Two technologies that help recover a stolen car

A car is stolen in the USA every 44 seconds with over 700,000 cars taken by thieves each year. That’s a pretty scary statistic. As a car owner, there is a great deal you can do with the help of the latest technologies to track and recover a stolen car.I recently visited Despierta América to talk about two of these devices.The first one is Skylink, a recovery and monitoring device. It’s about the size of a deck of cards and can be inconspicuously placed within the vehicle. It uses GPS technology to track and recover the car and it has a 99% recovery rate, which is pretty impressive.How can they do this? They use GPS technology, even though it might not seem like a big deal these days, some of the more famous technologies traditionally used to track stolen cars are not yet using this type of system.What I liked about it is that using its app, you can know exactly where your car is on a map and even set up a virtual fence where you are instantly notified in case your car is stolen or towed. The app also tracks speed, location and even battery level.Skylink is available through more than 600 dealers in the US and they are soon expanding to Latin America. The pricing averages around $1000.Another device designed with more of a commercial user in mind is the AT-V3 from USFleetTracking. It’s small as well and the installation, even though it’s a pretty simple 3 wire setup, should be done by a professional. It provides true live tracking with position updates of as low as one-second intervals, using a combination of GPS and cellular networks.The tracking software is web-based so there is no need to install software, even though smart phone users probably prefer the app option that’s not currently available. They provide many of the same options such as Geo-fencing, speed tracking and alerts using text messages or e-mail. One feature I liked is that they offer a 90 day history with reporting capabilities, that way small business owners can track if fleet vehicles are idling excessively.