Live Time Tracking…The Invoxia GPS Tracker can help recover a stolen motorcycle, or prevent a theft in the first place. Featuring 4G cellular technology, tilt detection, and rechargeable battery, this little device really does a lot! TMW reviews the Invoxia throughout May, and we’ve got a lot to say. Read on to see if this powerful little device is the solution you need.
Invoxia GPS Tracker for Motorcycles
| Reviewed By: | Eric and Carrie Leaverton |
| Review Dates: | April 1st – May 23rd, 2021 |
| Price As Tested: | $129.00 USD |
Overview of the Invoxia GPS Tracker
The Invoxia GPS Tracker is a simple device that does essentially one thing. It sends its location to a subscribers cellular smart phone via GPS and a proprietary app. The Invoxia accomplishes this through cellular connectivity and a SIM card, running on 4G network architecture and powered by a rechargeable battery. There are a lot of options to change how and when it does this, easily customizable through the app. We’ll get into all that, but when you boil it down, that is was this device does. What you can use it for, well, that’s the story.
The Invoxia itself is 4.125 (4 1/8th) inches long, 1 inch wide and .375 (3/8ths) inches thick. It comes with a 5 inch looped lanyard attached to a recessed pin at one end. It’s just big enough to slip over my wrist, though getting it over my thumb takes finesse. On the other end, there’s a USB-Micro charging port. The Invoxia comes with a short USB charging cord, more of a dongle really at about 4 inches long. The device weighs .9 oz, or 28 grams, and only comes in basic black.
Like a tuxedo, if a tuxedo could tell you where it is in real time!
“What you can use it for, well, that’s the story.”
Setting Up The Invoxia Tracker
Setting up the Invoxia Tracker is a breeze. Out of the box, you plug the tracker in and let it charge for at least 80 minutes. While that’s happening, you download the Invoxia app to your cell phone. A note about that, we use Android phones and get our apps from PlayStore. I can’t speak to the iOS app or even guess at comparisons to how it works on that platform.
Once your tracker is charged and your app is downloaded, you launch the app. After some informative splash, you get the option to set up an account. Customer name, email address, and create a password. That’s all the information the app asks for to create an account. No address, phone number, or payment information required. Your first year of service is free. As of the time of this writing, after the first year the cellular service costs $39.90 USD annually, a pittance by any measure.
After you create an account, you’re offered the option to connect a tracker. You have to have the device nearby to do this, preferably right next to the phone. The vehicle for communication between the tracker and your phone is Bluetooth™ Low Energy, colloquially BLE.
“Your first year of service is free.”
With your tracker identified by the app, you get to choose a custom name and description for the tracker. You can also choose the type of thing you’re tracking with it; vehicle, pet, valuables, there’s a few other options too. Confirm all that and you’re off and running!
Using the Invoxia GPS App
A device like this is only as good as the app that powers it, and the Invoxia app is excellent. Vitals first. The Invoxia app consumes about 54MB of physical storage and requires no special permissions to function. The app has used 16.59MB of mobile data in 23 days as of this writing, and consumed 3% of my total battery life since last full charge. The current version is 9.1.2.
Map View
If you have a tracker paired in your app, the first screen you see on launch is a map view centered on the last received coordinates from the tracker. There’s a Layers button to turn on Satellite view, an Account button to view your account details, and a Center button to return to the pin in case you’ve been scrolling about. Below the map view there’s a bar that shows the name of the tracker, the current battery level, and a Settings sprocket that will take you straight to the settings for that tracker.
This bar pulls up to show some options and more information.
Timeline
This is a pretty neat feature. Click Timeline, and you’ll get a zoomed-out map view that shows every location tag the device has sent to your app for the timeline you select. This can be one day, one week, one month, three months, six months, or one year. Tap any of these, and you’ll get a “connect the dots” view of every location tag in that timeline.
Zone Alerts
From this screen, you can also set up geofencing alerts. Tap “Create a Safe Zone”, and the app presents you with a map screen with a flag in the center and a highlighted radius around it. You can scroll around on the map until you find where you want to center your zone, and adjust the size of the radius from 200 to about 900 meters. You can also name the zone, and set whether you want alerts for Arriving, Leaving, or both.
Once a zone is set, the tracker will do what it sounds like. You’ll receive an alert any time the tracker enters or leaves that zone, or both, depending on which you’ve selected. The app recommends you set the radius for at least 400M.
The tracker does not send notifications while it’s inside safe zones.
Last Known Location
The final bit of information the pull-up shows is the time and location – either GPS or physical address – of the last notification sent from the tracker.
Invoxia Account View
Tap the “head and shoulders” profile icon, and you’re taken to your Account View. The app displays your account name, your paired trackers, the release version, help center, customer service, and the privacy policy. Select your tracker, and that’s where all the action is. This is also the same place you go if you tap the sprocket from the map view discussed above.
Tracker Details
The options available on this screen change depending on if you’re within Bluetooth™ range of your tracker. First we’ll go over what options are live when you’re not.
You get the name of your tracker, the model, and the last known battery level. This updates to current battery level when a BT connection is established.
There’s also an option to turn on the “Significant Journey” notification, which we’ll discuss in the Notifications section below.
