web host I can access its position myself and manage it that way instead of having to call a company and sit on hold for 20 minutes each time.

I will pay someone to make an app to have on my phone so I can keep an eye on it but I'm unsure what i would need to do this. Like the current trackers are secured and have sims in the tracker in the vehicle so would I be able to reroute that to work with a self hosted system? Or would I need to pay someone to reverse engineer the tracker device to be able to reroute the device to go to my host?

I have done alot of work in c# and boo so python ect is new to me.

 

[USAFRet]

So what I was asking is how would I go about hosting my own panel on my own site so I dont have to pay so much just for a third party to tell me the position.

Stop paying that particular third party, and find a different one with better pricing.

If the current solution you're using is encrypted (and it should be), you're not getting around that.

 

[Rogue Leader]

Appreciate the response, the vehicle is business registered employees can use it but we have a tracking on it at the moment through third party we pay them to do everything. But we want to manage it ourselfs as dont need a company to keep tracking it.

So what I was asking is how would I go about hosting my own panel on my own site so I dont have to pay so much just for a third party to tell me the position.

I would like to be able to see the position of the vehicle and control its cutoff if its stolen as mentioned the last vehicle was stolen in this area and we couldn't get the position update in time to actually be able to do anything.

So if I can host it on my own web host I can access its position myself and manage it that way instead of having to call a company and sit on hold for 20 minutes each time.

I will pay someone to make an app to have on my phone so I can keep an eye on it but I'm unsure what i would need to do this. Like the current trackers are secured and have sims in the tracker in the vehicle so would I be able to reroute that to work with a self hosted system? Or would I need to pay someone to reverse engineer the tracker device to be able to reroute the device to go to my host?

I have done alot of work in c# and boo so python ect is new to me.

I used to work for a company called @road that offered this specific service for business vehicles. I installed various trackers, and devices that offered all sorts of services from basic tracking to messaging etc, and this was 20 years ago, I'm sure its improved now quite a bit. But at the time we had clients who could see their vehicles on a map and send messages, operate functions, etc. I am 100% sure the disabling functionality is there too.

Also keep in mind there is a LOT of liability that goes along with these things. For example if one of your cars gets stolen and you shut the engine off while the car is going 55 down the highway, and you cause a major wreck, you're getting locked up.

Again any device you can buy is encrypted you're not going to be able to take over it to manage it yourself. Thats exactly what I was saying before, you can't pay anyone to do what you want to do because they would need to reverse engineer and break the encryption on the device. The costs of that would be prohibitive, if its at all possible. Oh yeah its also illegal.

You need a better service. This is the company I worked for before:

https://www.road.com/solutions/ffm_pwy_intro.html

Maybe start there and see what they have.

 

[Jplay444]

I used to work for a company called @road that offered this specific service for business vehicles. I installed various trackers, and devices that offered all sorts of services from basic tracking to messaging etc, and this was 20 years ago, I'm sure its improved now quite a bit. But at the time we had clients who could see their vehicles on a map and send messages, operate functions, etc. I am 100% sure the disabling functionality is there too.

Also keep in mind there is a LOT of liability that goes along with these things. For example if one of your cars gets stolen and you shut the engine off while the car is going 55 down the highway, and you cause a major wreck, you're getting locked up.

Again any device you can buy is encrypted you're not going to be able to take over it to manage it yourself. Thats exactly what I was saying before, you can't pay anyone to do what you want to do because they would need to reverse engineer and break the encryption on the device. The costs of that would be prohibitive, if its at all possible. Oh yeah its also illegal.

You need a better service. This is the company I worked for before:

https://www.road.com/solutions/ffm_pwy_intro.html

Maybe start there and see what they have.

The tracker on the vehicle actually belongs to us all the third party is supplying is the real time tracking on the map and the option to disable ignition this stops them from starting the car after its turned off.

I want to port it to a self hosted website and track it myself as well as have the option to disable its ignition.

That's why I asking help/support because if I buy the tracker I showed in the link above would I be able to pay someone to make a website to display realtime position also shut off the ignition starting (I dont want to shut the vehicle down instantly I just want them to be unable to restart the vehicle even with a jump start)

 

[USAFRet]

The tracker on the vehicle actually belongs to us all the third party is supplying is the real time tracking on the map and the option to disable ignition this stops them from starting the car after its turned off.

