Hey guys, I've been using ST-901s for years and really had no reason to bother anyone. "It just works" as Todd Howard would say :)
Anyhoo, I thought I'd bought an LK720-based tracker and instead got sent one of these terrible C13 things. Considering the price point is super low I thought I'd take the time to analyse one. Setting aside the durability for a moment, let's just concentrate on the functionality (or lack thereof.)
On the plus side I really like the fact the unit goes to sleep and wakes up on movement or vibration. From my testing warm start running consumes ~30mA and sleeping ~5mA. A remotely controllable silicon relay is a nice bonus feature but I don't know how much faith I'd put in it! The worst thing I can say about them is absolutely no security inherent in the device whatsoever :(
What to do on that latter point? I've gone down the IoT route and stashed it behind a NAT. Outdoing GPS telemetry is fine but direct access to the device is only via VPN. Similarly there's no direct SMS access only via REST API.
Going forward, if I want to control a C13 fully, I'm guessing either directly as in adding outgoing command support for the TRV protocol that these things use or maybe emulate some sort of SMS gateway Traccar might like. I have the resources for either as I write Java stuff and web endpoints in my main job. I'd appreciate any ideas or comments on the two approaches.
¿how come they are so terrible? They seem almost the same as an LK720
About access, vpn and sms, I can't really understand.
SMS access is directly to GPS from phone.
VPNs are not configurable on devices
A relay has nothing to do with VPN, SMS or security... And the ST901 needs it to cut oil too.
Hey guys, I've been using ST-901s for years and really had no reason to bother anyone. "It just works" as Todd Howard would say :)
Anyhoo, I thought I'd bought an LK720-based tracker and instead got sent one of these terrible C13 things. Considering the price point is super low I thought I'd take the time to analyse one. Setting aside the durability for a moment, let's just concentrate on the functionality (or lack thereof.)
On the plus side I really like the fact the unit goes to sleep and wakes up on movement or vibration. From my testing warm start running consumes ~30mA and sleeping ~5mA. A remotely controllable silicon relay is a nice bonus feature but I don't know how much faith I'd put in it! The worst thing I can say about them is absolutely no security inherent in the device whatsoever :(
What to do on that latter point? I've gone down the IoT route and stashed it behind a NAT. Outdoing GPS telemetry is fine but direct access to the device is only via VPN. Similarly there's no direct SMS access only via REST API.
Going forward, if I want to control a C13 fully, I'm guessing either directly as in adding outgoing command support for the TRV protocol that these things use or maybe emulate some sort of SMS gateway Traccar might like. I have the resources for either as I write Java stuff and web endpoints in my main job. I'd appreciate any ideas or comments on the two approaches.