You’ll also get the option to activate the Proximity Radar, which we’ll talk about in a minute, and the history of positions. The app will store as many received coordinates as you choose to keep in there, all in a nice list with the date, time, and accuracy in meters. Tap the map pin on any entry and, on Android at least, you get a Google Maps page showing the GPS coordinates or a specific address. You can launch navigation from that screen as well, if your settings allow it.
Finally, this screen shows the MAC Address and Firmware Version for your tracker.
If you’re within BT range, some more features are available.
Stand By
You can place your Invoxia tracker on stand-by, which means it wont sent updates or notifications of any kind for any reason. You would use this option to save battery life if you’re riding your bike or otherwise travelling with your tracker. Diligent use of this feature – turning your tracker off when you’re riding and turning it back on when you’re leaving your bike somewhere – could extend your battery life significantly.
Update Rate
You can choose your Update Rate from one the following three options:
| High: | 5 to 7 minutes |
| Standard: | 12 to 12 minutes |
| Low: | 30 to 32 minutes |
These update rates only apply when the tracker is on the move and outside of any defined safe zones. While stationary, it only sends it’s position once every 24 hours.
Proximity Radar
“This is a handy feature, but this isn’t the place to go over it. We’ll discuss the radar later on.”
Advanced Options
In here you can see your firmware version and look for an update, as well as send a system log to customer service. There’s also an option to unregister a tracker, in case you’re selling your tracker or are otherwise no longer in possession of it.
Types of Notifications
In addition to the regular GPS coordinates while moving, the tracker can send two other types of notifications to the app. The first is “Significant Journey”, which sends a notification if the tracker “has been stationary for at least 5 minutes and a new location is detected because the tracker has changed it’s location.” The italicized text is directly from the online help manual for the Invoxia tracker. This would apply in a situation where the tracker has moved, but was moving for less time than your update interval and didn’t leave your geofenced safe zone. A quick example could include a thieving neighbor who swiped your bike while it was unattended in your driveway, but only moved it as far as their garage.
The other type of notification the tracker can send is “Movement detected”. This is any kind of significant jostling, tilting, or repositioning. Small movements as simple as lifting a bike off it’s side stand can trigger it, as well as moving the tracker from once side of my desk to the other. The notification usually arrives within twenty seconds of any movement.
“Small movements as simple as lifting a bike off it’s side stand can trigger it, as well as
moving the tracker from once side of my desk to the other.”
How Does the Invoxia GPS Tracker Perform
In a word? Well. We’ll hit briefly on a couple of details here, but really we’re almost done here. To describe the features of the Invoxia is to describe it’s performance – it does all these things I’ve just outlined well.
Invoxia Battery Life
I was skeptical at first. I mean, this thing is so small and light, and I imagined finding the right spot to stash it would be difficult. Hard to find but easy to get to, you know? So you could pull it out and charge it every few days. I needn’t have worried.
After six weeks of use and dozens of notifications, my Invoxia is still showing about half a charge from when I charged it initially. In an anti-theft stance, where essentially the thing sits still and only notifies you if it starts moving, I could see a charge lasting a long time. Invoxia says up to four months in a low-usage scenario like that. If you were using it to keep constant tabs on a fleet vehicle, or monitoring your kids usage of the family car, you’d likely need to charge it weekly.
But, there’s another option. One test I did immediately after getting the Invoxia set up was to see if it will send coordinates while plugged in to a power source. The answer is yes, it will. So depending on your setup, you could conceal a switched-power USB outlet on a 12V system and have the Invoxia plugged in all the time. It gets even easier if it doesn’t have to be hidden.
Invoxia Notification Speed
As mentioned above, tilt notifications show up in as short as twenty seconds. Really, that’s huge. If you use other anti-theft devices, this tracker could easily prevent a theft from occurring at all. Even a professional thief would have a hard time overcoming a steering lock, a disc immobilizer, and an diligent owner who knows something’s afoot inside of twenty seconds.
Zone alerts are fast too. I usually receive a text message about thirty seconds after leaving my “home” safe zone. Arrival notifications take a little longer, but still inside of two minutes.
Map alerts take exactly as long as the interval you’ve defined, and they’re extremely accurate. If the tracker is sitting still, we’ve seen accuracy as close as one or two parking stalls from the actual position. And in our “mock theft” test, which you can watch in the companion YouTube video, it took me about 30 minutes to locate the tracker from the moment it started moving.
Proximity Radar
This is the coup de grace, the final nail in the coffin of any would-be thief or missing trinket. Once you’ve tracked down the final location, and arrived on-scene, you can turn on Proximity Radar. This feature measures the BT signal strength and essentially hones in on the tracker, showing you a visual indication of how close you’re getting. And once you think you’re right on top of it, you can tap a button on your phone that makes the tracker ring. It’s not terribly loud, but loud enough to hear from a few feet away. Between the GPS accuracy and the Proximity feature, getting within a few feet is easy. Again, you can see an excellent demonstration of this in the YouTube video we made about the Invoxia.
“…you can tap a button on your phone that makes the tracker ring.”
The Invoxia GPS Tracker?
It’s simple, it’s cheap, it’s fool-proof. This is easily an Editors Choice award, Invoxia. Five stars and our commendations. Thank you for the opportunity!
Invoxia