I want to port it to a self hosted website and track it myself as well as have the option to disable its ignition.

That's why I asking help/support because if I buy the tracker I showed in the link above would I be able to pay someone to make a website to display realtime position also shut off the ignition starting (I dont want to shut the vehicle down instantly I just want them to be unable to restart the vehicle even with a jump start)

And the data stream between the device and your phone or PC is 50% of the complexity of the functionality.

Encrypted, goes to a server (where?), then served up for your devices to read via their application.
Absolutely non-trivial to recreate with their hardware.

 

[Jplay444]

And the data stream between the device and your phone or PC is 50% of the complexity of the functionality.

Encrypted, goes to a server (where?), then served up for your devices to read via their application.
Absolutely non-trivial to recreate with their hardware.

Now I'm confused haha, so what would I actually need if I buy a new tracker for the vehicle pay engineer to fit it then how would I get the tracker to send the information to the website, as third parties manage it so I'm sure theres a way I could have the tracker to send the information to the host instead of a text each time.

 

[USAFRet]

"how would I ..."

This is why you buy a prepackaged solution.

The device needs to talk to a 'server' somewhere...an IP address. Via cell service.
Sending its current location (lat/lon), updated every XX seconds/minutes.
This server then decrypts that signal, and returns specific geolocation.
Some software correlates that to a 'map'. Esri has some very good GIS mapping tools. I use them at work. Decidedly not-free.

Then, given a webserver with the proper software, you log onto that and it delivers a "map" to your device. Via some application that has been written to display that.

This webserver needs to be hosted somewhere. Again, not free.
And of course the public facing webserver needs to be locked down and hardened to ward off intruders.


Of course, this does not yet touch on the ignition interlock, and battery runtime.

 

[Jplay444]

"how would I ..."

This is why you buy a prepackaged solution.

The device needs to talk to a 'server' somewhere...an IP address. Via cell service.
Sending its current location (lat/lon), updated every XX seconds/minutes.
This server then decrypts that signal, and returns specific geolocation.
Some software correlates that to a 'map'. Esri has some very good GIS mapping tools. I use them at work. Decidedly not-free.

Then, given a webserver with the proper software, you log onto that and it delivers a "map" to your device. Via some application that has been written to display that.

This webserver needs to be hosted somewhere. Again, not free.
And of course the public facing webserver needs to be locked down and hardened to ward off intruders.


Of course, this does not yet touch on the ignition interlock, and battery runtime.

But how would I get the tracker to send the data to the server for the server to provide to the hosted site to display? Because that's what I'm confused about is how would the tracker send to server (i assume it came be written as a TCP, then sent to the platform its hosted for the web side of it)

That's all I'm confused about is. Tracker to gps server (tcp), then server to webhost

 

[USAFRet]

But how would I get the tracker to send the data to the server for the server to provide to the hosted site to display? Because that's what I'm confused about is how would the tracker send to server (i assume it came be written as a TCP, then sent to the platform its hosted for the web side of it)

That's all I'm confused about is. Tracker to gps server (tcp), then server to webhost

The same way your phone or PC sends data to a remote server. Like writing this message.
Here, the website code takes what I write in this textbox, uploads it to the server, for you to read.

Application code that is written and installed on the tracking device talks to its home base, your server.
Someone will have to create that end to end code.

 

[Jplay444]

The same way your phone or PC sends data to a remote server. Like writing this message.
Here, the website code takes what I write in this textbox, uploads it to the server, for you to read.

Application code that is written and installed on the tracking device talks to its home base, your server.
Someone will have to create that end to end code.

Yes I will get someone to make the server/site side of things but how would I know what functions available on the tracker? Like how would we send messages like locking ignition to the tracker?

 

[USAFRet]

"how" = a whole lot of requirements analysis, design, code, and testing for whatever particular devices you are going to work with.

In generic terms, the same way this website sends a notification to your PC or mobile device.
The device on the vehicle has an IP address. The website and server knows this IP, and sends the proper instructions to it.

 

[Jplay444]

Could you link me to a template for web side/server and a tracker to use?